North West

Mother Tongue Other Tongue is a multilingual poetry competition that celebrates cultural diversity and the many languages currently spoken in secondary schools across the north west of England.

Mother Tongue / Other Tongue is open to all mainstream and supplementary secondary schools in the North West and pupils can enter as individuals or groups of any size.  It is, in effect, two separate competitions.

Mother Tongue

Entries for this category will be in two parts:

The first part is the poem, song or lullaby.  This can be an original, creative piece, written in any language at all (except English).

It can also be a poem or song that is ‘remembered’ – i.e. something in your Mother Tongue that you recall, or that has been told to you by a relative.

The second part of the entry will be a short written explanation of the first part.  This will be either a translation, or an account of why the entrant has chosen to share this piece i.e. why it is important to them or the person who told it to them.

This part of the entry must be written in English but pupils can be helped to scribe or edit this by teachers, parents, carers or by friends.  We welcome jointly-written entries.

Other Tongue

Entries for this category will be a single, original poem, written in a language that is being studied in school and is not the first language spoken by the entrant.

This must be an original piece of work, giving pupils the opportunity to be creative with their Other Tongue.

Allowed languages in this category are: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Urdu, Mandarin or Arabic.

The deadline for entries is Monday 28th May 2012, 5pm.

Please see below to download an entry form.

Workshops

A number of free workshops to help participating schools to explore language and poetry are also available. The workshop themes are below:

Finding your Voice

The 2012 Olympics

Past, Present and Future

Memories

Playing with Spanish

Translating Poetry

Mixing Tongues

Full details are available on the MTOT website: www.mtot.org.uk

Please note: These workshops are now fully booked.

Prize Giving Ceremony

The best entries will be illustrated and published. Posters of the winning pieces will be displayed at the Manchester Children’s Book Festival Family Fun Day on June 30th, 2012.

There will also be a prize-giving ceremony with Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, in the Capitol Theatre between 3 and 4pm with a special performance by the Huaxia Chinese School.

This will form part of a wider celebration of other languages and cultures. All are welcome.

For further information please go to www.mtot.org.uk or email mtot@mmu.ac.uk

Tuesdays, 5.30 - 7.30 pm

The course uses a number of key set films presented and studied on a weekly basis to enable teachers/future teachers to develop their experience of using film as part of their language classes. It includes lectures which provide a basic theoretical framework of film terminology in context and film analysis enabling the participants to understand the teaching of film better. These are complemented by weekly practical workshops covering aspects of genre, thematic/cultural motifs, film style and production. During these workshops, participants will develop their own portfolio of teaching resources, and will share ideas with other members of the group. They will have access to a database of on-line materials.

Location: Department of Languages, Mabel Tylecote Building, Manchester Metropolitan University http://www.mmu.ac.uk/travel/allsaints/

For further information, please contact Carmen Herrero (c.herrero@mmu.ac.uk)
 

A series of 3 workshops:

1)  Video Editing (Tutor: Benoît Guilbaud, MMU and FILTA) on Tuesday 8th November 2011, 5 - 8 pm.

2)  Creating a Podcast (Tutor: Benoît Guilbaud, MMU and FILTA) on Tuesday 22nd November 2011, 5 - 8 pm.

3)  Making Subtitles (Tutor: Jessica Frye, MMU and FILTA) on Tuesday 6th December 2011, 5.30 - 7.30 pm.
 

Fee:  £30 per session or £80 for attending all 3 sessions.

Location:  Room GM120, Geoffrey Manton Building, All Saints Campus, Manchester Metropolitan University www.mmu.ac.uk/travel/allsaints

Organised by MMU (Languages) and FiLTA (Film in Language Teaching Association www.filta.org.uk) with the support of COLT, Routes into Languages.

For further information or to book, please contact Sue Nolan, the COLT Project Administrator s.nolan@mmu.ac.uk