Business Week 2009, sponsored by Language is Everything, came to a spectacular end on Friday at the Yorkshire International Business Convention in Bridlington. The all-star line-up of speakers included John Cleese, Dave Stewart and 'Matt' Pritchett, and Carolyn Burgess (our chief exec) gave a speech that touched on language, culture and her recent trip to the Victoria Climbié School in Côte d'Ivoire.
Language is Everything hosted two events on the Thursday, both of which were headlined by the irrepressible author and public speaker Tim Sanders. In the evening, the Language is Everything dinner took place in the magnificent 18th-century surroundings of Carlton Towers. But the focus was very much on the 21st century and beyond as leading experts from education, business and government took part in a debate on the future of communication.
On the Thursday afternoon, 'The Language is Everything Challenge' (see below) proved that learning a language isn't as difficult as most people think! Three courageous contestants — Tim Sanders, Fay Edwards from KCFM 99.8 and Jessica Goulden, a language student at Vermuyden School — received 20 minutes' professional coaching in a brand new language. They then called a 'real life' place overseas and found out what time it closed, without using any English.
"It was a fantastic event," said Oxana Cookson, one of our Russian linguists, who spent 20 minutes preparing Jessica for a call to the GUM Department Store in Moscow. "Jessica's task was twice as difficult because Russians use the 24-hour clock as well as the more informal 12-hour one. But Jessica managed to complete her task despite all the difficulties. She was very brave!"
You can have a look a the briefing sheet that Oxana put together for Jessica using the link below.