Business Ambassadors including a solicitor from Dickinson Dees, an engineer from TM Engineering and the export manager from Saia Burgess explained how their knowledge of languages had enhanced their careers.

After the pupils had been welcomed to the event, Jo Lyons from North Tyneside Education Business Partnership gave a presentation about her own experience as a language learner and someone who has used and is still using languages in her work. Pupils were given tips for their language learning, such as using clues and thinking logically, and were given the opportunity to find out if they were visual or auditory learners.

Then Jo together with Julia Cantwell presented an interactive quiz for the pupils called ‘Who wants to be a Linguist?’ highlighting the fact identified by the regional development agency, Government Office North East, that one in five companies in the NE is losing business because of a lack of language skills. Pupils registered their answers to the questions using a keypad, "Who wants to be a millionaire ?" style, and responses were shown as graphs on the whiteboard. Questions were diverse and included the following:

Are you a linguist ?
Which of these words is an adverb ?
How many of these languages does Pope John Paul II speak ?
In how many of these careers could the study of languages be useful ?

After this, the Business Ambassadors introduced themselves, and in a session called "Spill the Beans" each of them worked with a group of pupils who had to find out about their jobs and present three "Wow Factors" about their Business Ambassador to the rest of the pupils.

Pupils then had introductory classes from the University staff in languages they had never studied before including Japanese, Russian and Italian. The afternoon finished with a brief tour of the University as it was the first time that many of the students had visited a university.

Julia Cantwell from North Tyneside Education Business Partnership said “It was an excellent afternoon with the pupils leaving inspired and eager for more.” Follow-up activities are planned for these students and their progress will be monitored to see how many go on to study languages at GCSE, A-level and at university.

North Tyneside EBP are looking for additional role models in the region who use languages in their work and who would be interested in supporting these events as Business Ambassadors. Please contact Julia Cantwell at North Tyneside EBP Tel 0191 200 1584 for further information.

This innovative event was co-ordinated by North Tyneside Education Business Partnership, Northumbria University Business and Language Unit and Atlas which supports the international curriculum in the North East. Representatives from other north-eastern LEAs were present at the event, and there is a great deal of interest in replicating the other event in other LEAs, including Sunderland.