WHAT IS GOING GLOBAL?Running since 2005, Going Global is the Modern Foreign Language Programme organised for Gifted and

Talented students across Suffolk.

Originally conceived in 2005, Going

Global set out to offer the most able Year 11

students in French, German and Spanish the

opportunity to challenge themselves further, by

enabling them to work with similar, like-minded

students in small groups, with the aim of pro-

ducing a valuable project based resource that

could potentially be used by other learners. In

an attempt to steer away from the relative con-

fines of the GCSE language courses, the stu-

dents are encouraged to investigate issues

that would not normally be covered in lessons

at school. The students were certainly not

short of imagination and creativity for their

projects, with themes as diverse as youth cul-

ture in Columbia, the influence of fashion on

health, and Germany’s role in the War on Ter-

ror. Aided by a team of tutors, working with

and advising the students to ensure they

stayed on track, the students also had a team

of Language Assistants to help the students to

say exactly what they wanted, and to enable

the participants to accurately and effectively

get their message across.

A key aspect of the project is the oppor-

tunity the students are given to develop their

ICT skills, with many students choosing to use

the latest presentation packages, or to record

themselves using audio or video software. The

end results in the past have ranged from

groups who have put together films or pod-

casts, to those who have given presentations.

One year we even had a visitor from the Cam-

eroon who came in to talk to the students

about racial discrimination in French soceity.

With such a large number of students from

schools spread right across the county, man-

aging the project between the two workshop

sessions has been crucial. To help the stu-

dents maintain contact, and to enable them to

share ideas and be creative, a website and

internet message board were set up to ensure

that from Haverhill to Holbrook and from Bec-

cles to Bury St Edmunds the students could

keep in touch with both their tutors and each

other. This was a great way of guaranteeing

that the students were properly prepared for

each of the workshops. Read on to find out

about this year’s project, the views of the stu-

dents, how you can access the resources, and

why studying languages can be really useful.

MCs Peur Le Bouc, Soufflé and Marmotte, aka

Helen Firth (Stowmarket), Rachel Turner (Kesgrave)

and Hannah Main (Hadleigh).

[1]

GOING GLOBALThe 2009 Suffolk Gifted and Talented Linguists Project

Run by Northgate High School and Language College in partnership with Suffolk County Council

Over 50 Students from 16 different

schools from across Suffolk

Cooking Up a Storm!!

When the students put to-gether a project, we normally would expect a topic based on an issue that grips the imagination. War, poverty and the environment are popular themes. So when Al-ice Laidlaw (King Edward VI) and David Weale (St Albans) decided to create their own cook book, using a selection of traditional French recipes. “We had the idea of doing both a cook book and a television show, but in the end we settled on just the book.” said David. “We chose about 9 differ-ent traditional recipes. The French we used is completely dif-ferent from the language we’d use in lessons. It’s been really good!” added Alice. “We’ve been ema-ling each other and exchanging ideas, so for us the workshops have been about putting our ideas together.

Hey Sister! Go Sister!

Whilst some were going a

bit ‘Ready Steady Cook’, Wil-

liam Tink (Deben), Erica Stan-

way (Hartismere) and Bethany

Mackender (Sir John Leman)

went all cultural and produced

a magazine telling the story of

Le Moulin Rouge. Looking at

the story from cultural, histori-

cal and linguistic aspects was

a real eye-opening experience

for the students. “We chose to

do this because we thought it

had a lot of different sides to it

- theatre, history, art and

dance.” explained Erica. “The

French we used was com-

pletely different to what we

would normally use in lessons”

said Bethany. “

[2]

WORKSHOP PIX

Using ICT for creativity! Films, powerpoints, pod-casts, publishing...

All examples of how our participants have harnessed new technology to produce professional looking re-sources to put their mes-sage across to other inter-ested students and teach-ers.

On adore la cuisine

française!

