Earlier this year we held the launch of the first Supporter 2 Reporter language project. This latest Routes into Languages East project, involved the training of five local secondary school pupils as sports journalists in Spanish, German and French preparing for the 2012 Olympics. The Year 10 pupils, Ruby and Aneesh from Comberton Village College, Shoaib and Jordan from Netherhall, and Ben from Parkside were trained by Supporter 2 Reporter trainer, Sarah Birchall, in reporting skills, such as interviewing, video and audio recording, and editing. They received language support throughout the course from Routes East Student Language Ambassadors, Ines Navarro, a Spanish tutor from Anglia Ruskin, Lisa Sumaski, an MA student at Anglia Ruskin, and Lea le Cloarec, an intern student from France on a 3-month work placement with Alliance Francaise in Cambridge. They provided invaluable help, as well as being excellent language role models.
The project began when Sarah Schechter, Routes into Languages East Project Manager saw an inspirational presentation by young Supporter 2 Reporters (trainee sports reporters) at a 2012 Olympics Inspire Mark networking event (Routes East was awarded an Inspire Mark for its Language and Sport activities). She was so impressed by what she saw that she contacted the Director, Damian Payton, to discuss the possibility of developing a language orientated course. The pilot project was launched a few months later
The highlight of the course was the visit to BBC Cambridgeshire, where the aspiring sports journalists were given a guided tour while taking the opportunity to interview a broad range of journalists and others working in radio and TV. The journalists all said how strange it was to be on the other side of the microphone..! They also readily gave the pupils advice on how to get into TV and radio. When asked if they thought languages were important, they all felt that they definitely were and had interesting stories to illustrate the point.
On day 4 of the course the young reporters attended an international football tournament organised by Routes East, with players from Anglia Ruskin University and The Girton Academy of English. The exciting match, Europe v the Rest of the World, ended 6-4 to Europe with the pupils taking the opportunity to commentate and interview players and spectators. They then edited all the footage, and put together their stories and articles with the video and audio from the two days on the Supporter 2 Reporter website (www.radiowaves/s2rroutesintolanguages).
Anglia Ruskin University media students, Mo and Nuvia, filmed the training, so that it will be available to others from Routes into Languages East in the future
The Supporter 2 Reporter language reporters now join the rest of the Supporter 2 Reporter team in the run up to the Olympics
