This is the 17th year that Kingsdown School has run its languages project in local companies. For the past few years it has been hosted by Intel. Trainee teachers from the University of Bath are also involved in the project, acting as representatives from French or German companies. The project runs over two days, with French being the language of one day and German the other.

The project aims to demonstrate to Year 10 students how foreign language skills can be of practical value in industry and commerce, to enable them to practise in a different setting much of the language work they are meeting in their GCSE courses and to encourage students to work together in a team. They also see and hear Intel employees dealing with customers worldwide during a short visit to the call centre.

Students liaise with the ‘representatives’ from French/ German companies, by email, by phone and face to face, inviting them to Swindon to a presentation of a product they are promoting. Travel details, hotel accommodation and entertainment for the visitors are arranged by the students and in the afternoon students give a formal presentation of their product to the whole group, using power point. At lunch students practise their social skills in French/ German with the visitors, and also with Intel employees who are keen to practise their French or German.

30 students from Year 10 are involved on each day, chosen from about 60 studying GCSE German and 85 studying GCSE French. All students prepare for the project, inventing products and producing presentations. Internal competitions are held and students evaluate each other’s performances. Students are selected according to their level of participation in the preparation for the exercise, their ability to contribute to a team and their willingness to attempt a role in a presentation and to communicate with foreign visitors.

Students work in groups of 5. Each group works independently to promote its own product and the tasks of liaison and presentation are allocated by the group itself. Final presentations are judged by a panel form Intel/Bath University and Kingsdown staff and prizes are awarded to the teams. They look for language and presentation skills and how they cope with working as a team.

The project is an integral part of the Year 10 curriculum and students prepare for it with great enthusiasm and are very proud of their achievements on the day.

Feedback from students this year is very positive.

What are you most proud of?

• 'Having the confidence to do the presentation and use my language skills'
• 'Speaking in front of everyone'
• 'Having a German conversation'
• 'The way we worked as a group during the preparation.'
• 'Meeting new people and improving my French.'
• 'The confidence to speak French in front of people we had to get to know.'

Mrs J Harwood
Head of Modern Languages