Festival of International Culture - Durham

Our fantastic Festival of International Culture returns to Durham once more!

The Festival will comprise of all sorts of different activities to raise awareness of the need for language learning in the UK. We will focus on the fun, active and practical side to learning new languages and cultures. This year, however, in a new development, the cultural element of the Festival will form part of the regional Mother Tongue, Other Tongue poetry competition, with workshops exploring multiculturalism and giving your pupils the chance to create a poem in a language other than English.

The event will last for the full school day and will take place between 9:30 and 15:00. It will be split between language taster sessions and interactive poetry workshops in which pupils will be encouraged to produce their own poems (either individually or as pairs/in small groups) to be entered into the regional competition.

The purposes of the day are as follows:

1) To introduce the idea of learning an entirely new language to school pupils

2) To show the students the benefits and opportunities that language learning can offer

3) To explore issues around multiculturalism and linguistic diversity within the UK

4) To encourage the creation of a piece of text or a poem in a language other than English

5) To give them an idea of what life in higher education is like through visiting a university campus