Modern Foreign Language and Personal Development

Project overview

TEDCO Enterprise in Education has supported management of the school’s KS4 Enterprise agenda for a number of years. The school’s Enterprise Champion requested, during a review meeting, an event encapsulating aspects of Modern Foreign Language.
The school identified 70, Yr10 students who are already studying, or would benefit from exposure to, MFL focused activities. MFL activities were identified as being inappropriate for the remaining 100 students in the year group, and an alternative programme of personal development activities, designed to meet the needs of that group was requested. In order to meet the requirements of the MFL aspects of the event, a partnership was established with The MFL team at Northumbria University in Newcastle. The University agreed to deliver a half day language challenge for the MFL cohort of students, including interactive language taster sessions in Polish, Portuguese, Italian and German, also, an ICT workshop focusing on the discovery of new cultures: facts, figures and faces. Students will attend the University to participate in activities, thus raising aspirations.

Identified Needs

This programme meets the needs of students of all academic ability, and is specifically designed to allow all participants to gain a greater understanding of ‘Enterprising Skills’ in a fun and creative fashion, giving students a greater understanding and awareness of the enterprising skills they already posses and how they can develop them further. The programme is designed to grasp the attention of it’s participants by consisting of a number of mixed and varied sessions with varied teaching styles to provide more challenge, fun, and, most importantly, to ensure that learning takes place. The programme meets the needs of the school by addressing the importance of learning another language, with a view to enhancing employment potential and generating greater cultural awareness amongst its students. It also conveys the importance of identifying and developing personal skills and qualities with a view to enhancing the importance of employability skills such as motivation, willingness to learn, desire to achieve, responsibility, team work, self-management.

Evaluation

All programmes of activity were evaluated with students completing end of session evaluations after each activity, identifying the enterprise skills and qualities used during individual sessions, rated their enjoyment of, and their opinions on what was delivered. Facilitator and teacher evaluations were also completed. Results of all evaluations were compiled by TEDCO and input into SPSS software (Statistical Package for Social Sciences).