Children’s Laureate to give lecture at Salford

One of the best-known figures in children’s literature, Michael Rosen will give a free, public lecture at the University of Salford, as part of the School of Languages’ series on ‘Language and Society’.

Renowned author, poet and former Children’s Laureate Rosen will discuss Linguistic deprivation and deprived curricula for children, in his talk on 18 November.

Rosen, who was crowned Laureate for 2007-2009, has been involved in the production of over 140 books, both as an author and by selecting works for anthologies.

Once described a ‘radical stalwart,’ Rosen’s views on schools’ policy for teaching English have been well publicised: he criticised the decline of poetry from school timetables because of the pressure of SATs, which he said was denying children their love of literature.

He also decried attempts to close school libraries and called on schools’ secretary Ed Balls and local authorities to develop new rules for the reading of books.

Rosen said: “At various times in the last forty years or so, an idea has surfaced about the language of working class children. This is expressed in various ways, but at the heart of it is the notion that many children from working class families speak a language that is deficient. There are theoretical and methodological problems with this. I will try and explore some of these. I will also look at various examples of research that have challenged both the theory and the methodology.”

As well as a presenter for the BBC Radio 4 programme, Word of Mouth, Michael is a visiting professor at Birkbeck, University of London where he teaches Children’s Literature.

His lecture will be held in the Mary Seacole lecture theatre from 6.00pm on Wednesday 18 November.

The series has been organised to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Master’s degree in translation at the University, which has a long-standing, international reputation in its language teaching and research.

Gareth Pettit from the School of Languages said: “Having a speaker of the calibre of Michael is great for the University. He’s got a lot of strong opinions about areas in which Salford works and we’d like to thank him for giving us the opportunity to hear them.”

Lectures are free to attend and open to all. However, spaces are limited and interested parties should register their attendance at the lectures and celebration event in advance by contacting Deborah Lumb via email at d.lumb@salford.ac.uk or by phone on 0161 295 2096.