A Global Classroom: Language Festival Inspires Young People Across the Region

Local TV

The North East is gearing up for one of its most vibrant annual celebrations of language and culture. Now in its sixth year, the Festival of Languages is returning, bigger than ever thanks to new support from the North East Combined Authority. The event brings together schools, community groups and young people, not only from across our region, but from right around the UK and beyond.

Transcript

00:00The annual Festival of Languages celebrates the North East rich mix of cultures, backgrounds and

00:05spoken languages. It's designed to help young people gain confidence in communication,

00:10develop global awareness and explore the creativity that comes from sharing languages and stories.

00:16The Festival of Languages is the biggest languages festival in the UK and it's a free for all

00:24festival for young people and children aged between 3 and 18. We have a mixture of activities and some

00:34are online, some are in person and some are open just to schools in the North East Merrill Combined

00:41Authority area. Some are national activities that people can join in with and some international

00:48activities that people can join in with. I think that teachers and schools see it as really additive

00:53to what they're doing in the classroom, it gives it context, it celebrates not only the languages

00:58that are being taught in the classroom but it sort of celebrates the languages of the children

01:04in the classroom, their home languages and cultures, it sort of shines a spotlight on them as well

01:08and it sees languages really as a superpower so it's celebrating the languages taught and the languages

01:13spoken in our region. Now entering its sixth year, the festival has expanded thanks to support from the

01:19North East Combined Authority, enabling more schools, community groups and young people to take part

01:24not just across the North East but across the UK and even internationally. So it's all of those

01:30communication skills as well, the soft skills, how you make somebody feel more comfortable,

01:36can you say hello in a different language and it's just developing confidence, the ability to speak to

01:42different people from different backgrounds, understanding a bit about different people's cultures that you

01:47might meet in the classroom or you might not meet in the classroom but you might have those skills

01:51when you go to university and it's also looking at careers as well and how if you study a language

01:58at school or you speak another language at home, how that can have a positive influence on your career

02:03choices. It doesn't necessarily mean to say that you're going into a career that uses languages but because

02:08you're a good communicator and you've got those skills that you've developed by learning a language

02:13or speaking another language, those are transferable skills. We're part of the world, we're interconnected

02:20now, the job market is worldwide now, you can connect with people so easily online so it's looking at

02:29how can we give our children the language skills to be able to tap into that job market so it's looking

02:39beyond the region and into the wider world really and I suppose yes it has been a tricky time for

02:45some people and I think that we've got lots of children that speak other languages and that is a

02:50superpower, there are jobs out there that can benefit our economy and our region and because

02:55we've got those children with those skills and we need to tap into those.

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