LANGUAGE students from King’s Ely have received prestigious awards for work they completed last year as part of the national Routes into Languages initiative.

Routes into Languages East is led by Anglia Ruskin University in partnership with University of Cambridge, The Open University, The University of East Anglia and Hertfordshire University. The aim of the project is to promote participation and innovation in language learning with a view to making a lasting impact within the school sector and the wider community.

Eight students from King’s Ely Senior earned the initiative’s Language Leader award after swapping their notepads for interactive whiteboards to teach younger pupils at King’s Ely Junior. In addition, two students completed a series of independent tasks to achieve the Language Challenge award.

Sarah Schechter and Tony Morgan from Routes into Languages East presented the students with their awards at Senior assembly on Wednesday (2).

Senior’s Head of Languages, Esmeralda Salgado, commented: “The Language Leader programme is designed for Year 10 students, who are required to complete three hours of teaching with Year 6 or Year 7 sets in either German or Spanish. To achieve this, meetings took place weekly to discuss teaching strategies on how to present vocabulary, practise grammar and carry out speaking activities. Students also mentored peers within their year group, created grammatical booklets for specific grammatical points and worked as language ambassadors for the school.

“The Language Challenge is open to Year 9 students, who have to complete a series of independent tasks such as learning a foreign song, writing a story or poem in the target language and researching a particular grammatical point, just to mention a few.”

Alex McGrath, Head of King’s Ely Senior, added: “At a time when the teaching of languages is in decline in this country, I am delighted that initiatives such as this at King’s Ely are assisting in embedding language learning, developing the confidence of our students and giving them a challenge to embrace. We are educating children to take their place in a global economy, and acquisition of a modern foreign language gives them a competitive edge, opening their horizons to a wealth of opportunity at university and for their future working lives.”

The Language Leaders award winners:

Lucy Green – Spanish
Tara Benowitz – Spanish
India Baynes – Spanish
Phoebe Ryan – Spanish
Anna Kindlesydes – German
Tristan Stubbs – German

The Language Challenge award winners:
Jamie Stiff – Spanish
Isobel Oughton – Spanish

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