Celebrate Speaking

Who is it for?

• Language learners of school age and speakers of languages other than English as a mother tongue
• All schools, including community language schools
• School pupils of any age (submissions must be made by teachers)

When will it happen?

• The whole of February! From the 1^st to the 28^th 2025 across social media channels: Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.
• Upload your performance to Twitter or Instagram between 1 and 28 February 2025 (with 2 hashtags #CelebrateSpeaking and the language chosen (e.g. #French)

What is the activity?

Join the Language Hubs Celebrate Speaking festival during February, when your students can show off their language skills. This can be a language they are learning at school or one they speak in their community. It’s about sharing a love of language and celebrating the diversity of people in the UK who speak a language other than English.

This can be a solo or joint performance but should be no longer than 90 seconds in total. The participants will record themselves delivering their performance, however under-16 participants should use either PowerPoint slides/Bitmoji/other pictures or video imagery rather than showing their faces.

These performances will then be uploaded to Twitter or Instagram with the hashtags #CelebrateSpeaking and the language chosen (e.g. #French) by 28^th February 2025, following which our language partners will select a favourite performance (the British Council will select their favourite heritage/cultural impact performance).

Those chosen by the participating organisations will be invited to attend a live virtual celebration event in March 202, hosted by the British Council with a VIP guest, and either deliver their performance live, or permit a recording of their performance to be played to the attendees.

Language partners, including British Council, Association of Language Learning (ALL), Goethe Institut, Alliance Française, Confucius Institute and the Spanish Education Department, will select a favourite performance who will be invited to attend a live virtual celebration event in late March 2025, hosted by the British Council with a VIP guest. We would love to have the selected students perform live at this event, but you may choose to do a recording of their performance to be played to the attendees. 

Get inspiration from some entries from previous years by watching our short introduction video or watch a recording of the full events from 2022 and 2023.   Click here

It is important to note that the main ethos for this event is to practise a language that pupils enjoy learning in the classroom, or enjoy speaking in their community, and that they feel confident delivering a performance without reliance on notes – it is a celebration rather than a competition.

How do I get involved?

• Ask pupils to prepare a short poem, presentation, sketch, dialogue in the target language
• This can be a solo or joint performance but should be no longer than 90 seconds in total. Pupils need to record themselves delivering their performance, however under-16 participants should use either PowerPoint slides/Bitmoji/other pictures or video imagery rather than showing their faces.
• You then need to upload the performances from the school or teacher account will then be uploaded to Twitter or Instagram with the hashtags #CelebrateSpeaking and the language chosen (e.g. #French) between 1st and 28th February 2025.
• Remember to use the hashtag or we won’t be able to find your performance!

Further information and links?

• British Council Celebrate Speaking webpage
• Association of Language (ALL) Learning Newsletter
• @Schools_British on X (twitter) and @BritishCouncil on Instagram
• @ALL4languages
• Hashtag: #CelebrateSpeaking

Who is organising this?

Language Hubs have developed this opportunity and partners include British Council, the Association for Language Learning have worked with Goethe Institut, Alliance Française, Confucius Institute and the Spanish Education Department.