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Cowley Team Up With Saints To Improve MFL Stats

25th Feb 2010, 11:01am

The 2009 GCSE results showed that only 25 per cent of boys taking exams in the UK passed a Modern Foreign Language writes Angus Leith, sixth form pupil at Cowley Language College.

 

Cowley Language College are trying to buck this trend by giving all pupils the opportunity to take an MFL and employ innovative techniques to increase boy’s motivation to achieve in this subject.

 

The college is currently working in collaboration with the Saints deliver a cross curricular project in PE, Languages and Media Studies. The culmination of this project is a rugby tour to France this March. For the Year 9 boys going on this tour it is the perfect way to prepare themselves for their upcoming GCSE course in year 10.

 

The tour itinerary includes playing two matches testing themselves against the best the French have to offer. The boys will also get the chance to train with the Catalan Dragons and visit a French school and test their language skills.

 

Saints have given their seal of approval for the French course that is being delivered to the boys during extra lunch time sessions and it will act as a pilot scheme in order to help future Cowley travels to France's south coast.

 

During the lessons the team have learned rugby league words and phrases to help them interpret the referee and communicate with locals whilst they are on tour.

 

Saints have been very supportive of the rugby tour helping them raise money by donating a signed ball and allowing the tour party to do a bucket collection at Mike Bennett’s testimonial match. Everyone involved in the tour has been fundraising and have achieved over £1000 towards the cost of the tour.

 

For the first time Cowley will be taking a media team with them on tour to document the trip. Before they leave for France, they will receive some invaluable advice from the former Cowley teacher and BBC commentator, Ray French.

 

The media team will be responsible for filming the matches, writing match reports and doing a daily blog from Carcassonne and Perpignan. They will also be doing a live report on BBC radio Merseyside during the Ray French and Alan Rooney rugby broadcast.

 

On returning the media team will produce a bilingual DVD of the tour in order to show future tour teams the benefits of learning a language and act as a study aid for classes learning French.

 

This tour will be an annual event and will be a valuable experience which will lead to an improvement in MFL, rugby and media skills for all the students involved.

 

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Comments

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• Buffer Knox says:
  The lad on the right looks a bit big for a school boy
• Saintsuzi says:
  Got a young looking face though - might get away with it!!!!!!!
• Richard Cheetham says:
  This looks like an excellent project that should be educational and fun. I was at Cowley years ago when we only played union and Ray French returned from university to teach. Glad to see that League is now the game of choice and that Saints have such a productive link with the school.