School pupils explore languages at York outreach day

Posted on Wednesday 17 June 2026

The Department of Language and Linguistic Science welcomed 80 pupils and their teachers for an outreach event on 10 June 2026. The day was organised by the department's Outreach Team, made up of Dan Li, Géraldine Enjelvin and Tamar Keren-Portnoy, and was designed to showcase the university experience and the value of studying languages.

In the morning, pupils took part in interactive workshops in English Language and Linguistics, French, German and Spanish, run respectively by James Tompkinson, Angela O'Flaherty, Ulrike Wray and Lorena Lopez. Monika Schmid then delivered a taster lecture on "6 myths about language learning".

After lunch, pupils chose between taster sessions in Arabic with Ahmed Khaleel and Chinese with Dan Li. Three student ambassadors, Lola, Teddy and Zaac, brought the day to a close with presentations about their own experiences as students, followed by a question and answer session.

Feedback from the day was strongly positive. Every pupil who responded said they enjoyed both the morning workshops and the afternoon taster sessions, and all rated the event positively overall. All the responding teachers felt the taster sessions were beneficial for their pupils, that the content suited the age group, and that the day was likely to have a positive impact on attitudes to languages, English language and linguistics. 86% of responding teachers also felt the event was likely to increase their pupils' motivation to go to university.