Thousands of children and adults got involved in free, fun and interactive opportunities to explore different languages and cultures as part of Express Yourself: North East Festival of Languages in February and March.
International Newcastle convened the organising group and helped co-ordinate the Festival, with the support of local, regional and national partners, who gave time and expertise, as well as providing activities free of charge for people in the North East.
A virtual success!
Over 12,000 children (via 238 schools’ registrations) and 1,000 adults participated in our first Express Yourself: North East Festival of Languages.
The entire Festival was online, due to the pandemic, with 33 different types of activities offered over the 5 weeks from 22 February and 66 live events held during Festival Week alone (22-26 March).
The Festival encouraged people of all ages and all backgrounds to showcase their own languages and cultures and learn more about others. It provided opportunities to try new and creative ways to both learn and teach languages.
All events and activities were provided free of charge to participants.
Click here to see the 4-page Festival What’s On Guide to find out more about the range of Festival opportunities, events and activities.
Looking to the future
New in 2021, International Newcastle and our partners hope this will become an annual Festival every March.
In future, there is likely to be a mix of in person and online activities offered, to enable people to get involved in a way that suits them.
Our survey says…
We have gathered monitoring information for activities which required sign up, which provides a reasonable estimate of the level of involvement of schools and some of the live events, but we do know a lot more people viewed activities online and did not have to register, as they were freely available – at least a further 1741 engagements – some of which will have been schools with multiple classes viewing.
We are also asking people who took part to answer a few short questions by 26th April, to help us understand what people got involved in, what they enjoyed and learned and what they may like to see in future.
A free prize draw of £100 is available. If you were involved in any Festival activities, do complete the short survey online here: Click here to complete the online survey
A world of opportunities
International Newcastle and our partners put together a menu of free language and culture-related offers for North East schools (from Early Years to University) and communities (community schools, language and cultural communities and the general public) to engage with.
We were overwhelmed by the positive response from partners, schools and the public. We are looking forward to exploring how we can build on this success and provide more opportunities for schools and communities to celebrate and learn about the diversity of languages and cultures and our connections to the world.
Declan Baharini, Director, International Newcastle
The activities included:
- 66 live events online during the Festival week of 22-26 March 2021 – including language taster sessions from early years to secondary, covering 14 languages and British Sign Language for adults and schools, cookery and craft demonstrations, a live puppet show, Arabic storytelling, languages and businesses session for schools and even a Geordie session for international students
- pre-recorded online activities and events, that schools and communities could access when it suited them, from late February to the end of March – including three world languages and cultures sessions, an excercise class, songwriting session, language challenges and films providing insight into different cultures
- participatory activities online and offline that schools, communities and individuals could get involved in up to and during the Festival – including national competitions run by our partners at British Council and the French Embassy Education institute, Durham’s European Voices project for primary schools and Mother Tongue Other Tongue for 7-18 year olds to submit poetry in their home languages and languages they are learning
- online resources and apps which can be accessed anytime and exist beyond the festival, such as the Secret Agent’s Language Challenge, ENACT (languages and cultures app) and Linguacuisine (languages and cookery)
An international city with the skills for the future
The long term aim of promoting language learning is to upskill and equip young people and adults for the future workforce, to increase opportunities for employment and also to help business thrive in a global economy, as well as to support our internationalism ambitions.
It is one of the priorities within Our Newcastle Our World, the international city plan, which has a vision of Newcastle as an outward looking, internationally connected city, which welcomes and celebrates internationalism and supports opportunities for our children and young people (0-30) as confident, global citizens.
Why a Festival of Languages?
International Newcastle leads on an initiative called Newcastle City of Languages, which aims to increase the take up of languages, support teaching and learning of languages and also celebrate the diverse languages and cultures in the city.
A range of activities linked to Newcastle City of Languages have been delivered, including:
- Newcastle Modern Foreign Language Network for Schools (launched in January)
- a range of events, activities and training for teachers
- the compilation of language learning and teaching resources and support available for schools, business and adults
- promotion and support of international links for schools
A regional festival used to be held in the 1990s and it was felt by Newcastle City of Languages partners that this could boost the profile of languages in the city and provide a point of celebration in the year.
Thank you to the partners who were involved in the working group that organised the Festival:
