The 2013 British Academy Language Festival flew the flag for languages during November. Colleges, universities, policymakers and businesses came with each other to debate, talk about and celebrate language finding out. Right here is a variety of routines that took area during the festival.
A window on other cultures: University of Sheffield
Britons came joint-bottom in the European Commission’s 2011 rankings displaying the variety of languages realized in each member country – evidence that the United kingdom lags miserably behind its European neighbours when it comes to language understanding.
But encouraging an interest in languages isn’t just the duty of colleges – higher training institutions also have a crucial function to perform. “Students frequently arrive with extremely tiny foreign-language education,” says Dr Terry Lamb, of the University of Sheffield. “A good deal of the time it truly is not due to the fact they did not want to research languages – it’s just they desired to do something else much more. It’s very crucial for them to have the chance to learn a language when they are at university, alongside their degree.”
A latest event at the university marked the launch of Lamb’s new campaign to market language studying, Why Languages Matter!
“We collected brief stories from individuals about how languages have impacted their lives, and incidents in which knowing a language has assisted them,” says Lamb. “It was lovely since we had all kinds of people stopping by – elderly men and women, households, kids and college students.
“We acquired students who only communicate English to cease and think about why it issues to find out a language. I want to get folks to gather these stories from all close to the world.”
The occasion, which was initially organised as component of a social sciences festival and coincided with the language festival organised by the British Academy and the Guardian, aimed to get college students who only speak English to take into account the value of other languages.
“When folks say they don’t know any other languages, they’re usually just comparing their potential in another language to their capacity in English,” says Lamb. “Since they can’t use it like English, to the same degree, they just feel they can not use it at all. Naturally, being bilingual is good for employability, but it also aids people to open their minds and comprehend other cultures. It truly is about individual and cultural enhancements.”
Meals for considered: The Norwood School
The best events always involve meals. That is what language teachers at The Norwood College in London have discovered. “Food constantly goes down genuinely properly,” says James O’Sullivan, head of modern day foreign languages. “We ran a workshop in Pizza Express just lately, delivered by an Italian speaker, in which the students learned how to make a pizza. When you’re teaching for exams, you can not see the wood for the trees. But it’s important to consider about the cultural relevance and in which languages match into the greater picture of factors.”
The college has created large methods in language learning since beefing up its language sources and raising expectations of what pupils are capable of, says O’Sullivan. With regular cross-curricular events, he hopes to spice up lessons and whip up the students’ enthusiasm.
“Languages are not just an add-on – they are one thing that nurtures all of the essential expertise. I speak to the college students about it in terms of your sellability as a man or woman and what languages give to you.”
The school’s prior language occasions have integrated tortilla competitions, throughout which sixth formers filmed themselves describing the cooking in Spanish. The most recent occasion involved a Bake Off-fashion competitors with foreign foods. College students have been taught recipes in French and Spanish, and the ideal dishes had been picked out afterwards by a panel of judges.
“It really is about taking it [language finding out] out of the classroom and seeing the links to other elements of the college,” says O’Sullivan. “It puts the exciting into it as effectively. Plus, it really is a wonderful way to educate some verbs, like ‘chop’ and ‘weigh’. 1 advantage we have right here is that so many languages are currently spoken by pupils, from Portuguese and Mandarin to Polish and Turkish. We consider to give college students the chance to take GCSEs in their local community languages as effectively. That offers them a bit of self-confidence in their mother tongue, which typically does not get celebrated ample.”
Room to improve: One particular Fine Keep
In the business globe, embracing languages is not only culturally important it also helps make industrial sense. Firms that operate internationally cannot afford to play down the value of language.
At rentals business 1 Fine Remain, a current social occasion gave workers the likelihood to celebrate multilingualism and, at the same time, share their national cultures.
“Every person brought along an worldwide dish to celebrate diverse languages,” says Tiffany Philippou, the company’s “spinner in chief”, who aided to organise the evening.
“Having an appreciation of languages helps you understand various cultures and men and women.”
1 Fine Remain rents out the residences of out-of-town owners and has started out working internationally. “We deal with buyers from all about the planet,” says Philippou. “Languages are really important for us and it is something we search for when we’re hiring new individuals.”
The current social event is component of an ongoing target on languages by the firm: it will soon launch a new language exchange programme, through which staff will be paired up to learn language capabilities from every single other. “We have this kind of a varied variety of men and women right here, who talk diverse languages. We track what languages absolutely everyone in the organization speaks simply because we require so numerous all the time.”
In a recent poll of the company’s employees, Mandarin came out on leading as the language employees would most like to discover, closely followed by Spanish, Japanese, French and Arabic.
Charlotte Ninnis, finance manager at One particular Fine Remain, says: “We’re developing an global hospitality business, so languages are crucial if we are to communicate efficiently with visitors from hundreds of diverse nations and give them with the level of client services on which we pride ourselves.”
Lift me up: Oldham Sixth Form University
Oldham Sixth Form College’s language task, Lift (Languages: Inspiring Futures Collectively), has exploded on to the scene, winning top prize in the British Academy’s Colleges Language Awards 2013.
Doing work with principal and secondary schools in the location, the college is hoping to raise awareness of languages and celebrate diverse cultures. Former college students who are studying languages at university are encouraged to come back to help current pupils and, in turn, A-level college students pay a visit to regional secondary colleges to talk about the rewards of learning languages. So far, these street exhibits have been delivered to almost 800 students.
“It’s a very deprived spot and the task is made to inspire much more folks to take up languages,” says Louise Astbury, associate director of teaching and studying at the college. “We’re striving to get far more of a buzz close to languages. When we go into colleges, we talk about what understanding a language can imply for your potential. The sessions are not about educating languages – they are about why it truly is critical.”
Lift undertaking manager Sarah Shaw adds: “Languages can open so a lot of doors. Contrary to what many men and women believe, becoming capable to communicate in yet another language is close to the top of many employers’ wishlists for staff. Mastery of yet another language can set students apart and make them extremely desirable.”
The college gives A-amounts in French, German, Spanish and Urdu, as well as AS-degree Chinese. Organisers of the Lift task hope it will encourage pupils to think about languages from an earlier age and boost the quantity of language students at university.
“The cultural capital that our college students come with is not always substantial,” says Astbury. “This is about striving to encourage that earlier in school, to get them a lot more enthused about these things. In the sessions, they may possibly talk about what the most culturally varied city is in Europe. They search at all these cities, but, actually, the reply is Manchester, which is only down the street from us.”
Highlights from the British Academy"s Language Festival
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