Susan Rice is sitting in her office, her crisp, patterned shirt bookended by a photograph of the Eiffel Tower and a poster of Das Perfekt tense on the wall behind her.

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“Brexit hasn’t helped,” she laments in her soft, Scottish brogue. “I’m not bringing up politics. It’s just about students picking up on the daft idea that they don’t need to learn a second language because everyone else is learning English.”

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If anyone could motivate a class of language students, it’s Susan Rice. The Head of Modern Languages at top-performing Dollar Academy in Clackmannanshire, Susan has a breezy smile and an infectious sense of humour. She’s also dedicated to her mission of boosting student engagement in languages.

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“The 2 biggest challenges I hear about from MFL teachers in my networks are Time and Numbers. Time because we’re being squeezed on so many fronts. Firstly, we’re wasting our time desperately scouring the internet looking for materials that will be relevant to and engage our students, right? And then once we’ve found those, we have to create corresponding materials. Then there’s marking and planning, of course. But the biggest kicker is that most exam-board curricula are so dense that there’s hardly any room in the year to look at the good stuff outside of that - the beauty of the culture and the more frilly bits of language. And that narrowness of scope contributes to the second problem, which is a decline in student numbers taking up languages.”

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Like many MFL professionals, Susan has found that over the past few years, students are turning away from languages to subjects which are perceived to be “easier” or more “relevant” to their future careers.

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“I can only see what’s happening on the ground,” she continues. “But it’s a downward trend and we need to do everything we can to fight against it and show the power of languages.”

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We’re not actually here to talk about the macro drivers of language decline in the UK. But these conversations will be painfully familiar to most MFL teachers across the UK. Ever since 2004 when Languages ceased to be compulsory at GCSE, there has been a sharp and steady decline in uptake.

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Susan has been using This is School for just over 3 years. She calls the site a one-stop-shop which has dramatically improved two of the major areas that need improvement in most schools: the need for students to feel confident in their listening (interpretive) skills to meet the demands of the curriculum, and the urgency with which MFL departments need to address student engagement and motivation.

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“I’m not going to pretend that we use This is School for every single aspect of our curriculum. We like the ability to be able to dip in and out of a number of resources. But what sets you apart is the clarity and certainty we have - compared to other websites - that we will find what we are looking for to teach our students on any given day. It’s steadfast and sure and we know that it will be relevant, appropriate, engaging and filled with culture. Plus the students actually engage with tasks because they actually love your games, too! There isn’t much more that we could ask.”

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We take our call at the end of the school day and in the background I can hear the occasional throng of a group of students passing her classroom, see the shifting oblongs of sunlight as they pass across the hard-won cultural paraphernalia of this dedicated MFL professional. I bring our conversation back to the problems that teachers are facing; is there anything that we can do? After all, since 2012 This is School has been used by over 50% of UK Secondary Schools.

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“I can’t fault your product. Seriously,” she adds, seeing my surprise. “I’d tell anyone to buy it just for the time-saving alone. But beyond that it’s your loyalty and the personal touch you offer as a team.” I push her a bit further. There must be something we could do to improve. “Well if you had a direct link up with SQA, that really would be the icing on the cake,” she laughs. It’s tea-time and my stomach starts to grumble.

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Our time is up but my mind keeps going back to the challenges we face as a community of teachers, learners and publishers. Susan and I are on the same page; we’re passionate about our subjects and the joy we know a second language will bring into our students’ lives. External forces, larger than the power of individual teachers and publishers, are stress-testing our community. But with teachers like Susan and - to some extent - products like This is School, I feel confident that we can bring languages back into the mainstream and back into the hearts of our students.

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To find our more about how Dollar Academy integrates This is School into their lessons, or to get a free trial for your own school, email info@thisisschool.com