On the 28th of May, SCILT welcomed young people from Glasgow schools to take part in the launch of the Mother Tongue Other Tongue (MTOT) poetry competition at the University of Strathclyde.
The launch event began with a video showing pupils discussing their own language learning experiences and what the poetry competition will offer them.
See the promotional launch video below.
Our thanks go to pupils from St Andrew's school and to Education Scotland for their help in producing the film.
The rest of the afternoon comprised creative writing workshops led by three poets SCILT acquired through Live Literature Funding from the Scottish Book Trust.
In Tawona Sithole’s workshop, “Kunzwana”, young people from St Andrew’s High school, Carntyne, learned greetings in Shona language. The poet then led them in a series of creative movement activities and shared his own creative process to inspire learners in their own writing. “Tawona really helped us open up our minds and creativity for our poems”, commented one young person. Others were more engaged by the experience of speaking a new language “I learned more about languages which was fun!”
In “Windows”, a workshop led by the Edinburgh-based poet, Ken Cockburn, a group of primary EAL learners used the German poem Das Fenster (The Window) by Sarah Kirsh, as a model for writing poems about what they see from the windows of their own homes. The children had the choice to write their poems either in their Mother Tongue language, English or a mixture of both languages. The workshop was highly motivating and gave the children a chance to draw on their shared experience of having English as an additional language. The pupils, from St Maria Goretti, St Timothy’s and St Paul’s primaries in the east end of Glasgow, were delighted to hear the range of Mother Tongue Languages spoken by their peers.
S3 learners from the Glasgow Gaelic School, Sgoil Ghaidlig Ghlaschu, joined Marcas Mac An Tuair Neir, an Inverness-based poet, in his workshop “Developing new voices in Gaelic poetry”. The young people discussed a selection of Gaelic poems and used this discussion to write short poems
which drew on their own personal inspirations, from Scotland to the recent European elections.
Following the workshops, some of the young people shared their poems in front of an audience of their peers, teachers and delegates from the Diverse Teachers for Diverse Learners Conference which was taking place in the university. One accompanying teacher was moved by the increased confidence shown by one of her Polish speaking pupils saying “I was impressed - an emergent silent child standing up and reading a poem to many strangers… It was a superb day!”
The afternoon ended with a chance for the young people to leave their thoughts on the “Poet-tree”. This abounded with positive comments about creative writing and languages:
“I enjoyed hearing different languages and working together. It was lots of fun”
“Today was very fun and interesting. The session helped my knowledge of languages.”
“I think the workshop really helped me learn the true meaning of poetry.”
“I am very happy I participated in this. I feel very proud”
See all the photos taken at the event in our MTOT Launch Event album on Flickr.
Glasgow schools can register to take part in Mother Tongue Other Tongue from August 2014. For more information, please visit our MTOT webpage, or contact scilt@strath.ac.uk to subscribe to the SCILT e-bulletin for updates.