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Aphasia is a language disorder, typically caused by stroke. It affects about 250,000 people in the UK and numbers are likely to grow with the ageing population. Research at City University London has had a major impact on the treatment of aphasia and on the way that treatment outcomes are assessed. Specifically, our research has:
Our therapy approaches and assessment tools are widely used across the world and are recommended in National and International Clinical Guidelines. As a result, we have enabled people with aphasia to express the impact of aphasia on their lives and helped practitioners to address the language needs that arise from aphasia. We have also helped to establish quality of life as a primary focus for intervention.
We have demonstrated clinical improvement of aphasic patients' language abilities within only two weeks of commencing Intensive Language Action Therapy (ILAT). In the majority of patients language improvement is more significant than that achieved with conventional aphasia therapy. This clinical improvement is accompanied by brain reorganisation as indicated by electroencephalography. ILAT positively impacts on quality of life for post-stroke patients, through rapid enhancement of communication and other language skills, and on clinical management of those patients, through reduced strain on resources, including time and financial cost.
Meaningful and useable definitions of language proficiency levels are essential for effective English curriculum design, language learning, teaching, and assessment. Since 2008 the socio-cognitive framework developed by the Centre for Research in English Language Learning and Assessment (CRELLA) has had a major impact on international test providers, enabling them to clarify the proficiency levels underpinning their English language tests, particularly the criterial features distinguishing one proficiency level from another. It has enabled them to develop more valid, dependable and fair measurement tools and to increase numbers of candidates taking their tests. For millions of successful candidates these enhanced English tests improve job prospects, increase transnational mobility and open doors to educational and training opportunities. Accurate proficiency tests lead to better informed and more equitable decision-making processes in society.
This case study details the impact of a pioneering theoretical approach to English language testing. Recognised as the most influential test validation theory in modern assessment, the socio-cognitive framework, conceived by Weir and O'Sullivan, and operationalized and developed further by O'Sullivan at the University of Roehampton, focuses on three key elements: the test taker (social), the test system (cognitive), and the scoring system (evaluative). This framework is applied to give a meaningful measure of a candidate's performance, appropriate to the underlying traits or abilities being assessed. This research has had a significant impact in two distinct phases: 1) through a series of commissioned projects since 2008, the research has had a significant impact on testing bodies, organisations and test takers internationally, and 2) it has underpinned the development of innovative new business products by a leading international educational and cultural organisation since 2012.
The research findings have led directly to a decision by Cambridge English Language Assessment to change the assessment criteria in their examinations to include assessment of metaphor use. The availability of the research report on the Cambridge website widens the impact of the findings to English Language Teaching and Assessment more broadly, changing attitudes to the assessment of metaphor use at the crucial university-entry level in particular.
The findings have also led to change in the advice given by the British Council for those involved in communication with people from different linguistic backgrounds. The advice is available on their website, which receives several million hits per year (see below for details and exact numbers of hits). This advice has been amended to include information on metaphor. The website has been used by teachers to improve language teaching materials and enhance the way that students are helped to engage in academic courses in English.
Cambridge English Language Assessment is a sector leader and delivers assessment to just under 4 million students per year, including the 1.5 million candidates who take the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) for entry to English-speaking universities. Cambridge examinations are recognised by 13,000 institutions in 130 countries. The British Council is a global leader in English Language teaching and is a respected provider of impartial advice. The adoption by these agencies of these research findings can be expected in turn to lead to a greater focus on metaphor in language classrooms around the world.
Strathclyde researchers developed, via a randomised controlled trial, a replicable effective language intervention programme (SLIP) for primary-school children with persisting developmental language disorders. This was followed by a cohort study investigating SLIP's implementation in schools, and an evaluation study providing information for speech and language therapists and teachers on implementing SLIP in the classroom: the Language Support Model (LSM). The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists included the research outcomes in commissioned economic evaluations and in their Resource Manual for commissioning and planning Speech and Language Therapy Services. Also, many speech and language therapy and education groups have requested presentations and training on SLIP and LSM. The impact of the research has been upon speech and language therapy education internationally; on therapists and teachers using SLIP and the LSM; on service commissioners; and on improved language intervention for children.
As a direct result of research conducted by Professor Bencie Woll at the Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL), UCL, the NHS has established the first neuropsychology clinic for Deaf patients who use British Sign Language within the Cognitive Disorders clinic at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN). By developing services for this under-researched group, NHS provision has become accessible for the first time, benefiting both patients and service providers. We have disseminated our resources around the world, and have highlighted them to the Deaf community through a unique programme of public engagement. Our research has also influenced UK government policy on Deafness.
Professor David Crystal's world-leading research on language policy, diversity and usage, conducted at Bangor since 2000, has led to a transformation in terms of public and political attitudes, both nationally and internationally, towards the nature and use of language in public and private discourse. In particular, the research has led, since 2008, to an increased awareness of linguistic diversity, changes to governmental policies on language, and the development of the world's first targeted online advertising technology, which today indexes billions of impressions across 11 languages to provide real-time data services in the emerging online advertising world.
As a writer of popular (linguistic) science, and as the subject of a documentary film on his life and work, Professor Dan Everett's research on Amazonian languages like Pirahã has widely influenced popular understanding and debate about the relations between language, mind and culture. The spectacular, and sometimes controversial, conclusions of his fieldwork, theoretical and popular writings challenge the claim that all human beings are endowed with an innate language faculty and challenge the ways in which cultural values are constructed.
This case study explores practical pedagogic implications of research into task-based modern language classrooms through hosting a series of in-service training seminars for language teachers at venues in London and the South East. This has involved small-group meetings with staff in language schools in Central London, Richmond upon Thames, Brighton and Bournemouth, as well as trainee teachers in Kingston. The research findings, that the design and implementation of classroom tasks can positively influence the way the learners do the tasks, have informed teachers' attitudes to task-based lesson planning in a principled and empirically sound way.