Lingo Flamingo partnership

Language learning for wellbeing with senior learners

Senior learners in a variety of care contexts across Scotland are able to learn languages with Lingo Flamingo volunteer tutors, as well as social care staff, due to online training developed and piloted by the OU with the Glasgow-based social enterprise.

• Our project has contributed to over 135 Lingo Flamingo tutors and social care staff delivering 2500-plus classes for 15,000-plus senior learners, in over 250 establishments.
• These include care homes, day centres, retirement communities, sheltered accommodation, housing associations, community groups and other social enterprises and charities.
• Languages taught range from Spanish, French and Italian, to German, Scots and Gaelic. 

It is a life-enriching project in Scotland’s care homes and local communities, which offers courses where people learn how to teach languages for wellbeing, particularly to support older people and people with dementia.

The potential positive impacts of language learning – for example in relation to cognitive decline and building cognitive reserve - have been well documented in recent years.  

Benefits for course participants and language learners

Innovative language learning pedagogy focusses less on achieving levels of proficiency and more on having a positive impact on brain health, participation, and social cohesion. 

Those who teach do not need to be experts. Central to the pioneering pedagogy is the notion of learning a new language together, using multisensory approaches that allow every learner to engage, even a non-verbal dementia patient. 

Participants have described the course as ‘empowering and inspiring’, changing views of people in their care, leading to greater job satisfaction and inspiring novel forms of engagement with the community, through inter-generational activities. 

It’s good in that it gets them interacting socially. It’s one of the best things we’ve done with them.

Scott Gallagher, Activity Co-ordinator, Berelands, Prestwick

Senior learners have cherished the social aspects of the project, and surprised themselves how well they have learnt new skills and grown in confidence, while quickly developing their digital and inter-cultural skills. 

Find out more about the project in this video

Social justice mission

The training courses align with the social justice at the heart of The Open University’s mission - a belief in creating an inclusive community and responding positively to different needs and circumstances so that everyone can achieve their potential. 

Here, this means empowering older people through novel learning opportunities involving a range of community stakeholders while at the same time changing mind-sets and perceptions of senior learners, thus re-imagining care.

Project actions

At the OU in Scotland, the project is led by Dr Sylvia Warnecke and Bärbel Brash from the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies. It won a faculty Teaching Excellence Award in 2021.

From initially developing and delivering a Lingo Flamingo volunteer online training course, the project team then piloted an online Continuing Professional Development course for care home staff. Facilitated by Lingo Flamingo tutors it provides carers with skills, knowledge and resources to run in-house languages activities with their residents. 

In 2021, the team is piloting the course with social care workers and people caring for an older person at home. It is also developing a form of endorsement with professional social care bodies. 

Learning during the pandemic

During Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, the course has proven to be vital for the continuation of the service, described by a resident as a ‘lifeline of hope during the dark days of the pandemic’. 

The Open University provided much needed expertise in supporting us to develop new delivery methods. In these uncertain times this enabled us to still reach and improve the lives of older marginalised individuals across communities.

Robbie Norval, Director of Lingo Flamingo