Radio Lingua Schools regularly supports foreign visits involving young people from Scottish schools. We are uniquely placed to provide technical expertise, enhancing visits with social media and interactive elements, and to design engaging activities for the learners involved.

Most recently 32 young people selected from across the country by Rotary International travelled to Strasbourg. There they met young people from 26 EU member states and took part in a debate in the hémicycle of the European Parliament. Working in conjunction with EP Projects, we designed the programme for the visit to maximise the learning experiences of the young people on the trip, and to provide an interactive blog used throughout the vist by friends, parents, classmates and teachers back home. This blog featured news updates in French and English and audio and video podcasts of the activities carried out in Strasbourg.

All students involved in the visit were in their final year of secondary school and were studying French at Advanced Higher level. Throughout the visit they were encouraged to use their French at every opportunity, and the programme of activities was carefully planned to allow the students to build their confidence in the language, working towards the Euroscola day.

One particularly popular activity was the Street Survey during which the students stopped passers-by in the streets of Strasbourg and asked them questions about various issues. In addition to being an excellent opportunity for the students to communicate with native speakers in a way they had never done before, this activity also helped the students to develop a deeper understanding of the opinions of people from other countries.

Part of Radio Lingua’s role in this particular visit was to prepare a video introduction to the survey for use in future visits. The students themselves planned the video and presented their advice to future participants in the streets where they had been carrying out the survey a few hours previously. This video can be seen below:

The highlight of the visit was the Euroscola day in the Parliament during which the students worked with their counterparts from the other countries involved and took part in a number of debates and discussions. Each delegation had to be presented to the Parliament, and our Scottish students did so with a suitable bagpipe accompaniment! The live blog ensured that this video was being shown in the schools of the participating students a few minutes after it had been filmed in Strasbourg.

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