Our Languages – a consortium which promoting community languages learning through partnerships between complementary and mainstream schools – is running an e-conference for young people to celebrate Who Do We Think We Are? Week (22nd to 27th June).

The aim of Who Do We Think We Are? Week is to get young people to think about their identity and community. It is extremely relevant to one of the core themes behind Our Languages, which is to promote the role of community languages in working towards a greater sense of social cohesion.

The Our Languages e-conference will be open to all young learners at primary, secondary or sixth form level. Pupils taking part will be asked to consider six questions, and participate in a guided online discussion with young people from a diverse range of educational and ethnic backgrounds. Some of these questions will be based on identity (How is your identity different from that of your grandparents?) whilst others will be more language-focussed (If you were famous, how would you use your languages to make the world a better place?).

The idea is to give pupils a greater understanding of the different communities to which they belong. A core theme of Our Languages is to make explicit the link between language and identity, developing a sense of global citizenship – which is exactly what this online discussion will help cement. (19/06/09)