How do you combine a love of football with learning a language?Tim Vickery is a busy

man. As the BBC’s

football correspondent

based in South Amer-

ica, there are, as one

would expect, a lot of

demands placed on

one’s time. Even so,

Tim took five minutes

to talk to us about how

he got started.

“I’ve got A level French

and O level German - it came

relatively easy to me, though

I wasn’t the greatest lan-

guage student. I did German

for 2 years and hated it, and

my French was probably

better when I was 16 at O

level than 2 years later at A. I

can speak neither now - I do

recall a bit of French, but it

seemed to go out the win-

dow when I started to learn

Portuguese. Perhaps the problem was that it all seemed very abstract

at the time. I was a council estate kid, money was tight and 'abroad'

was this far away place. I remember a family holiday when I was a kid

on a campsite in Kent - on a clear night you could see the lights from

France, and that fascinated me. Anyway, I

didn’t get out of England for the first

time until I was 23 (my dad

reached 84 without ever making

it further than a quick trip to

Dublin). The most important

thing about language skills is the

need to communicate - I didn’t

have that at the time or really envisage

ever having it - very narrow horizons. I went to college in London and

horizons started to open, because it really internationalised me - in one

of the most cosmopolitan places on Earth I was working with people

from all over. I remember one of the girls I worked with was called Lucy

Popescu. She was English, and was amazed that I knew she was of

Romanian descent. It was easy - Romania had a player with the same

surname in the 1990 World Cup (years later he came to Tottenham), and

the type of name is easy to identify. I could spell Czechoslovakia when

I was about 7 - a sadly redundant skill these days, but at the time you

had to know them - they'd reached two World Cup finals! So football

gave me a conception of the outside world as a kid - but it was when I

started travelling and also working with people from other countries that

I really began to see the value of languages. I remember having an

Italian girlfriend - I used to love listening to her speak Italian with her

family on the phone - it made me think there was a whole new side to

life that I still had to discover.

Anyway, in London I had a job at a theatre, where I met lots of

Brazilians, and got curious. I knew my job there wouldn’t last long and,

with an eye on the globalisation of football, came out to Brazil in 1994

with vague plans of football journalism, and qualified as a TEFL teacher

to keep me going in the short term.

Nearly 15 years later I have fluent Brazilian Portuguese (don’t tend

to write much in it, but I did have a twice weekly column in a local paper

from 1998-2001). I do quite a bit of TV in Portu-

guese, and exist in an all-Portuguese environ-

ment. I've had no real success trying to get

my girlfriend or her two stepdaughters to

speak English - might have had more suc-

cess with the dog!

I can also get by in Spanish - the written

word is very close to Portuguese, so reading is

relatively easy. To my regret I don’t spend enough time outside Brazil to

really get my Spanish up to a reasonable level - everyone has their own

method of learning, mine is informal, talking and listening. The formal

method I’ve always thought, for the purposes of evaluation, concen-

trates more on error than on communication, and as a result can often

inhibit.

I've never really studied Portuguese - I just tried to have as much

contact as possible with the language. I picked up some with my

friends in London, and when I came over I read lots of papers (always

the sports pages - I could say 'so and so is an injury doubt for Sunday's

derby' before I could say most normal things) and I spoke and listened

as much as I could. It's tiring - you get headaches from having to con-

centrate so much - and it can be frustrating, because there are no short

cuts and it takes time. but it can be magic when you get there. It

opens up so many possibilities - conversations about football, for ex-

ample, can forge friendships between people from different sides of the

world.

The English are really funny about languages - in most countries if

you can speak other languages it's seen as a sign of intelligence. in

England it can be seen as a sign that you're wierd. I get stick some-

times for pronouncing names properly - Manchester City fans (often not

my fans) once discussed on an internet forum how I was trying to come

across all clever and sophisticated by pronouncing Robinho's name

correctly. It would be hard for me to say it any other way - I've been

following him since his debut in 2002, and so have heard Brazilians say

his name millions of times.

I did some TV with the Uruguayan Gus Poyet a couple of years ago

- he said that it was the first time that any English person had ever pro-

nounced his name correctly, and he was

pleased about it. But it's such a small

effort to make.

