budget travel asia

Recall, if you can, the French language lessons of your school days - the repetitive chorus of verb chanting and the crackling sounds of the old cassette player on the teacher's desk as you try to decipher which station the French gentleman is trying to book a train to. Yes, it was fun but did we truly understand the point to reciting those verbs and struggling through those listening tests?

Without being able to assign a purpose to our French language lessons I suppose we were unable to see how these skills would benefit us in the real world. Unless we wanted to be teachers or translators we could not see the relevance of language skills but the truth is that languages are beneficial across all careers and today there are many ways in which to get this message across to students.

To persuade more young people to continue learning languages we must make them applicable, so irrespective of the career paths they choose, they realise the validity of these skills to their advancement. One of the best methods for creating this awareness is to bring the world of work into the classroom and run workshops with business people during timetabled French language lessons.

Workshops and other business-related activities can be arranged through initiatives such as the Business Language Champions programme. This employer engagement project partners businesses with schools in their locality to encourage students to continue with their language studies by demonstrating the importance of these skills within the workplace.

Business Language Champions can share their experience of learning languages as well as explaining how these skills are used within their current organisation and in past roles. If you can incorporate an interactive element into these French language lessons, such as a poster competition, question and answer session or language quiz, then it really helps to get the languages message across.

It may be that the Business Language Champions reiterate what teachers are already saying about the benefits of languages but the message is more likely to sink in when coming from someone else.

By making French language lessons more pertinent to the world of work and drawing on the experience and skills of local Business Language Champions, language learning has a purpose and more young people will be inspired to maintain the language skills that will not only benefit their skill set but that of the country as a whole.