Football for boys and languages for girls, isn’t that how things go? Not for those lucky youngsters involved in Arsenal’s Double club initiative. The project for both girls and boys in Key Stage 3 has created resources based around football and Arsenal’s players to make language learning fun and relevant. The programme matches 45 minutes of language learning with 45 minutes of football – a real game of two halves!

Arsenal FC is well-known for the multi-cultural and multi-lingual nature of its team and coaching staff and is keen to harness this diversity to promote language learning. With partners Goethe-Institut and UK-German Connection, Institut Français and Consejería de Educación and the European Commission, Arsenal have created modules linking language learning with football and football-related topics, using DVDs of high-profile footballers, talking about their lives in their mother tongue. The club provides schools with packs of language resources as well as football coaches to support the after school Double club, which usually takes place weekly. The football coaches use the vocabulary learned during the language sessions for reinforcement during the coaching sessions.

Improved linguistic and ball skills aren’t the only reward the learners, who can also go to the club’s Emirates stadium for a football tournament for schools that have taken part in the same language Double club. The refereeing is in that language and the day includes language games and quizzes.

Language(s): French, German, Spanish

Arsenal FC is based in North London. The club's education department, Arsenal Double Club, falls within Arsenal in the Community, which has good links with many schools in London and currently employs four full time teachers working in secondary schools with reluctant learners in lslington.