The point is that there's a big

wide world out there, full of fasci-

nating people, - and unless you

can speak to someone in their own

language you can never really completely

know them, even if they speak English. An English girl out here used to

date a Brazilian guy who she really fancied - until she learned enough

Portuguese to realise that he was a complete idiot!

[3]

Languages open up so many

possibilities

Tim Vickery BBC South America Football Correspondent

Tim appears on the World Football Phone-In on BBC 5 Live, every Friday night.

There’s a big world out there full of fascinating

people!

The most important thing about language skills is the need to

communicate!

THE WHO’S WHO...2009 Participants

Rozi Arnold Stradbroke Business & Enterprise College FrenchEleanor Baldwin Stowmarket High School FrenchSophie Benton Hadleigh High School French

Hannah Blackmore Farlingaye High School FrenchMegan Buncombe Leiston High School French

Katy Carroll Sir John Leman High School FrenchRachael Clark Holbrook High School FrenchSamuel Clarke Deben High School French

Helen Firth Stowmarket High School FrenchSaskia Hadley Stradbroke Business & Enterprise College French

Margaret Hollamby Bungay High School FrenchWilliam Justin King Edward VI Upper School FrenchSrilekhini Kadari St Alban’s High School French

Georgia Kerr Hadleigh High School FrenchAlice Laidler King Edward VI Upper School French

Bethany Mackender Sir John Leman High School FrenchHannah Main Hadleigh High School FrenchHolly Millard Great Cornard Upper School French

Rachel Peters Hartismere High School FrenchErica Stanway Hartismere High School French

William Tink Deben High School FrenchAndreaa Tudose Northgate High School FrenchRachel Turner Kesgrave High School French

David Weale St Alban’s High School FrenchSarah Booth Northgate High School German

Maya Booty Bungay High School German Lily Brazier Holbrook High School GermanAsa Burnett Stowmarket High School German

Natasha Goldsmith Kesgrave High School GermanSonia Gould Kesgrave High School German

Emma Heron Stowmarket High School GermanCaitlin McQueen Farlingaye High School GermanBronya Meredith Holbrook High School German

Aileen O’Keeffe Hartismere High School GermanCeara O’Keeffe Hartismere High School German

Felicity Parsons Farlingaye High School GermanTom Proctor King Edward VI Upper School GermanNaomi Rozier Thomas Mills High School German

Amy Stebbings Holbrook High School GermanAlison Tucker Thomas Mills High School German

Alexander Waples King Edward VI Upper School GermanLouise Wilby Hartismere High School GermanRoss Britcher Great Cornard Upper School Spanish

Tom Campbell-Todd King Edward VI Upper School SpanishSamantha Gammage Great Cornard Upper School Spanish

Yoji Munuo Northgate High School SpanishChristopher Neill Hadleigh High School SpanishJessica Parker Holbrook High School Spanish

Sophie Ship Holbrook High School SpanishBen Weller Northgate High School Spanish

Jenna Young King Edward VI Upper School Spanish

[4]

Creativity in the Language

Centre!

The TutorsMr A Blagona Project Coordinator

Mr D Wade French Tutor

Mrs E Powell French Tutor

Mrs F Welsh German Tutor

Mr O Stewart German Tutor

Miss E Jebb Spanish Tutor

Miss A Trouche French Assistant

Miss S Demirel German Assistant

Interested in the 2010 Project?In September 2009 we will be send-

ing letters to all Suffolk secondary schools

inviting applications for students in Year

11, who are studying French, German or

Spanish, and who are aiming at an A or A*

grade. Successful applicants will be con-

tacted and invited to take part in the

workshops, which will take place in early

2010.

Northgate High SchoolSidegate Lane West,

Ipswich,

IP4 3DL

Tel: 01473 210123

Fax: 01473 281184

www.northgate.suffolk.sch.uk

www.northgatemfl.co.uk