For today's episode, we have invited Dr. Isabelle Barth. Isabelle is originally from France, and works as a consultant in languages, plurilingual education and intercultural communication. Isabelle conducts research on family language policies, in particular how they affect families with mixed cultural backgrounds and migrant families. In addition to her research, she founded the Multilingual Café in 2010, to help families and professionals on their plurilingual and multicultural paths. 



With her research and policy experience, Isabelle is part of the Planting Languages, a European Erasmus + project involving five language policy organisations, Foyer VWZ,  Association for promotion of Polish Language Abroad, Multilingual Café , Stichting Onderwijsadvies (in Dutch), and the University of Central Lancashire Cyprus, which focused on sustaining multilingual families and professionals by developing a Family Language Policy in order to ensure optimal language development and well-being. They have created several tools, available in Dutch, English, French, Greek and Polish, to support and inform parents, primary caregivers, and language professionals to stimulate language development from early childhood, by creating communication opportunities and stimulating the child's appetite for learning languages.

Go to our website to read the transcript!

MLST  is brought to you by volunteers at Bilingualism Matters Edinburgh. The  views of our guests don’t always reflect our own, as    we   hope to provide  an accessible platform for the findings of   current research and the  perspectives of experts. For more resources   like definitions of  linguistic terms, episode transcripts, and   information about the team,  go to our website at www.mlstpodcast.com.

Recorded on 17/11/2021

Music: Arc of the Sun by The 126ersssssss