Eight videos are now available on the topic of languages and careers, for use in schools and colleges, alongside a pupil booklet, from British Council. Use these resources in schools to promote discussion of where languages can take you and how they can have a positive impact on your life and future career and employment options.
These resources are linked to the successful webinar hosted by British Council on 8th March, in which almost 2000 children and young people from across the North East participated. Part of Express Yourself: North East Festival of Languages, hosted by International Newcastle and running for the whole of March.
Videos and pupil booklet
- Click here for links to videos of 8 speakers Inspire your secondary pupils to continue studying languages, or to choose languages as an option, with our eight short videos and accompanying pupil booklet.
- Click here to download the pupil booklet to accompany the videos
Choose four of the videos and use them in a lesson with a group of students, alongside the pupil booklet. In each of the videos the speaker talks about their own language learning journey, the languages that they have learned, where they have travelled to, the skills that learning languages can bring and how they use languages in their work.
Click on the links below to watch the videos to find out more:
- Cameron, British Council
- Charley, GCHQ
- Diane, Valuation Office Agency
- Ellie, Language Assistant
- Katie, Student
- Matthew GCHQ
- Sam, RAF
- Stephen, RAF
Please share any feedback with British Council on Twitter @Schools_British
Why learning languages is important
Vicky Gough from British Council (Schools) shared results from a survey the British Council carried out that showed 79% of those surveyed thought that learning a language was important, but only 42% were taking a language at GCSE level and that more girls than boys were taking up languages.
The webinar on 8th March involved nearly 2000 children and young people in Years 8 and 9 from across the region, who heard from 3 speakers. Each one stressed the importance of learning languages, whether learning a language at school, enhancing the language you and your family and community speak at home, if that is not English. They said that it is not important to try and be fluent, but from their life and career experiences, the speakers stressed how learning and speaking another language:Helps you appreciate other cultures and diversity
- Gain insights into widens your perspectives and understanding of the world
- Builds your confidence, communication and interpersonal skills
- Helps you develop initiative and make better decisions
- Opens up new opportunities for travel and making new friends and connections
- Improves your career opportunities and your choice of employment – across all sectors – employers want people who can adapt, who understand how to work with people in other countries and from different backgrounds and who can build lasting working relationships
More Festival activities and resources
We want to encourage young people to take up and enjoy learning languages and seek to support that through the Festival activities and beyond. There are lots of other activities and resources available this month and some for longer, that you can access to find out more about languages and careers. These are all summarised on this webpage and we hope that children and young people in the North East will be inspired to take up languages and take qualifications in their home languages and the languages they are learning.
Other resources on languages and careers
- British Council provides a lot of resources and support for schools to enrich the quality of education in schools and equip young people to live and work successfully in a global society.
- For teachers: See the British Council All Party Parliamentary Group’s report and recommendations: The value of international experience, skills and connections for young people in the UK
- Durham County Council (International) and Durham University have produced a range of materials about languages and careers.
- Listen to a British Council commissioned Podcast: Stories from Newcastle – the importance of languages and language learning
- View our How Languages Changed My Life 2021 ebook, click here to download the one page photomontage with links to individual stories (click on the photos), or visit Festival’s Stories page for more stories from people of all ages and backgrounds, who are from, or came to live in the region, their language and cultural journeys and the impact it has had on their lives and careers.