On Friday 24th November, we welcomed into Wakefield Girls’ our eagerly anticipated Spanish, German and French native speakers who will be working in the Modern Foreign Languages Department as Foreign Language Assistants for the remainder of the academic year. They introduced themselves to the whole school community during our Friday assembly. 

Our Foreign Language Assistants provide one-to-one speaking practice with students during their language lessons. It is an opportunity for students to acclimatise to conversational speaking with native speakers. Our Language Assistants will give amendments on accent so students sound like true locals, and provide supplementary vocabulary that might arise when speaking to native speakers. 

Additionally, they will be running several weekly lunchtime language clubs. They will be providing ‘Language Beginner Classes’ in German, French and Spanish, and a ‘Culture Club’, exploring French, Spanish/Latin American and German/Austrian cultural diversity. 

Here is a snippet of their introductions: 

Isabel: ¡Hola! My name is Isabel. I am from Córdoba, in the south of Spain, and I am a Spanish Language Assistant. Before coming here, I worked for the summer in a hotel in Berlin, Germany, and before that, I was a teacher in Melilla, a Spanish city in the North of Africa, and an English teacher in a private academy in Córdoba… so this is all very new for me! I am looking forward to seeing as much of Great Britain as I can, as well as getting to know all of the Spanish language students. I’m loving the Spanish classes because they make me realise things about my own language which I had never considered before. ¡Hasta la vista!

Julia: Grüß euch! Ich bin Julia aus Österreich. Ich bin dieses Jahr die Deutsch-Sprachassistentin an der WGHS. Ich freue mich darauf, mit euch zu arbeiten! Bis bald! – Hi to all! I am Julia from Austria. I am your German Language Assistant at the WGHS this year. I am looking forward to working with you! See you soon!

Othilie: Hello, my name is Othilie. I am from Toulouse, a city situated in the south of France. There, I study English, didactic and pedagogy because I would like to be an English teacher. My job as a French assistant represents a great opportunity to improve my teaching skills. I cannot wait to share about French language and culture with the students and to participate in their education! 

To our new foreign language assistants, a warm Wakefield Girls’ welcome –  we are looking forward to working with you, learning as much as we can about your cultures and languages and enjoying the months we are going to spend together.

Ms C Donau-Green, Head of MFL