On Wednesday 22nd November a group of more than twenty senior pupils from Meldrum Academy participated in a languages day organised jointly by LLMVC and the Confucius Institute.
The aim of the event was to show the young people where their language learning journeys might take them. The day kicked off with a talk on why learning languages matters: touching on the cultural and cognitive benefits of multilingualism as well as how being fluent in more than one language enhances job opportunities.
After this, the pupils had workshops in their chosen subject (either French, German or Spanish as these are the subjects they are studying at Higher or Advanced Higher at the moment). All the pupils had a Mandarin taster session at the Confucius Institute and either an introductory session in Arabic, Gaelic or Swedish.
One of the highlights of the day was when the senior pupils got to meet and talk to some languages students about their own learning experiences and especially their study abroad time: the students spoke passionately about their subjects and their time spent embracing a different culture. The day was a great example of partnership work between the University and its community with hopefully more to come.