Abstract: Middle school students as academic researchers
Given the opportunity, and outside the constraints of the normal curriculum, middle school students are able to work collaboratively and at an advanced academic level to conduct original research. In 2016, the first pilot project was launched at the International School of London, involving eleven G8-9 students, the school librarian, a language teacher and an external academic mentor. The language profile of ISL includes multilingual students who benefit from an integrated-in-the-curriculum home languages programme, which informed the RQ on the first project "Do the languages that multilingual students in an international school are exposed to, affect the languages they think in?". Now into the third research project, with students ranging from G6-10, and currently running remotely, the students have expanded their repertoires of research methodologies and are working on the RQ "How are new students socialised into language habits at ISL?".