How could anyone fail to be inspired by the glamorous world of global travel?  I decided to put my theory to the test on a snow-free Friday in February, whilst co-running a BLC workshop at a local school and was pleasantly surprised by the results.

Mandy Haque, Airport Manager at Birmingham International Airport returned to Aston Manor School in Birmingham, where she had delivered a languages assembly two weeks earlier, to challenge students to question the importance of languages within the tourism industry.

Ably assisted by languages teacher Nicky Carpenter, Mandy and myself tested students’ knowledge of language and culture and ran an Olympics quiz to get them thinking about the impact of language on the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games – this went down really well as we had a couple of budding athletes in the class and it gave students the opportunity to research answers on the internet.

The main task of the morning was to complete a poster in French to advertise Birmingham to overseas visitors – these would then be displayed in the airport to encourage French visitors to soak up the sport, history, culture, shopping and food of the second city.

Students worked diligently to promote their city, each group focussing on different areas of interest for overseas visitors and they produced vibrant, eye-catching posters with good use of French.  Judging was the hardest part as they were all so good but we eventually chose a winning team, who earned themselves a trip to the airport to see the new control centre when it opens in a few weeks time.

When asked at the end of the session what they would like to do in the future, many students were considering overseas travel or even working in other countries.  They were inspired by Mandy’s career path – she started at the check in desks and has recently been appointed Airport Manager, but more importantly she recognises languages as an important catalyst to her success.

So, how could anyone fail to be inspired by the glamorous world of global travel?  Well, perhaps they can’t and if languages can open so many doors, not only in terms of employability but also to social and leisure pursuits, then we are on to a winner if we can get more tourism businesses to become Business Language Champions.

For more information on the other BLC activities taking place in the West Midlands please visit the RLN WM website.

Photographs:

Top right – (from L to R) Nicky Carpenter, languages teacher, Frances Pallett, BLC project manager and Mandy Haque, airport manager at Birmingham International Airport with students from Aston Manor School.

Bottom right – Mandy Haque helps Aston Manor students get to grips with the language for their posters to promote Birmingham to French visitors