West Midlands

During this event,
pupils will hear from two enthusiastic local business representatives about the
ways in which they have made use of their language skills throughout their
careers.

• Brian Savin of Savin Productions (Solihull) owns
  an audio production company and spent many years writing and producing
  radio commercials for a Geneva
  station.

• Language Business Champion Angela Maxwell was the Director of
  Marketing for the coffee machine manufacturing company Fracino which marketed and
  distributed their products world-wide. Angela is now the Managing Director
  of the business solutions company
  AcuWomen based in Leicestershire.

Following the
morning's inspirational talks the pupils will take part in ‘hands-on' marketing
workshops run by Brian and Angela for which prizes will be awarded to the best
team. Finally, the pupils will have a chance to practice their business
language skills with workshops in French, German and Spanish.

80 pupils will be visiting the University of Birmingham
on 13th June to mark the start of the Euro 2008 Championship with a
day of football and German!

Pupils will learn all the German vocabulary they'll need to
play their mini-tournament in the afternoon and their fellow classmates will be
on the sidelines waving their German banners and singing German football songs.
The pupils will also attend a workshop on the popular German film, Das Wunder von Bern, which follows Germany's surprise World Cup victory over Hungary in Switzerland in 1954.

These 3-day courses are held at the University of Birmingham
for gifted and talented Year 9 pupils (2 to 4 April 2008) and Year 12 pupils
(28 to 30 July 2008). They combine an introduction to each language with an insight
into Chinese and Japanese culture.

This e-mentoring
project, hosted by the University of Birmingham, aims to raise the enthusiasm
for language learning in Year 9 pupils by offering them a 9-week Web CT course
for beginners in Italian (from January 2008) and later in the year in Japanese,
German and Chinese. The pupils are supported in their learning by undergraduate
e-mentors.