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Almost 50 pupils from St Margaret Mary’s Secondary School in Castlemilk took part in an innovative career’s event, organised by the school’s Modern Languages department.

Nine different contributors who have used languages to further their careers in a range of working environments gave short presentations to small groups of pupils, from a fluent Spanish speaker who has worked for Scottish Power’s international group of companies to translators working out of an office in Glasgow. The S3 and S4 pupils then had the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the talk.

Dr Alec Wersun, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Business Management at the Glasgow School for Business & Society, enthused about the event: “If each of us can influence just one young person in a small way, then that is a really positive outcome! In the process I enjoyed it as well.”

Modern Languages teacher Fiona Alexander, who organised the event in conjunction with employability and skills manager Irene Yuile, wanted the pupils to be aware of the possibilities of being able to speak a second language, beyond being able to order a meal on holiday.

She said: “Rather than simply being told that having a second language is good for your job prospects, being able to speak directly to the contributors of the career carousel let the pupils hear how useful a second language could be for their career.”

She added: “The feedback from the pupils was very encouraging and the contributors also seemed to have got a lot out of the event too.”

Michaela Jonathan, an S4 Pupil, who would like to study business in the future said: “I learned that a second language is very important in the business world. The event really opened my eyes to the different possibilities for learning a language.”

“It was very good to see so many people who had a second language or even more, and so I found it very encouraging.”