The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
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thelinguist.uberflip.com FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017 The Linguist 13 AWARDS FOCUS contact number up. The new GCSE lays emphasis on spontaneous speaking, and at all our events, students are put on the spot to produce something oral in their target language, usually with business people asking questions. It is important to note that we are not language evangelists, hell-bent on forcing all students to carry on with their language studies. But the sad truth is that many of the students we encounter don't feel that they are part of a global society. They are UK/English-centric and therefore, in some respects, disadvantaging themselves economically and missing out on life- changing experiences. At a recent event, a fourth year language undergraduate spoke to an audience of 80 Year 9 students about his year abroad. The talk focused much more on the transformative cultural experiences than the fact that he is now pretty much trilingual. Becoming a social enterprise So how did we get to this point? The history of Business Language Champions goes back to 2004, when the government made languages optional at GCSE level. BLC was born as a nationwide project managed by CILT, the National Centre for Languages, and rolled out through the Regional Language Networks (RLN). BLC Director Suzannah Hutton was co-managing the RLN and brought me in through a volunteering scheme in 2009. As a self-employed dual-language management trainer, I was well-placed to devote myself part-time to promoting languages in schools. After various iterations of both funding and targets, the government money finally came to an end in March 2011. During the previous two academic years, we had reached 8,000 students in the East Midlands region. We were now faced with a difficult decision: should we sink with the funding or find some way of building on all the successful work we had done? We decided to set up BLC as a social enterprise so that we could continue. The biggest challenge that we faced was having to start charging schools for our services. For a while we did manage to find small pockets of funding, particularly by teaming up with Routes into Languages, which meant that we were still able to target schools in disadvantaged areas. One of the joys of being independent was that we were now able to work with all schools, from independent to state-maintained. It has been uplifting to have students from very different backgrounds working together. We apply for funding where we can, with occasional success for smaller projects. It is no surprise that most funding expects applicants to target disadvantaged areas of the country. While this is understandable, the language deficit runs across all social strata. Middle-class areas suffer equally from falling numbers in their language departments. In our region, the East Midlands, we have grammar schools with joint sixth forms struggling to muster half a dozen A-level language students between them. It is becoming increasingly difficult even for independent schools to put together teams from Years 12 and 13 for our events. The battle for budgets So what is going on in our schools? Like any subject, languages have their share both of excellent teachers and of those that sadly fail to inspire. What they have in common is that they feel beleaguered by all sides: a generation of students and parents who, for the most part, don't see the point in learning a language, and Senior Leadership Teams (SLTs) with an eye on the league tables, who often don't make optional and perceived 'hard' subjects, such as languages, a priority. We know budgets are tight and things are not getting easier, but we need to ensure that SLTs see the value in promoting languages and assign a sufficient budget and credence to allowing students to find out more about global opportunities. Increasingly, over the past year, schools have been cancelling their places on BLC events. Conversely, one of our most popular events (described by one teacher as "the best cross-curricular event I have ever seen") is the 'International Space Challenge', supported KEEPING IT REAL Students make a video about Long Clawson Dairy cheese at a Business Language Champions event (above left); learn to dance at 'Chile, Chocolate and Cha Cha Cha'; and work creatively at the same event in January 2017