The School of Languages, Cultures and Societies at the University of Leeds recently welcomed fifty GCSE linguists from three Yorkshire schools to campus for a day of experiencing languages.
Students from Doncaster, Wakefield and Leeds enjoyed a packed programme of languages workshops and talks aimed at helping them understand the value of language learning.
After warming up with a languages quiz, the groups enjoyed sessions in their GCSE language, during which they revised the future tense and used it to talk about their plans for the future. In the afternoon, everyone had the opportunity to have a taster of a lesser-studied language and culture, and went to sessions in Portuguese, Russian, Latin and Ancient Greek. Later, we were delighted to welcome Luke from local careers advice and guidance organisation, Aspire-international, who spoke to the students about the multitude of opportunities to spend time abroad, before we heard from some of our language students, Joe and Hannah, who told students all about their experiences living in France and Spain during the Year Abroad. The visiting students had lots of questions about what they heard and we had some good discussion about the ins and outs of living and studying in another country.
The day was a great success and it is hoped that everything the students did and heard has helped them think about the reasons to continue studying a language after GCSE. The event was jointly-funded by the University of Leeds and Routes into Languages.
