Languages Add Up!
On Wednesday 3 July 2013 through the Routes into Languages initiative the Sussex Centre for Language Studies invited Year 10 GCSE students from local schools to take part in Language Ads Up! - a languages activity day. The aim of the event was to introduce the students to the principles of advertising and marketing through the creative use of a modern language.
During the initial group welcome in the large modern Jubilee lecture theatre Year 10 students from eleven regional schools, and their teachers, listened with interest to the director of Oban Multilingual, a company based at the Innovation Centre on campus, as he highlighted key elements of its website optimisation business and the fascinating role foreign languages and intercultural awareness play in the process.
Following the talk, inspired by the influence of marketing, students moved to Fulton seminar rooms to work in target language workshops with SCLS language tutors to analyse a range of adverts in either French, German, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese or Japanese. Working in smaller cross-school groups students planned their own adverts as posters, animated slides or film clips. Acting as ‘language ambassadors’ SCLS language students coached, guided and helped throughout the polyglot day.
After a picnic lunch in and around the Meeting House, the afternoon workshops took place in IT rooms where students continued to design and produce their adverts and work on a group presentation. Finally everyone returned to Jubilee large lecture theatre where one by one the Language Ads went up. Tutors prepared to present their groups’ work before finding out that Year 10 students are only too happy to take to the limelight! And in a foreign language to boot!
Bravo! to all participants for making it such an enjoyable event.
Feedback
'I have really enjoyed the day and have found it very interesting as well as helpful to see how languages can be applied. The staff have been lovely and all in all the day has been wonderful. Thank you very much for having us.' [Pupil]
'I am so pleased you gave my students the opportunity to be their best and so proud of them for doing it, I just would love to show the rest of the school what they did. Thanks again for what has turned out to be one of the most gratifying days of my teaching career. You gave them a real challenge and they rose to the occasion.' [School teacher]
'Can we have more of these events? And I just wanted to say how I thoroughly enjoyed my day; the staff were very friendly.' [Pupil]
'I wanted to drop you a note congratulating the University of Sussex Centre for Language Studies on the Language Ads Up! event ... I'm sure that without such initiatives, HE languages would be in a poorer state.' [Jim Coleman, Chair, University Council of Modern Languages]
Most useful aspects: 'Working in the University setting. Relating to business; the speaker was fantastic.' 'Seminars were delivered in the target language, the pupils were given good support and the idea of MFL in ICT was a great angle.' [School teachers]
'I really enjoyed learning the language from my tutors and learning about the culture too (making advert was fun). I made friends with the tutor and helpers. Yay!' [Pupil]