During the first quarter of 2009, The East Midlands Consortium has been delivering language projects across the region with the aim of inspiring more young people to take up or continue the study of languages. On january 15, the consortium participated in a Global Day at Colonel Frank Seeley School, Calverton, Nottinghamshire. International students studying at Nottingham Trent University formed an interview panel and year 9 pupils from the school engaged the students in a question and answer session to find out more about the Student Ambassadors' countries and culture. These sessions were followed by tasters in Italian. Other activities included football in French, a Why Languages Work talk by Karen Ilsley of the Regional Languages Network and a poetry writing session on a topic of global interest.
Fifty five, year 12 students from schools and colleges across the region attended a Languages in HE Event at Nottingham Trent University. Participants were offered tasters in French, German Mandarin and Spanish. They also attended a presentation on the diverse routes into studying languages at university, combined degrees, the year abroad and the HE accredition system. Sally Fagan of the Regional Languages Network gave a talk on Why Learn Languages, which was complemented with a careers talk by a university careers adviser. The event coincided with a university open day and participants were able to visit the Course Fair and speak to academic staff. Languages in HE was open to both languages and non-languages students.
The consortium is still recruiting Leicestershire school pupils for its languages' e-mentoring project and the Languages' Bus continues to deliver tasters all over Lincolnshire.
The Consortium Advisory Group recently approved bids from its partner institutions to extend the suite of activities already offered by the contortium. These include:
- Virtual Foreign Language Assistants for schools who may not have a language assistant in place.
- An e-mentoring Project.
- Web-based resources to support study at G.C.S.E and A Level of lesser taught languages.
- Radiolingua: Pupils record a radio programmes in a foreign language.
- Bespoke Lanugage Programme to support Year 10 students of foreign languages.
For further information contact: Mirella Santamaria: mirella.santamaria@ntu.ac.uk
