‘Why should we learn a language?’ - a familiar questions from UK teenagers. Often the most effective answers come from older students whose real life experience of language learning make them sit up and listen. This is the principle behind the Routes into Languages Student Ambassadors programme, which brings university language students into schools to talk to teenagers.

Southampton University has developed the project further by setting up an impressively managed e-mentoring system between undergraduates studying languages and local pupils in years 10-13. Undergraduates are carefully selected and trained as mentors by the University Outreach Office.The students communicate online with teenagers once a week to help them with their language learning, encouraging the teenagers to write in the target language.

In this project, everyone’s a winner. The undergraduates gain valuable mentoring experience while refreshing their own language skills. The teenagers get an insight into what life might be like if they took their languages further and a chance to practise their language skills with a real adult audience. And teachers get increased motivation from their pupils. So, thanks to e-mentoring, it’s smiles all round in the MFL classroom!

Language(s): French, German, Spanish

The University of Southampton has 20 academic schools. Modern Languages is in the School of Humanities and offers a range of degrees in languages and languages combined with other disciplines.