Province welcomes 140 foreign language students

The province’s schools are to welcome 140 foreign language students, representing 11 countries worldwide.

Appointed as Modern Language Assistants to schools and colleges throughout Northern Ireland, the students are arriving from as far away as Mexico, Peru and Québec as well as from locations closer to home such as Donegal and Limerick.

The Language Assistants will be working for the next nine months in post-primary institutions. Their role is to help pupils increase their knowledge of the target language - French, German, Irish, Italian and Spanish – as well as its culture.

Organised by the Education & Training Group of the British Council, an induction course will be held on Friday 21 September at the Grosvenor Conference Centre in Belfast. The course will cover a variety of practical issues relating to the Language Assistant as well as giving them an overview of the Northern Ireland education system. As part of the students’ induction, there will be a tour of Belfast City Hall and a reception hosted by the Lord Mayor of Belfast.

Julien Tuetey-Souchasse, who was an assistant in Glenlola School in Bangor last year, said: “My teacher says that I help pupils overcome the ‘fear barrier’ of talking to a native French person and that I have a more thorough and up-to-date knowledge of French idioms.”

The assistant’s presence puts the pupils in a relaxed atmosphere where they can speak the language informally and progress to more formal situations. This in turn enables extension and development of material at A level and lessens the teacher’s workload. (SP)