Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School and Pachacuti
Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, an 11-18 comprehensive school in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, have been working with Pachacuti, an Ashbourne-based contemporary fashion and accessories business built on the foundation of fair trade, as part of the Business Language Champions programme.
 
Carry Somers, founder of Pachacuti, visited Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School in February 2008 to talk to two Year 9 classes about the relevance of languages to business, prior to their options decisions.
'Pachacuti' means 'world upside down' in Quechua, one of the indigenous languages of Peru, so Carry began her presentation by explaining a little about the local languages in Latin American and asking students to guess how many languages are spoken in Peru.
The answer, by the way, is 103!
Carry also spoke to students about the ease of learning more languages once you have one under your belt and the fact that she, like so many other businesses, finds it difficult to locate employees with language skills:
"I currently employ 7 people in Ashbourne and I am really astonished, whenever I advertise a job vacancy, that very few people have language skills." She said.
The importance of language skills for exporting was covered in the presentations, as was the ability for languages to provide travel opportunities at work, as Carry recalls:
"Twice a year I get a free ticket to Peru, thanks to the Peruvian government. Every few years, I am unable to go on a trip and wish that I could pass on one of the free tickets to one of my employees, but without the necessary language skills they would be unable to communicate."
The presentations were well received and enjoyed by all and it seems that they had a big impact:
"I had a note back from one mother who said that her daughter had shown no interest in languages but, after my talk, was going to take a French GCSE in an after school class." Carry said.
It is hoped similar presentations and follow-up classroom work will take place later in the year to encourage more students to continue with their language studies.
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