Students made-up with Doctor Who experience

A group of students from Coleg y Cymoedd inspired their tutor to win a prize in a national bilingual competition, with the work they produced to teach Chinese visitors about Wales.

A Level 3 Business class at the Ystrad Mynach campus created a ‘What makes Wales great’ powerpoint presentation that they delivered to Chinese students and teachers visiting from the city of Chongqing. Inspired by their work, tutor Al Koursaros entered one of the slides into the Welsh bilingual Sgiliath competition to become a prize winner.

The prize of a piece modern Welsh language art was presented to Al Koursaros by the college Bilingual Champion and the success is being shared with the class. The learners have been congratulated by several members of college staff including the Principal Judith Evans. The winning photo has also been gaining extra exposure on display on the Sgiliaith website.

The aim of the competition was to capture a photograph representing the Welsh language, bilingualism, or Wales and ‘Welshness’ in the Further Education or Work Based Learning sector, along with a short description or slogan explaining the photo.

Alison Jones, Bilingual Champion at Ystrad Mynach said: “The aim of the Sgiliaith competition was to promote Wales/Welsh/bilingualism and Al and the learners did that very well to a specific target audience. The learners do work on ‘Wales and the world’ in Baccalaureate but this was the real deal!”

Winning tutor Al Koursaros said: “Our learners really enjoyed hosting the visiting Chinese students. They were keen to take part in the cultural exchange programme and partnership of learning that our college is participating in with Chongqing city in China. It was interesting to see how well they interacted with their fellow Chinese students and within a short while our learners were learning Chinese as well as teaching Welsh to their new Chinese friends. It is fantastic that their work is being acknowledged not just by the college but nationally as a result of winning a prize in the Sgiliath competition.”

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