Dr Lynn Erler has taught foreign languages in different countries and across all educational contexts from primary to FE and university level. Having worked since 1984 in schools and in teacher education in England, she researches and writes about specialised areas of learning, cognition, issues in engagement and motivation in the classroom. A current focus is on models of bilingual education in the UK and throughout Europe. Recently textbooks for two GCSE exam boards have appeared. A co-authored book on French, German and Spanish phonology for primary teachers linking literacy development in English with foreign language learning appeared this autumn. Two edited books, on learner strategies, and on the constituents of a “European” education, are in the offing, following on from two national and international conferences she convened in the spring of 2010.

Dr Erler is a strong proponent of the cognitive, i.e. brain enhancing, capacities inherent in foreign or second language learning. Identifying them and bringing them into classroom practice is part of her agenda. As the daughter of a carpenter and a self-improvement-self-esteem enthusiast, she believes in human capacity, is critical of the handicapping of cognitive growth that she sees particularly at middle school levels in England and seeks to find practical, effective, amicable and elegant solutions to these problems