A new cookery competition saw almost 50 school children from across Scotland attend City of Glasgow College to test their culinary and language skills.
The LinguaChef competition is a partnership between Scotland’s flagship college and SCILT (Scotland’s National Centre for Languages).
It brings together languages and food; challenging primary and secondary school pupils to create an international main dish from a country whose language they are learning in school, or which is spoken at home.
May Donald, Curriculum Head for Food at City of Glasgow College, oversaw the competition and said:
“I jumped at the chance for our college to be part of this new and exciting competition and look forward to being involved again in the future. We are used to hosting high profile events but this was one with a twist given the widely differing age ranges of the competitors.
“The contest also offered us an ideal opportunity to engage with potential future students as those taking part got to see round our incredible facilities at City campus, while some of our own students assisted on the day which provided a great learning experience for them.”
Angela de Britos, SCILT at Strathclyde University, said:
“LinguaChef is a fantastic way of showcasing both the culinary and linguistic skills of pupils in primary and secondary schools across Scotland. We see this as an opportunity to have fun with food and languages whilst honing other important skills such as team-work, communication and IT. This is another great example of the cross- sector work going on in the languages community in Scottish schools, colleges and universities and we are thrilled to be working with our colleagues from City of Glasgow College in this initiative.”
Pupils from Marr College in Ayrshire who won the S1-S3 category said:
“It was really fun and I’d definitely do it again. I feel like I learned a lot of skills in cooking, languages and working with my team.” Their teacher added: “This was a fantastic opportunity for the pupils to research the history and background of a dish, work together and learn new vocabulary in the target language.”
Margaret Aitken, Curriculum Head, Languages said:
“We are delighted to work with SCILT to promote language learning and especially in a vocational context. It was so pleasing to see the enthusiasm of the pupils and the high standard of entries”.
The recipe for the main dish, including ingredients and instructions, were given both in the language of the chosen country and in English. Three finalists from each of the age categories were selected to attend Grand Finale where they had the chance to prepare, cook and present their dish to the professional chefs and judges at City of Glasgow College.
The pupils got the chance to discuss their dish with the judges (mainly in English but with bonus points for use of target language too) and decorate their presentation table with artefacts representing the country and culture.
