Objective of the day: To encourage able linguists in Y11 to consider taking a language at A'Level by giving an impression of 6th Form topics and teaching.

On Friday January 30th, almost 70 pupils from St Roberts, Southmoor, St Anthony's, Thornhill, Oxclose, St Aidan's, Hetton, Biddick and Monkwearmouth met at Venerable Bede School in Ryhope to take part in the A'Level MFL Taster Day. The day was organised by Janet Mays, Director of the Language College at St Aidan's, and Frances Thompson, MFL Co-ordinator at Venerable Bede.

The day began with a welcome from Dr Yates, Headteacher of Venerable Bede, who said he was "pleased to see so many people committed to languages". Janet and Frances outlined how the day was going to work. This was followed by a talk by Barbara Allan of RTC North on "Languages and the World of Work".

RTC North (Regional Technology Centre) is based in Sunderland, and Barbara is the Transnational Co-ordinator. She began her talk by answering the question "Why languages?" Language skills lead to increased job opportunities, they are transferable skills which give you increased confidence and mobility. Businesses nationally and locally need people with language skills. This country is losing business because it lacks the necessary language skills. Especially in Europe, businesses want their customers to be able to speak their language. Barbara also outlined her own career path. Pupils were reminded that they are not restricted to jobs in teaching, translating and interpreting if they chose to study languages beyond GCSE. "Languages are a tool to do something else with". For example, foreign languages speaker are required in Sales, Call Centres, Purchasing, Accountancy, Engineering and Construction. As Barbara said, "The economy is global."

Pupils were divided into 4 French groups and 2 Spanish groups. Each group had 2 lessons in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. The French groups enjoyed themes as diverse as "L'alcool et les jeunes", a murder mystery and a rap about family life, while the Spanish groups solved a mystery about the first Spanish astronaut, examined the pros and cons of smoking, and wrote adverts for underpants ! Each group was accompanied by ITT students from the University of Newcastle.

The day finished with a talk by Dr Elizabeth Anderson from the School of Modern Languages at the University of Newcastle. She spoke about taking languages beyond A'Level, particularly at the University of Newcastle. At Newcastle it is possible to study Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish, in various different combinations. It is also possible to study a language or languages with other subjects such as Accountancy and Politics. Pupils will make themselves more employable if they take two languages rather than one, particularly if the second language is an unusual one such as Chinese.

Language learning is good life experience - it is confidence-building, and helps students to gain in maturity, independence and self-assurance. It is also good preparation for the world of work. The unemployment rate for language graduates in 2001 was 5.34%, which was lower than Architecture, English, Business Studies, ICT, Media Studies and Sociology. Many language graduates work in Retail, Business, Banking and Manufacturing.

At the close of the day the vote of thanks was given by Tony McCourt, Headteacher of St Aidan's.

Teachers on the day were:

French: John Weston, Janet Mayes, Arezki Aouane, Jacqui Turner

Spanish: Angela Jacob, Zahida Hammond, Bernie Welch, Clare Seccombe

Many many thanks to the ITT team !!

BACK TO TOP