148 young people from 8 North East schools took part in motivational football themed workshops with Futbol Lingo’s Pierce Kiembi and Jake Butler, on 26th March at Sport Central, Northumbria University. The professional, multilingual football coaches inspired young people from across the region to think about how their home languages and languages they are learning at school can open up a world of opportunities, whether they want careers in the football sector or any career.
One of the highlights of our fifth annual Festival, schools and teachers participated from across the North East: Kenton School, Excelsior Academy, RGS and Newcastle School for Boys (Newcastle); Castle View Enterprise Academy (Sunderland); Seaham High School, Teesdale School and Sixth Form (Durham); and Cramlington Learning Village (Northumberland).
Multilingual Pierce was born in Africa and raised in Germany and the UK before winning a football scholarship at the University of Texas. Speaking French, Lingala, German, Spanish and English has helped him in his career in football. He established the Futbol Lingo App as a tool to help professional clubs with international players and then developed an education offer for schools, as well as working with professional football clubs. Jake is a professional coach, working at the highest level and speaks 6 languages. Two inspirational speakers to show young people the importance of being able to communicate across different languages and cultures.
Pierce and Jake demonstrated how it is not just players, managers, coaches and referees who benefit from being multilingual on and off the pitch, by being able to communicate with the team and connect with fans, but also the wide range of professionals who support the team – from physios, medics and psychologists, to communications and recruitment, to family liaison, education travel and logistics. Beyond the clubs, the agents, journalists, sponsors and media all benefit from people who can communicate across languages and cultures.
From the classroom to the pitch, young people put their language and communications skills into practice in language themed workshops.
With Jake, young people learned football terms in Spanish and footballing skills, competing and having to communicate to work effectively as a team (pictured above).
With Pierce, young people competed to host the World Cup in teams representing Spanish, French and German speaking countries on different continents. They had to find out about the countries and clubs answer questions in their country’s language to say why they should be the next host (pictured below).
We talked about how important languages are to the football industry and delivered role play sessions that catapulted the young people into the world of football to see how languages are used in real life scenarios. Pierce Kiembi, Futbol Lingo Founder
The morning session was filmed by Tyne Tees and featured on the ITV evening news, profiling the importance of motivating young people to improve their language skills as a means to expand their horizons and give them key skills to flourish in a multicultural and multilingual society.
Girls from Kenton School were interviewed and had positive things to say about what they had learned from the sessions:
I found them really interesting and engaging and it has really inspired me to focus on my language learning.
It’s made me see how important it is to be able to communicate with people who have English as their second language.
It was a good feeling seeing other people speaking other languages like me, because I only came (to the UK) five years ago and didn’t know English that well.
It is really important to inspire boys, who are less likely to take languages, to see where languages can take them and to motivate them to progress with their home languages, as well as those they learn at school.
A pupil from RGS spoke to Tyne Tees and said:
Most of the best players speak a second language and they are bilingual or even tri-lingual…it’s opened my eyes really.
It’s really exciting, especially when the number is dropping nationally of pupils taking GCSEs. It’s been lovely to see them get excited and work with other students from across the city as well. Esme Cawley, Spanish Teacher, Excelsior Academy
Pictured: Amy Sutton (Tyne Tees journalist) and Sarah Edgar (Newcastle City Council, School Effectiveness)
In an interview with Amy Sutton from Tyne Tees TV, Sarah Edgar, who is a key member of the Festival Steering Group and leads on supporting both English as an Additional Language and Foreign Language learning and teaching in Newcastle schools, said:
In our Newcastle schools, we have 40% of children from the global majority and about 30% speak other languages at home – so to tap into those languages is a super power is just brilliant!
Newcastle City Council has been one of the main supporters of the Festival since it started in 2021. It is both unique and the biggest event in the country. Every year, it inspires schools and young people in the North East and across the UK to value languages and giving them ways to develop their skills and interests and to express themselves.
Declan Baharini, CEO of International Newcastle and Co-ordinator of the Festival, said:
Our fifth annual Festival has engaged over 90,000 children young people in activities which inspire them to learn languages and embrace the multicultural and multilingual society we live in.
We deliver this free to schools with the support of local, regional, national and international partners and this year, with some core funding support from the North East Combined Authority.
Pierce and Jake have delivered inspirational sessions to young people across the region, both today in person and to over 5,000 in a webinar earlier this month as part of our 3-month long Festival. You can see the realisation in young people’s faces, when they understand just where languages can take you – for careers, for life, travel and friendships – they open up a world of opportunities!
Acknowledgements
- Thank you to all the pupils, teachers and schools who took part so enthusiastically in the Futbol Lingo workshops at Sport Central, Northumbria University.
- A special thank you to Pierce Kiembi and Jake Butler from Futbol Lingo, for delivering such incredibly inspiring sessions to young people in the North East for a second year, as part of our Festival.
- Thank you to Sarah Edgar (Newcastle City Council, School Effectiveness) and Declan Baharini (CEO of International Newcastle and Festival Co-ordinator) for developing and arranging the Futbol Lingo session and for helping out on the day to support Futbol Lingo and the schools taking part.
- We are grateful to the North East Combined Authority for providing funding for this event and for the co-ordination and communications elements of the Festival.
- Special thanks to the amazing team at Sport Central, Northumbria University for hosting the sessions for a second year. Phil Hunter, Daryl Streatham and Paul Coulthard, as well as all the other staff on duty on the day, made the event even more special for young people, for many of whom, it was their first time on a university campus – and they were definitely inspired.
- Thank you to all the film crews and journalists who came to document the day: Amy Sutton and the cameraman from Tyne Tees TV; Simon Rushworth and David Bootle from Allies Group Ltd, who are working with us on PR for the Festival; and David Broom and Athul Sabu from B7 video content agency, for their work in filming the event, which will be one of our Festival video case studies.
Further links and information
- In the professional realm, Futbol Lingo specialises in assisting players and coaches in bridging language barriers through our Football Language (FL) App. In the educational sphere, Futbol Lingo’s mission is to provide tailored, football-themed language learning experiences within schools, colleges and universities, with the aim of igniting a passion and inspiring a generation of linguists.
- Visit the Futbol Lingo website for schools services here
- Email the team at info@futbollingo.com and follow Futbol Lingo on social media: facebook, instagram, X (twitter), youtube and LinkedIn
- Click here for more information about other languages and careers webinars which took place in March and our Festival curated selection of Languages and Careers resources for schools.
- Follow the Festival on social media: X, instagram and facebook
This event was supported by:
This event was funded by the North East Combined Authority
