Local school pupils from Trowbridge, Chippenham and Midsomer Norton had a go at performing French pop last week, in a three-day language workshop at the University of Bath (1-3 July). The singing session was led by Musical Director Jo Sercombe, who appeared on BBC 1’s Last Choir Standing as director of the University’s Gospel Choir called Lifted.
(Media-Newswire.com) - Local school pupils from Trowbridge, Chippenham and Midsomer Norton had a go at performing French pop last week, in a three-day language workshop at the University of Bath ( 1-3 July ).
The singing session was led by Musical Director Jo Sercombe, who appeared on BBC 1’s Last Choir Standing as director of the University’s Gospel Choir called Lifted.
The song by French pop star Zazie was used as a springboard to learn new vocabulary and grammar and talk about their musical tastes. The Year 11 students used the video of Je suis un homme to write their own storyline in French before learning the real lyrics and brushing up their pronunciation ready for the performance.
The musical event was part of a government sponsored programme, called Routes into Languages, which aims to inspire and encourage young people to study languages at University.
The University also ran a one-day event for year 12 students learning Spanish, French and German the previous week, which gave pupils the chance to try languages for the first time including Japanese, Arabic and Italian.
Jo Sercombe, who led the singing workshop, said: “The workshop was a wonderful opportunity for the students to get out of the classroom and do something different with their language skills. They had clearly worked very hard on the lyrics and coming together to perform it gave them a real purpose and sense of achievement. We had a lot of fun.”
The event was organised by the University’s Foreign Languages Centre in the Department of European Studies & Modern Languages. Isabella Stefanutti, Director of Community Courses and coordinator of these events, said: “The school students have had the chance to find out what it’s like to be a language student at University. They’ve learned about the exciting career prospects that would be open to them as language graduates and that the European Union desperately needs more interpreters and translators who have English as their native language.”
Jo Sercombe was Head of Music for ICIA ( Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts ) at the University before moving on to develop her freelance career as a singer and Musical Director, specialising in community music projects and vocal practice. She now directs three choirs in Bath and travels all over the UK running accessible singing workshops.
The University of Bath is a member of the South West Consortium for the government funded Routes in Languages project and is involved with a number of initiatives designed to encourage school students to take up languages at University.
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