Language and Culture Workshops are aimed at developing transferable skills in the domains of enterprise and engagement. Students are encouraged to work on their own projects in groups and they get involved in all aspects of project realisation, such as planning, organisation, presentation, leadership, team work, and decision-making.

The workshops are particularly envisaged as a platform for enhancing employability prospects of students.  They are not assessed in terms of grades but each student is awarded a participation certificate showcasing the specific skills acquired as well as personal achievements, responsibilities and individual contribution to the project as a whole, which provides the student with both practical examples and evidence in writing that can be used to demonstrate qualifications in job applications.

Here is information on just some of the projects our students have been working on recently:

"Our group planned and delivered a Christmas themed French workshop to the children at UEA Nursery.  Overall we really enjoyed the session, got encouraging feedback from the staff at the nursery and have developed skills such as communicating with children instead of our peers, and working as a team to successfully organise an event." - Romy, LCS first-year 2011-12

"Last Semester I was involved in a workshop, in which we were able to create a podcast on French regional accents and dialects, which was a lot of fun." Alex, LCS first-year 2011-12
Listen to the podcast.

"I'm a first year in Spanish and as a part of our course we participate in a workshop, every Friday, to work on creative projects related to our areas of interest and study. Last semester my group created a Spanish quiz and hosted it in the Hive at UEA for the students and also at the Forum, as part of the Norwich City of Interculture. This semester, my group has created a blog about political music in Latin America, Spain and the UK." – George, LCS first-year 2011-12
Read the blog.

"We planned a guided tour of Norwich for a group of French students aged 11-15. We got to do research on the city we are living in and being in contact with native French people was a great opportunity to challenge and test our language skills." Oriana, LCS first-year 2011-12

"My group and I visited a primary school where we created a range of activities based around French Easter traditions in order to teach them some basic French vocabulary. We had a treasure hunt, a Easter egg guess-who and an Easter song, it was great fun and very fulfilling." Laura, LCS first-year 2011-12

"The Workshops were a chance to do something that we were really interested in, that hadn't yet been touched on in lectures or wasn't part of the curriculum. Our blog puts all the little historic details about French and English food in one place, whilst simultaneously being a delicious cookery book. We hope you like it." Hannah, LCS first-year 2011-12
Read the blog.

"Our group organised a slam poetry evening at the very hip and quirky Norwich venue The Workshop. We utilised the wide and varied organisational and performance skills of a variety of students. The night was a sold-out hit. A very memorable evening." Keith, LCS first-year 2011-12

"In a close group of fellow students, of whom I now consider close friends, we created a programme for the annual French theatre production. I can't wait to apply what I have learnt this year to my future studies. No doubt, it will come in useful." Jamie, LCS first-year 2011-12
See the programme we created.

"We decided to create a leaflet comparing Dijon and Colman's mustards, for those products are very typical of each country and yet rather different. We translated it from English to French so it would be really intercultural and useful for our studies, but we also learnt a lot about how to contact the managers of several companies to promote our work and obtain the necessary authorizations to create it and share it in different places." Lenaig, third-year visiting student 2011-12
See the leaflet we created.

"We created a cookery book whilst undertaking a cultural workshop in LCS. We thought of an "International Cookbook" as this was a way to bring together a wide range of culture from around the world. We researched the history of each recipe in the book and then prepared each meal. It was a fun experience which we thoroughly enjoyed." Steven, LCS First-year 2011-12
See the cookbook we created.

"Our group decided to create a blog, comparing political music from Spain, Latin America and the U.K as we all had musical interests (yet weren't brave enough to put on some kind of performance!) and wanted to examine the idea of music as a vehicle to express political concerns, particularly in Latin American countries, where historically, one has to be so careful with how you express yourself. With this in mind, we decided to compare how the lyrics and themes differ from songs from said countries and which issues they address and how. We also were able to practice our translation skills by showing song lyrics in both languages. Our reason for choosing to put this in the form of a blog is so that it would be easily accessible to anyone who was interested, it is a current form of expressing ideas and there are similar blogs that already exist and therefore it could be found be someone who was searching for political music. We thought that our blog was particularly pertinent for our year group, as we were all involved in a class about Latin American culture, where information about music would be useful to us and our classmates for research for essays and presentations. Our blog was successful; aesthetically pleasing and receiving hits from around the globe, including Spain, Germany and Russia, with very little publicity on our part." Hannah, LCS first-year 2011-12
Read the blog