Business & Investing

If you can remember the French language lessons from your school days you may recall the monotonous chanting of verbs or the cassette player on the teacher’s desk crackling out the almost inaudible sound of an overly-enthusiastic French gentleman booking a train ticket to La Rochelle. It was fun, but I wonder if we really understood the reason why we were learning those verbs and taking 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 encourage young people to study languages we need to make them applicable, so that whatever careers they may aspire to, they can see the relevance of language skills to their progress. The best way to do this is to bring the world of work into the classroom and turn those French language lessons into workshops with ‘real’ business people.

Workshops and other business-related visits can be arranged through initiatives such as the Business Language Champions programme, which partners schools with local businesses to raise awareness of the importance of language skills in the workplace and encourage youngsters to study languages at GCSE level and beyond.

The Business Language Champions can share their knowledge of how languages are used within their organisation and recount their experiences of learning and using these skills. Interactive elements such as quizzes, poster competitions, Q&A sessions and even site visits can be incorporated into students’ French language lessons to enhance the languages message.

You will probably find that the Business Language Champions are repeating the advice given by teachers – about the importance of language skills – but the fact that it comes from a ‘real’ business person gives the message more weight.

By making our French language lessons more relevant to the ‘real’ world of work and utilising the skills and experience of local Business Language Champions we can give a purpose to the verb chanting and inspire more young people to keep up these skills which will benefit not only their own future employability but the economy as a whole.

Want to bring the world of work into your French language lessons, then visit www.cilt.org.uk/keep_in_touch/blogs/blc_blog.aspx to find out more about Business Language Champions