Felsted’s Language Ambassador scheme has got off to a busy and exciting start this year. Run by Routes into Languages out of Cambridge University, the programme offers a unique opportunity to a group of students to motivate younger learners and inspire a community, showing them that learning languages and discovering new cultures is exciting, beneficial and contributes to their future success.

We asked some of this year’s team the question : What does being a Language Ambassador mean to you?

To me being a Language Ambassador means to have the opportunity to share cultures, ideas, thoughts, memories and experiences with many other people. I believe that by learning about other cultures you grow as a person because your knowledge is enriched; being a Language Ambassador means to help others express themselves and talk about their experiences and their culture. Everybody has something to say about their culture and we can all learn from it. My “job” is to help and spread the message that we can learn so much from other people, especially the more people are different from you, the more amazing things you can learn. Being a Language Ambassador also means “unity”, because languages unite people.

Duchessa Paulatov

I love learning new languages. Throughout my life I’ve been learning 6 languages - German (because of my mum), Dutch (because of my dad), English (through school), Spanish (because I was born in Spain and lived there my whole life), French and Catalan (because of school). I am very enthusiastic and want to be fluent in the languages I learn and therefore I thought that being a language ambassador would be a perfect opportunity for me to practice by helping others to learn them. By teaching others about these languages, I become more confident and this is the key thing for being fluent.  I think that knowing many languages is one of the most important things nowadays because you become more open minded and you are much more active in the world. Everything nowadays turns around languages and therefore for me, being a language ambassador means helping others to become more open minded and helping myself to build up confidence and learn about new cultures and discover the world. 

Joelina Boogaard

Hello! My name is Anna and I am one of the language ambassadors in the school. To me, being a language ambassador is being able to help students who study Italian in the school and being able to practice Spanish myself. The majority of us have studied another language but maybe haven’t got the chance to further their studies or even practice. By being part of the team and by participating in the various activities, I have the chance to do that. Our job is to include the different linguistic minorities in the school and to promote the culture and customs of the many countries that are represented in the school. By being part of the team, I have the chance to meet people from around the school and participate in many extracurricular activities organized by MFL teachers and students. 

Anna Rodriguez