Last Wednesday, MLC’s Jordi Sánchez Carrión attended the Mother Tongue Other Tongue event, organized by Routes into Languages and held at Manchester Metropolitan University. In today’s blog, Jordi tells us a little about the event.
Mother Tongue Other Tongue is a national project led by none other than Poet Laureate Dame Carol Ann Duffy, who holds the position of Director of the Manchester Writing School at MMU. The idea was originally co-developed by the Faculty of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at MMU and Routes into Languages North West. In 2017, the project is being rolled out nationally as this year’s Laureate Education Project, with regional events and competitions taking place throughout the year.
In last week’s poetry competition, in which a total of 20 languages were used, the showcase of poems by school pupils from the North West was followed by a prize-giving ceremony. Prizes were handed out by keynote speaker Annie Zaidi, winner of the Hellen Rollason Award for Inspiration and the Sky Sports Women Award.
The event was a real success, with an attendance of around 190 cheerful pupils. The University of Liverpool is part of the Routes in Languages North West consortium and actively helps to promote the importance of teaching languages in schools and universities.