South West

This is an opportunity for pupils who enjoy their French lessons to practice their speaking skills using a range of fun and innovative activities. There will be experienced language teachers to help with pronunciation and fluency and the low adult to student ratio ensures students speak as much French as possible during the day.

Times: 9.30am-2.30pm

Cost: £32 per pupil

Criteria for identifying participants

• Pupils should enjoy their French lessons in school and wish to learn new words as well as wishing to improve their pronunication.

This is a joint event with Network for Languages South West.

We are delighted to invite you to attend our annual celebratory event -- Pop Video & MFL Speaking Competitions Regional Final at the University of Exeter on Wednesday 26th June!

The event will run in two parts:

MFL Speaking Competition -- winners and runners-up from three sub-regional finals in Bath, Barnstaple and Swindon will present in a foreign language of their choice to compete for the 'Regional Finalist 2013' award. The competition will run in three Key Stages (3-5) in two categories: Non-native speakers and Near-native speakers.

Students may either improve the presentation that they delivered in March or make an entirely new presentation. Creativity, imagination and an element of drama will be highly commended! Students will be judged on presentation as well as language skills (spontaneity, fluency, accent, interest, range of language and originality) by a panel of judges.

Topics and duration:

KS3 – 1-2 minute presentation on “My Family”, “My Hometown” or “My Hobbies”

KS4 – 2 minute presentation on “My Holiday”, “A Film I Enjoyed” or “Health & Fitness”

KS5 – 3 minute presentation on “My Dream” or “Young People of the 21st Century”

Pop Video Competition -- four nominated videos in each age group (11-14 & 15-18) will compete for the 'Winner 2013' award. The winners in each category, including the 'Online Viewers' Award', will be announced in the Oscar-style ceremony. 

We are hoping to have a live performance by one of the Pop Video winners from previous years again!

All winners & runners-up will receive trophies and cash prizes.

We are very thankful to Oxford University Press, Institut Français, Goethe Institut & Consejería de Educación/ Spanish Embassy for supporting our competitions! Please visit our Sponsorships section for more information.

An opportunity to spend the morning reinforcing your knowledge of French and of practising the spoken language in an informal and relaxing environment as well as interacting with pupils from other schools in the area. Classes are taught by qualified native speakers who are associate Lecturers at Plymouth University.

These classes are free but participants have to pay for their own transport to the Plymouth Business School.

Taster session in Japanese for complete beginners.

These classes are free but participants have to pay for their own transport to the Plymouth Business School.

An Introduction to Mandarin Chinese language and culture by a qualified native speaker.

This is suitable for complete beginners of any age, staff members are also welcome provided they are beginners too!

These classes are free but participants have to pay for their own transport to the Plymouth Business School.

An opportunity to spend the morning reinforcing your knowledge of Spanish and to practise the spoken language in

an informal and relaxing environment as well as to interact with pupils from other schools in the area. 

Classes are taught by qualified native speakers who are associate Lecturers at Plymouth University.

AS students from Budehaven Community School in Cornwall are invited to visit Plymouth University to take part in language activities (French and Spanish), attend the 'Why Study Languages?' talk and talk to the language ambassadors.

Newly recruited language ambassadors from three universities (UWE, Bristol and Bath) are invited to complete compulsory training, which consists of two parts:

1. Work through the on-line training before attending the core training session (you will be sent a web link to the online training by e-mail).
2. Attend the core training session on Wednesday 14th November at 9.30 am – 1.30 pm at the University of the West of England (Room 1L1).

The objectives of this day are to:
- provide a taster of language study in a University environment to develop/raise aspiration to HE and in particular to the study of MFL Post 16 and beyond;
- support the curriculum in areas associated with MFL;
- stimulate and challenge students in the practical application of language skills.

The day, running from 10.00 – 2.30 will focus on three languages, French, Spanish and German, and a lesser taught subject designed to provide the opportunity for participants to “learn a language from scratch”. The visit will include a campus tour and the opportunity to spend time with current UWE students to gain a real insight into life as a student in higher education.