Work placements for languages students: a transformative experience

A work placement module is compulsory in the second year of most degree programmes at York St John University, as part of an institution-wide strategy to embed employability in the curriculum. As most languages students spend their second year studying abroad, the Languages in the Workplace module was designed in such a way that the setting up of the placement is carried out on the student’s own initiative. This case study reports on how the module works and what the students feel they gain from it

Challenging misconceptions: embedding graduate attributes in a 3rd year French module

This poster exhibits the use of authentic French texts, film and literature about the migrant crisis, which were used in an undergraduate module to heighten student awareness of the facts and the human stories behind the headlines

"Languages in the workplace”: embedding employability in the foreign language undergraduate curriculum

This case study examines student perceptions of the experiential value of a work placement carried out as part of a languages degree programme. The data for the case study consists of a corpus of 67 reports submitted from 2011 to 2015, reflecting on placements carried out in Europe, Japan, the UK and the US. The data offers a student view of the impact of the placement on their linguistic prowess, character development, employability and career plans. The case study compares these with the soft skills increasingly required in employment, and concludes that the reflective nature of the work placement report is beneficial to students in preparation for marketing themselves to potential employers

"Why teach languages to pupils with SEND? They'll never need them!"

This session addressed the benefits of teaching language and culture to pupils with SEND and offered a mutually advantageous model of collaboration between a university and a special school, through the joint delivery of cross-curricular language days

Eurofest: a sustainable and collaborative initiative

This paper outlines a highly innovative collaboration with schools throughout Yorkshire and Humberside, supported hitherto by Routes into Languages (RiL). Eurofest is a simulated trade fair for year 8 students, developed by Selby MFL Forum in 2008. A European award for the event funded the development of a resource pack, enabling it to be run by other providers, and in 2015 it expanded to York St John University. This year it will be held in Selby, York and Leeds, and winning teams will go forward to a regional final. Over the last nine years, over 1000 students will have participated in this event. The students prepare at school, designing a stand promoting a town or a product, and practising the relevant language. On the day, they man their stands and talk to ‘judges’ from the host universities and business partners. They are scored according to criteria such as use of language and selling power, and certificates are awarded to the best teams. The event is notable both for its intrinsic value and its sustainability: it is economical to run, and is therefore a highly sustainable model which could be emulated in other regions even after the demise of RiL

Translational pharmacology of an inhaled small molecule αvβ6 integrin inhibitor for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

The αvβ6 integrin plays a key role in the activation of transforming growth factor-β (TGFβ), a pro-fibrotic mediator that is pivotal to the development of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). We identified a selective small molecule αvβ6 RGD-mimetic, GSK3008348, and profiled it in a range of disease relevant pre-clinical systems. To understand the relationship between target engagement and inhibition of fibrosis, we measured pharmacodynamic and diseaserelated end points. Here we report, GSK3008348 binds to αvβ6 with high affinity in human IPF lung and reduces downstream pro-fibrotic TGFβ signaling to normal levels. In human lung epithelial cells, GSK3008348 induces rapid internalization and lysosomal degradation of the αvβ6 integrin. In the murine bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis model, GSK3008348 engages αvβ6, induces prolonged inhibition of TGFβ signaling and reduces lung collagen deposition and serum C3M, a marker of IPF disease progression. These studies highlight the potential of inhaled GSK3008348 as an anti-fibrotic therapy

Gene expression and in situ protein profiling of candidate SARS-CoV-2 receptors in human airway epithelial cells and lung tissue

In December 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)emerged, causing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. SARS-CoV, the agent responsible for the 2003 SARS outbreak, utilises angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) host molecules for viral entry. ACE2 and TMPRSS2 have recently been implicated in SARS-CoV-2 viral infection. Additional host molecules including ADAM17, cathepsin L, CD147 and GRP78 may also function as receptors for SARS-CoV-2.To determine the expression and in situ localisation of candidate SARS-CoV-2 receptors in the respiratory mucosa, we analysed gene expression datasets from airway epithelial cells of 515 healthy subjects, gene promoter activity analysis using the FANTOM5 dataset containing 120 distinct sample types, single cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) of 10 healthy subjects, proteomic datasets, immunoblots on multiple airway epithelial cell types, and immunohistochemistry on 98 human lung samples.We demonstrate absent to lowACE2promoter activity in a variety of lung epithelial cell samples andlowACE2gene expression in both microarray and scRNAseq datasets of epithelial cell populations.Consistent with gene expression, rare ACE2 protein expression was observed in the airway epithelium and alveoli of human lung, confirmed with proteomics. We present confirmatory evidence for the presence ofTMPRSS2, CD147 and GRP78 protein in vitro in airway epithelial cells and confirm broad in situ protein expression of CD147 and GRP78 in the respiratory mucosa. Collectively, our data suggest the presence of a mechanism dynamically regulating ACE2 expression inhuman lung, perhaps in periods of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and also suggest that alternative receptors forSARS-CoV-2 exist to facilitate initial host cell infection

Analysis of the African coelacanth genome sheds light on tetrapod evolution

It was a zoological sensation when a living specimen of the coelacanth was first discovered in 1938, as this lineage of lobe-finned fish was thought to have gone extinct 70 million years ago. The modern coelacanth looks remarkably similar to many of its ancient relatives, and its evolutionary proximity to our own fish ancestors provides a glimpse of the fish that first walked on land. Here we report the genome sequence of the African coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae. Through a phylogenomic analysis, we conclude that the lungfish, and not the coelacanth, is the closest living relative of tetrapods. Coelacanth protein-coding genes are significantly more slowly evolving than those of tetrapods, unlike other genomic features . Analyses of changes in genes and regulatory elements during the vertebrate adaptation to land highlight genes involved in immunity, nitrogen excretion and the development of fins, tail, ear, eye, brain, and olfaction. Functional assays of enhancers involved in the fin-to-limb transition and in the emergence of extra-embryonic tissues demonstrate the importance of the coelacanth genome as a blueprint for understanding tetrapod evolution

Google Translate: Friend or Foe?

For the amateur foreign language user, Google Translate can be a godsend. But what impact is it having on language learning and teaching, and what does the future hold? Whether you have dabbled in Google Translate for your own purposes, are trying to learn a language, have a child learning a language at school or are a language teacher yourself, this session is for you

Attitudes to the use of Google Translate for L2 production: analysis of chatroom discussions among UK secondary school students.

This paper presents the findings of a research project on UK school students’ attitudes to the use of Free Online Machine Translation for L2 production and more specifically in preparing for assessment. Data was collected from a publicly available online forum to analyse students’ spontaneous discussion of the use of Free Online Machine Translation, predominantly Google Translate. The majority of relevant comments were posted by secondary school students in the UK, regarding the use of Google Translate for GCSE examinations. The findings reveal that use of Google Translate for assignments was accepted practice among secondary school students in the UK over the last decade. However, they show mixed attitudes to this usage, and the nature of the discussion changed over the decade as a result of the evolution of Google Translate and changes to UK examination requirements. This study is original in its use of netnography, the study of online communities, to analyse students’ comments to each other about their use of Google Translate in preparing for MFL coursework and examinations. These findings therefore serve to inform the debate on how schools and universities should respond to student Google Translate usage for language learning and assignments