I am pleased to have been inundated in recent
days with evaluation forms from our current BLC schools and wanted
to share some of the positive comments I have received about the
programme and the impact it is having on young people across the
West Midlands:
A new vision
Aston Manor School in Birmingham ran an
assembly and interactive workshop with Birmingham International
Airport as part of the BLC programme. Language teacher Nicky
Carpenter had this to say about the event which sparked off a 13%
increase in the number of French GCSE students:
“It was very
useful for the pupils to see how languages are used in the
workplace. This is something the pupils have lacked vision about
and so they haven’t been able to see how languages are important
for their future careers. The BLC programme had a big impact in
changing this attitude for many students.”
Making languages real
Bianka Zemke from Barr Beacon School in
Walsall, added her thanks to the programme and in particular their
Business Language Champion Angela Maxwell:
“Students now
believe that languages are ‘real’ as they have seen someone who
makes it real. It is very important for our pupils to see someone
who has made a very good career with the help of languages.
We would love Angela to come back and hold her motivational talk
again.”
Looking at languages from a different
angle
In Shrewsbury, staff at the Priory School
Business and Enterprise College, were also grateful to their
Business Language Champion, Becky Stark, who promoted not only the
importance of language and culture but the ways in which these
skills benefit exporters.
As Lucy Kelly, Languages teacher,
commented:
“It was great to
have an outsider come in to promote languages, from an angle very
different from that that we, as teachers, can approach it
from. It is easier to work with all students, including those
students who have not opted for languages, as they have a better
understanding of “why” languages are useful.”
Once bitten, forever
smitten
And finally, it just goes to show that once
you get a taste of a language it’s not that easy to put down, as
Cornelia Smith, Head of Languages at Queen Elizabeth School and
Sports College in Atherstone, said of her school’s involvement in
the programme:
“Pupils who took part in the BLC programme
are more motivated to learn more languages and some pupils who were
not given French for their first option for GCSE for next year,
have made a complaint, in fact they were upset that they would not
be studying languages next year.”
For more information on the
Business Language Champions programme in the West Midlands please
contact me on 0121 329 3297 or frances.pallett@rln-westmidlands.com