Mother tongue other tongue: nine years of creative multilingualism in practice

ABSTRACT

This article assesses the impact over nine years of the Mother Tongue Other Tongue multilingual schools’ poetry competition led by Carol Ann Duffy from Manchester Metropolitan University, in which over 35,000 pupils from 77 schools have participated to date. It reviews evidence from a 2019 evaluation of the project and from a project anthology compiling several years of winning entries. The evidence suggests that the project is achieving its expected outcomes in increasing the self-confidence of bilingual and multilingual pupils, enhancing inclusivity and cultural exchange in the classroom and fostering dialogue and co-creation between children and their families. This article sets these outcomes within the context of research on urban multilingualism in Manchester, poetry in the UK National Curriculum, and creative multilingualism in English education, and seeks to extend the case made by previous articles in this journal for the educational value of multilingual creative writing.

KEYWORDS:

• Bilingual
• multilingual
• translanguaging
• poetry
• creative writing
• national curriculum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See de Britos (2016) for an account of the Scottish version of Mother Tongue Other Tongue.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jess Edwards

Jess Edwards is Professor of Place Writing and Head of the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University. His research focuses on the relationship between literature, creative writing and other disciplines concerned with the experience and representation of place.

Noor Mohammed

Noor Mohammed is studying for her accredited Masters in Social Work at the University of Salford. She has worked as a Research Officer and Research Assistant for One Million Mentors and at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Caitlin Nunn

Caitlin Nunn is a Research Fellow at the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies. Her research utilises participatory and arts-based approaches to explore the lived experiences of young people, with a focus on those from refugee and migrant backgrounds.

Paul Gray

Paul Gray is  a Senior Lecturer in the Sociology Department at Manchester Metropolitan University, and Deputy Director of the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies.