Liaison Magazine - LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and ...

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HMG: Describe one of the high
moments this year.
ROR: At our language festival in March,
we ran a Linguavision song contest with
primary children. One of the teachers
taking part (incidentally not from the
winning school) said they had so much
fun preparing for the festival that the
head teacher had agreed to establish a
French choir at the school.
HMG:And one of your low points
ROR: This has to be when people
appear to lose sight of the spirit of
Routes into Languages, when there are
unrealistic expectations. In my
experience, this happened when
competition entrants could only think
about winning.We’ll run our
competitions differently in future.
HMG:You’ve recruited and trained a
number of student ambassadors from
all the partner universities in Routes
North East (Durham, Newcastle,
Northumbria, Sunderland and
Teesside), including a day’s training in
November. How did that go
ROR:This was very successful and
without a doubt it is the reason that
Routes into Languages will thrive. Ron
Dearing said “Let youth speak to
youth.” He’s right. Next year we aim to
recruit higher numbers of students and
we will have our core of experienced
ambassadors, too. Students who are
outside the project and who thought
they were too cool to apply, now say to
me,“What can I do to apply to be an
ambassador” Don’t underestimate
what students can do.The project
wouldn’t work without student
ambassadors: they’re joyous, honest and
have a passion for learning languages.
HMG:Would you say that students
are role models
ROR: Definitely. Learning languages
means you learn about yourself, you
develop your life philosophy.Working
in the north-east, in some of the most
deprived areas in the country and
statistically low in numbers for take-up
of languages, I am aware there are
challenges here for kids who have little
life experience and that in meeting our
Routes ambassadors they’ll learn so
much more.
HMG: Finally Ruth, what is your
favourite catchphrase for language
teachers and students
ROR: Keep it fun.
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Chinese / Japanese Day
Routes into Languages West Midlands
Photos: www.edwardmoss.co.uk
Liaison magazine • llas.ac.uk •11