Francesca La Morgia talked to your group on 2nd October 2010. She is an academic specialist in multilingualism and has also set up a group to help multilingual familes in Ireland where she is based. Francesca will share with us her expericence and talk a little about the group she has set up: Bilingual Forum Ireland.

10 tips to raising multilingual children

Charmian is a specialist in bilingualism and biliteracy (learning to read and write in two languages), a Lecturer at Goldsmiths College and the author of books about biliteracy.

She came to talk to our group for the second time on the 6th of February 2010 about the results of her research. She gave us examples of how children have succeeded in learning to read and write in two languages (including work on different scripts and work on literacy in Arabic, Chinese and Spanish) and tips on how parents can help their children become biliterate and maintain it.

It was great to see so many people at the talk by Charmian Kenner; we counted around 44 adults in the room which was great, and a higher turnout at a talk than we have had for many years. Thanks to everyone who helped out - whether setting out chairs, making tea or helping clear up.

The resource Unit held a talk for WFBG member on 25th September 2006.

The resource unit runs training for people wanting to set up a school or who are already teachers or on management committees.
You can contact them on 020 7700 8189 or on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Colin Baker, Professor of Education at Bangor University, came to talk to our group on 16th September 2006. He is the author of a number of books including : A Parent and Teachers Guide to Bilingualism, Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education and B is for Papillon, Biliteracy in the home. Although an academic, Colin Baker is clearly committed to practical aspects of how to make bilingualism work in the family and at school.

Virginia Müller Gathercole is a Professor at the School of Psychology at the University of Wales Bangor. She is a specialist in bilingualism in very young children. Her main research in language acquisition was for monolinguals but she also studied some bilinguals (Spanish/English in Miami and Welsh/English).

Charmian Kenner works in the Education Dept at Goldsmiths University and specialises in the education of children with different backgrounds and came to talk to us on 15th March 2006. She also has an adult bilingual biliterate son (who now has a job that requires his English/Spanish).

Jean-Marc Dewaele is Professor in Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has published widely on individual differences in psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, pragmatic, psychological and emotional aspects of Second Language Acquisition and Multilingualism.

He came to talk to our group on 14th December 2004.

Alan Bradley was our first guest-speaker on the 6th November 2003.