7 November 2022
Last week, 66 students and their teachers came together for the inaugural Business Language challenge, hosted by Abingdon School. The day was run by experts and industry volunteers from Business Language Champions who aim to ‘promote modern foreign languages and cultural cohesion by demonstrating to young students the importance of language skills in the workplace.’
After an inspiring keynote speech from a sales and marketing expert with broad language skills, students worked in mixed teams on a series of challenges in their target languages. Using either French, German or Spanish, they set to work to promote and sell a popular confectionary item. After initial icebreaker activities, they set to work on designing a trade stall, producing an advert and flyer as well as creating their version of the product, before testing their language skills with a real life phone call to a large supplier.
The afternoon saw students working together, sharing their ideas and drawing on their individual and group strengths, then finalising their designs and presenting their ideas to the industry experts. Initial feedback from staff and students showed that they enjoyed the opportunity to work with, and meet, new people as well as getting to be creative. They valued the support of the volunteer linguists who supported them through the day. One student even described the day as ‘wunderbar!’
