If you’ve been following the series of conversations with language education specialists which we’ve been highlighting, then you may be interested to watch the sixth conversation.

Professor Do Coyle is interviewed by Mike Byram and Alan Dobson. Do Coyle has been based in Scotland since 2008, but teachers and advisers in the East Midlands in particular will remember her work in teacher education at the University of Nottingham. She is well known on the international scene for her research in CLIL and bilingual education.

Do taught French with English and Russian for 15 years in four state secondaries in the UK and France, including rural and inner-city schools. In 1989 she joined the University of Nottingham as a lecturer and language teacher educator, completing her PhD on bilingual classroom teaching and learning in 1999. She led a new bilingual PGCE programme (BILD – bilingual integration of languages and disciplines) for future teachers of history, geography and science to teach through the medium of French, was co-founder of the Visual Learning Lab and one of three UK and six French universities to develop the PGCE-Maitrise: she was awarded Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques.

In 2008, she took the 6th Century Chair in Learning Innovation, University of Aberdeen, where after being Director of Research, she became Head of the School of Education and Music. In 2017, she became Professor of Language(s) Education and Classroom Pedagogies at the University of Edinburgh. Throughout her career, Do has been actively involved in UK, European and Global Networks promoting multilingual classroom practices that encourage all learners to use languages as a learning tool – especially in the field of Content and Integrated Language Learning (CLIL). Her main fields are bilingual education, pluriliteracies, CLIL, dialogic teaching and learning, applied linguistics and spatial literacies. Above all, her focus remains bilingual classroom learning.