West Midlands

Thursday, 26th February, 16:15 - 18:30

at Aston University

Mother Tongue Other Tongue is a competition from Routes into Languages, which celebrates the many languages and cultures in our schools today. Through practical, group based exercises, this free workshop will provide secondary EAL and MFL teachers with ideas and activities on embedding poetry in your teaching and encouraging creativity in the languages classroom.

This workshop is a collaboration between Routes into Languages, Network for Languages, Writing West Midlands and the Centre for Language Education Research at Aston, and will be delivered by writer Elisabeth Charis. Elisabeth has a first class honours degree in English Language and Literature and is a qualified teacher (QTS and TESOL) with many years of experience teaching young people and adults and facilitating workshops in and out of a variety of educational contexts.  She has lived in China, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and, most recently, Syria.

Have you spent a summer or year abroad?
Would you like to inspire younger students?
Do you have a creative streak and a talent for design and presentation?

Routes into Languages West Midlands invites final year and postgraduate students who have spent a summer or year abroad to enter our "Learning Abroad" poster competition to inspire sixth form students to follow in their footsteps and travel abroad!

Posters can include photos and/or text and should answer the following questions:

• Where did you work or study?
• What skills have you gained?
• How have you changed as a person?

Entries can be submitted in a range of languages but should be aimed at an English-speaking audience. They should be designed to print in A3 size.

The deadline for submissions is SUNDAY 8th MARCH 2015.

Please email your poster in PDF format to routes@aston.ac.uk or post to:

Learning Abroad Poster Competition

Routes into Languages West Midlands

Aston University MB741

Birmingham B4 7ET

Please remember to write your name, university, telephone and email address on the back so we can make contact with you.

Prizes include a £50 voucher and a selection of travel guides. The winning and highly commended posters will be exhibited at the Routes into Languages West Midlands Learning Abroad Conference in March 2015.

Learning Abroad: Intercultural Skills for Sixth Form

Businesses are looking for people with communication, problem-solving and intercultural skills to match the global workplace; competencies you can acquire and develop by travelling abroad. Our new “Learning Abroad” conference provides sixth form students with the information, support and inspiration they need to go out and study, volunteer or work abroad as part of their studies.

Students will take part in a range of morning workshops providing them with intercultural training, information, guidance and advice, and the opportunity to hear from undergraduates from a range of different disciplines studying at local universities, who have benefited recently from a year, or short period, of work or study abroad. There will be an exhibition with displays from final year students and information stalls with representatives of local universities and organisations, during which refreshments will be available.

In the afternoon, motivational speakers from successful businesses will talk about the skills and experiences they gained from living abroad and how these have helped them over the course of their careers. The event will conclude with language and culture taster sessions in a range of Asian and European languages.

It is a common mistaken belief that only students studying a language at university have the chance to study abroad. One of our aims is to demonstrate that this is not the case. International experience is highly valued in all graduates in today’s global economy. For this reason, the event is open to all sixth form students of any subject. The benefits of attending the event are simple – students will discover opportunities that they might not have known were available to them. They will receive specific information about the going abroad process, as well as inspirational stories of how studying abroad has affected the lives of so many others.

This conference will start at 10.00am and end at 3.30pm on Tuesday 24th March 2015 and it is free to attend.  Please note that places are limited so early booking is advisable as all places will be allocated on a first come first served basis. 

Please use the form below to book or contact us at routes@aston.ac.uk or on 0121 204 3872.

The Routes into Languages Year 7 National Foreign Language Spelling Bee is BACK and now in its fourth year! Each year more and more of you are taking part making this a fantastic, nail biting competition! 

To find out more and to register your Year 7 pupils for their chance to compete please visit our special Spelling Bee website www.flspellingbee.co.uk

The West Midlands Regional Final will take place at Aston University in April 2013 and the National Final will take place at Anglia Ruskin Univeristy, Cambridge in July 2013.

Please remember - you MUST register your school at www.flspellingbee.co.uk in order to take part in the competition.

Do you need help motivating your pupils and encouraging them to continue studying languages at GCSE, A level and beyond?  If so, then our STAR Ambassadors are on hand to help out.

