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Pop-Up World of Languages comes to Belfast 2nd and 3rd November
Pop-Up World of Languages comes to Belfast 2nd and 3rd November
| 29/10/2019
Belfast will be hosting a ‘Pop-Up World of Languages’, the first pop-up museum of languages in the UK or Ireland. The museum is free and includes lots of interactive activities for children teenagers and adults. It will be running in the Accidental Theatre, 12-13 Shaftesbury Square, on Saturday 2 November (10 am – 5.30 pm) and Sunday 3 November (10 am – 5 pm).
The activities draw on the research from the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded ‘Multilingualism. Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies’ project (www.meits.org).
I am involved as a strand lead investigating Sociolinguistic perspectives on multilingualism: identity, diversity and social cohesion. The project includes four universities: Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Cambridge (the lead university) and the Universities of Edinburgh and Nottingham. The Pop-Up World of languages ran in Cambridge during the October half-term break, and we are delighted to bring the event to Northern Ireland.
I would encourage families to come along and enjoy the activities we have designed. You don’t need to know anything about languages to pay a visit and if you are already interested in languages, there is still plenty to learn about how languages work, how they can boost your brainpower and where they can take you. Children – and even adults – will have fun and learn a lot!
The World of Languages includes three zones:
Languages and me
Why should we bother to learn languages? You may be surprised to find out:
how learning a language can boost your brain power
how many languages you already know without even realising
where languages can take you in life
Languages around me
All you have to do is stop, look and listen! Here, you will explore:
different accents, and your reactions to them
translating the untranslatable… can it be done?
the many languages around us in our cities, towns and villages
Languages in the world
There are thousands of different languages in the world! Here, you will discover:
which languages are most spoken and which are in danger
whether some languages are trickier than others
the different sounds and writing systems languages use
The exhibition will continue to Edinburgh and Nottingham this year, with an appearance in London in March.
For venue details and to find out more click here. https://accidentaltheatre.co.uk/pop-up-world-of-languages
You can listen to my interview on BBC Radio Ulster 1st November regarding the Pop-up museum above.
