West Midlands

A huge thank you to all the pupils who entered our European Day of Languages Poster competition this year!

Our theme this year was "Countries" and we were looking for eye catching posters showing a country where the language the pupil is learning is spoken. It came with a twist though! Pupils had to choose a country outside of the "mother country" of the language (so if they chose French, they must choose a country other than France, if they choose Spanish it must be a country other than Spain and so on).

We received over 700 entries across Years 7 - 9 each with a wide range of countries from those close to home like Switzerland, Belgium and Monaco and those much further afield such as Madagascar, Peru and Singapore represented! We were very impressed by the level of creativity displayed, the amount and accuracy of foreign language used and the depth of research which had gone into the posters - choosing just one winner and runner up per year group was very difficult and we commend all pupils for their efforts.

The winners were those who the judges deemed to best display the background, language and culture of the country they had chosen, demonstrated an effort to use foreign languages and originality of illustration as part of a well presented and attractive poster.

Congratulations to winners and runners up in the categories below. Winners will receive £20 vouchers for HMV and a certificate, runners up will receive £10 vouchers for HMV and a certificate. Prizes will be presented by student ambassadors in special school assemblies.

YEAR 7

Winner - Jade Griffiths, The Rawlett School

Runner up - Aiden Childs, Charlton School

YEAR 8

Winner - Layla Ali, Pedmore Technology College

Runner up - Anisah Hussain, Yardleys School

YEAR 9

Winner - Rose Winn, Haybridge High School

Runner up - Charlie Sheargold, William Brookes School

HIGHLY COMMENDED

Year 7 - Luke Osborne, Walton High School

Year 7 - Adam Stinchcombe, The Earls High School

Year 7 - Millie Mae Fawcett, Walton High School

Year 8 - Simran Mahmood - Pedmore Technology College

Year 9 - Reanna Sandhu, Haybridge High School

Year 9 Gracie Radford, The Rawlett School

Calling all comic devotees: BD&Comics Passion is back at the Institut français in London from May 30th to June 2nd 2013! Workshops, live drawing, concerts and movies galore are on the agenda, with some of the greatest writers and illustrators. And since you love comics, why not make one yourself? If you’re aged 7 to 17 and live in the UK, you can participate in the nationwide competition and stand a chance to win amazing prizes! Whether you make it on your own, as a class project, or with friends…entries can be submitted in French or English or both.

For more information and how to enter, download the attached flyer or visit the website www.bdandcomicspassion.co.uk

Throughout March, Routes into Languages, in conjunction with Network for Languages and CLERA (Centre for Language Education Research at Aston) held a series of cultural days looking at Spanish, French and German as world languages.

The events were for Year 8 pupils and featured workshops from native speakers and final year students from French, Spanish and German speaking countries around the world. The visitors took pupils on a virtual tour of their country talking about topics such as food, history, cultural celebrations and geography. They brought in food and delicacies from their home nations (some even homemade!), small artefacts and shared personal photographs and stories to really give students the desire to travel! The countries covered ranged from closer to home Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria to further flung Paraguay, Quebec and Burundi. After their workshops, the pupils then worked in mixed school groups to design posters in the target language to demonstrate what they had learned.

The aim of the events was to show the languages the pupils are studying in school as world languages and to inspire them to continue studying languages at school and beyond.

While the pupils were busy travelling the world from their classrooms, we were fortunate to have representation from the French Embassy, the Spanish Embassy and Goethe Institut who delivered CPD sessions for the teachers. The visitors also judged the best poster created by the pupils and awarded prizes.

The events were a great success: a total of 180 pupils from 15 schools across the region attended.

To find out more about any of these projects please visit the websites:

Routes into Languages West Midlands www.routesintolanguages.ac.uk/westmidlands

Network for Languages http://networkforlanguages.org.uk

CLERA http://www1.aston.ac.uk/clera

Aston Inaugural: Professor Jim Shields, Tuesday 23rd April 

The Aston Inaugurals celebrate and showcase the research expertise of the University’s newly appointed professors across a diverse range of topics.   

The fourth lecture in the series will be given by Professor Jim Shields from Aston University's School of Languages and Social Sciences at 6.00pm on Tuesday 23rd April 2013. 

The Front National at forty: a ‘normal’ party now? 

In the 2012 French presidential and parliamentary elections, Marine Le Pen and her far-right Front National (FN) won a combined total of ten million votes, one in six of all first-round votes cast. This was an electoral support unprecedented in the party’s forty-year history. In the course of that history, the FN has grown from a small radical right-wing fringe movement to the third most important political party in France. In 2002, its founding leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, shocked the political world by coming second in the presidential race; his daughter’s ambition now is to complete the party’s journey to mainstream acceptability. 

This lecture will consider some of the issues raised by the current strength and mainstream aspirations of the FN. It will be the second ‘inaugural’ lecture given by this speaker on this subject at Aston. The first was in autumn 1984 when, as a newly appointed fixed-term lecturer, a very much younger Jim Shields devoted his first lecture to the earliest signs of electoral breakthrough by a largely unknown Front National – never thinking he would be talking about it still three decades later. 

This Inaugural is the story of a long and unlikely personal association with a political party. Despite an academic career spent mostly elsewhere, it is also the story of a long, and unlikely, personal association with a university. 

All of the Aston Inaugurals will start at 6.00pm and will be held in the Sumpner Lecture Theatre located in the Main Building on Aston University campus which is just a short walk from the Centre of Birmingham. 

The event is free to attend and open to all. Complimentary tea and coffee will be served from 5.30pm and a buffet will follow the lecture.  

To book a seat, register via Eventbrite . For further information call please call 0121 204 4542 or email events@aston.ac.uk