Routes into Languages West Midlands has a team of enthusiastic STAR Ambassadors keen to use their passion for languages and encourage others to see the benefits of learning languages.  Our team includes current languages undergraduates as well as Erasmus students from France, Germany and Spain currently on study exchange placements at these Universities as part of their English Language studies.  They are on hand to give 'Why study languages' presentations as well as share their own experiences of studying languages in higher education.  Our students are also able to develop language taster and cultural sessions to inspire and enthuse your pupils.

Our STAR Ambassadors can adapt sessions to suit your requirements both in terms of content and duration and are happy to work with pupils of all ages. 

For more information please contact us at routes@aston.ac.uk

To book a visit from our STAR Ambassadors please register below providing the following information:

• Date of event (if flexible please give a range of dates or a day of the week which is most suitable)
• Time of event (if flexible again please give a time which is most suitable)
• Year group of audience (this can be multiple, either all pupils together or separate talks)
• Approximate size of audience
• Focus of presentation (inspiring pupils in general, careers, GCSE options, A level options, university options, etc)

Calling all linguists and budding artists!

Help celebrate the European Day of Languages on 26th September by taking part in our poster competition!

To mark the European Day of Languages and following the success of the competition last year, we invite schools in the region to participate in our poster competition. With the number of UK language learners reducing whilst international commerce and travel increase, our aim is spread the message of the importance of learning languages, promoting intercultural awaresness and encourage uptake, particularly at GCSE and beyond. By taking part in our competition, your pupils can help us out and learn a thing or two themselves!

Following on from our "Why Study Languages?" theme last year, pupils are invited to produce a poster on the theme of “Countries”. Pupils will need to choose a country where the language they choose is spoken, research it and design a poster to tell us about it. The twist? Pupils MUST choose a country outside of the "mother country" of the language (so if they choose French, they must choose a country other than France, if they choose Spanish it must be a country other than Spain and so on).

Entries can be submitted in any foreign language or languages and may include some English if desired (for example, pupils may like to provide a translation of the facts they provide). Each poster should be no larger than a sheet of A4 paper and must be completed by hand but any form of materials can be used – felt tips, paint, fabric, etc. Judges will be looking for originality of illustration as well as accuracy of language and content.

The competition is open to pupils in Year 7, 8 and 9 with one winner and one runner up in each year group. Each entry MUST be clearly marked on the back with the pupil’s name, age, class, teacher and school, as well as any necessary information about the language(s) chosen (i.e. if it is a less widely learned language) to facilitate judging. When sending school entries, teachers should provide a covering note with their contact details for ease of notifying winners.

Please note that entries cannot be returned, we advise making a scanned copy for pupils who wish to retain their work. In the event of insufficient entries of good quality no prize will be awarded; the judges’ decision is final.

The prizes are £20 vouchers for the winners and £10 vouchers for the runners up, plus a framed certificate. The winning entries will be displayed around the School of Languages and Social Sciences at Aston University and will feature on our website. They may also be used in publicity materials in future. Prizes will be presented in school by a member of Routes into Languages staff who will also deliver a “Why Study Languages?” presentation to your pupils.

We hope that you will enter this competition as part of your in-school European Day of Languages celebrations and so the deadline for submission of entries will be Monday 7th October.

Please send your entries to: EDL Competition, Routes into Languages West Midlands, MB741, Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET. If you have any queries please email us at routes@aston.ac.uk or call 0121 204 3872.

Need some inspiration?

• Encourage pupils to use home languages – they could even teach a few words or phrases to other pupils

• Take the opportunity to do some cross curricular work with your Art department

• Visit https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

Do you need help motivating your pupils and encouraging them to continue studying languages at GCSE, A level and beyond?  If so, then our Routes into Languages Ambassadors are on hand to help out.

Routes into Languages West Midlands has a team of enthusiastic ambassadors keen to use their passion for languages and encourage others to see the benefits of learning languages.  Our team includes current languages undergraduates as well as Erasmus students from France, Germany and Spain currently on study exchange placements at these Universities as part of their English Language studies.  They are on hand to give 'Why study languages' presentations as well as share their own experiences of studying languages in higher education.  Our students are also able to develop language taster and cultural sessions to inspire and enthuse your pupils.

Our ambassadors can adapt sessions to suit your requirements both in terms of content and duration and are happy to work with pupils of all ages. 

For more information please contact us at routes@aston.ac.uk