Celebrate Speaking! Festival of Language
National Consortium for Languages Education (NCLE) consortium partner, the British Council, have been showcasing the fantastic language skills of young people in the UK with their Celebrate Speaking Festival, managed on behalf of the NCLE and working in collaboration with the Association for Language Learning (ALL).
Here is a heartfelt message from the British Council highlighting the success of this event:
Our Celebrate Speaking! festival of language culminated with a live event with 10 selected students and classes showing their language skills through talking, singing and poetry.
We were blown away, yet again, by the skills, enthusiasm and passion for languages which our young presenters showed. From year 2 student, Louis, from Europa school reciting a poem called Die Tulpe in German to the year 4 class from William Hogarth school singing (and dancing!) La Gallina in Spanish; from Ario at Swanbourne House school reciting a poem in Persian which he had seen displayed in UN headquarters to students at Queen Katherine School speaking in Korean (and telling us how much they love BTS!); the performances covered 10 languages that students are learning at school or speak in their home and community.
You can see the video recording of the live event above but be prepared to smile all the way through! As our hosts, Vicky and Stephen said, it’s a great skill to be able to speak more than one language and it was our absolute pleasure to see how much these school children enjoy speaking foreign languages and sharing that enjoyment with others. During February, the call went out for teachers and schools to post on social media their young people showing their language skills and we had over 150 entries from individuals, small groups and classes. You can see them all on X / Twitter by searching #CelebrateSpeaking.
The festival is managed on behalf of the National Consortium for Languages Education (NCLE) by the British Council, working in collaboration with the Association for Language Learning (ALL). Our thanks to all those who took part and to the teachers and parents/carers who helped, encouraged and supported these inspiring young people.
If you want to take part next year, make sure you put Celebrate Speaking February 2025 in your diary and look out for news early in the new year.