BLC South East joined forces with Solent Education Business Partnership recently to explain the value of the Business Language Champions programme to schools and businesses.

Thirty-five business linguists and MFL Heads from secondary schools in the Solent area attended the presentation to help them understand how businesses can support language-learning activity in schools.

The event, which was attended by business linguists from IBM UK, Skandia, Carnival Group, Southampton City Council, Bouygues Construction, Bealiue Motor Museum and Blake Lapthorn Solicitors was kindly hosted by proven Business Language Champions, Price Waterhouse Coopers, at their prestigious waterfront offices in Ocean Village Marina, Southampton.

PWC Partner Nick Smith spoke about the value of employing linguists in business as it enables organisations and individuals to work on international projects whilst Spanish-speaking PWC employee Suzie Chan shared her experience of working on language projects with students, and the value it has added to her both personally and professionally.

The presentation was supported by an audiovisual case study of a recent student language challenge supported by Business Language Champions.

BLC South East Region Manager Raz Hussain commented on the success of the event:

 “This event was exceptionally well attended by both local businesses as well as schools and a real buzz and passion for languages was apparent at the meeting – already business linguists have started to come up with creative ways to promote languages and schools have expressed their interest for support.  I look forward to supporting some exciting new projects in the very near future” she said.

For more information on the BLC programme in the South East please contact Raz Hussain.