Two Modern Language learners at Solihull Sixth Form College took part in a Regional Journalism Challenge recently.
Inara Chowdhury (A level German) and Maryum Bahadur (A level French) represented the College at the event, which was called SCOOP! and was run by Business Language Champions for A level language learners. It gave the students the opportunity to utilise their language skills and get a taste of what it is like to work in the field of journalism.
The event started with a key-note speaker, Simon Hart, who studied French and Spanish and now lives in Spain, where he specialises in football journalism for UEFA and a number of British and Spanish newspapers. A competitive task followed, which saw learners creating a front page of a newspaper in the language they study in groups of 4 – 5 students.
Inara and Maryum worked with young people from other schools in the region to complete the task. They had to choose a name for the newspaper and a target audience, as well as having to negotiate with representatives from different companies (teaching staff and staff running the course) to get an advert that would be relevant to their target audience. Each group had to include a number of articles, several of which came through on their laptops as “Breaking News” during the morning. There were also some breaking news “briefings” given live by staff at different times. Finally, they had to include an article about the US elections and had to interview people (staff) to get opinions for their article.
In the afternoon, participants had to deliver a team presentation in the language they are studying, which was about their front page and explain how it related to their target audience. They also prepared a social media campaign to sell their newspaper.
Jane Weatherup, a Modern Languages teacher at the College, commented:
“Our learners thoroughly enjoyed the experience and they did very well. All the tasks were judged and Maryum’s team, who were working in French, won the prize.”
5 March 2023