The b small Young Language Learner of the Year Award
Next week, on March 11th, independent children’s publisher b small publishing and educational magazine Primary Teacher Update, along with specialist language resource retailer Little Linguist, will be launching The b small Young Language Learner of the Year Award 2014. The award has been designed to encourage teachers, parents and carers to introduce their children to foreign languages in a creative way and to help them develop a passion for language learning – especially significant this year with the introduction of mandatory modern foreign language learning for Key Stage 2 children from September.
The award was first stablished in 2013 with an enthusiastic reaction from teachers, parents and children themselves. Many teachers used the award as a classroom resource to provide an on-going engaging and creative activity for all levels in their foreign language teaching. The quality of entries reflected the ambition and imagination of the young language learners.
“I really enjoyed having the privilege of being a judge and reading the wonderful stories. The stories were clever and appealing, and the illustrations were just right. Each entrant deserves congratulations for the high quality of work, and the overall winners show such talent that I can’t wait to read the stories they will go on to write in the future.”- Catherine Cheater, Award judge, author and foreign language educational consultant
Due to its success and the positive reaction, the award will become an annual competition with a new name to reflect this. 2014 will also see the introduction of Mandarin, with new judge Liming Guo Barrett, Head of Mandarin Chinese at Hampton School, alongside existing languages French, Spanish, German and Italian.
Children will be provided with a story template and invited to complete their own foreign language book, in the modern language of their choice, with their own words and pictures to accompany their story. The award not only develops language skills but also encourages fun through storytelling.
The Award winners will become published authors with b small publishing making the winning story entry available for free on their website as a PDF e-book. They will also win £100 worth of b small language learning books.
The full public launch will be on March 11th. Closing date for entries is 1st June, with the winner annopunced 1st July.