Press Release

Sir Trevor McDonald to present language awards at Scottish Parliament

19 September 2006

Winners of this year’s European Award for Languages are to celebrate their achievement at the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh. The prize-giving ceremony will take place in the Debating Chamber at Holyrood on the European Day of Languages, 26 September and will be hosted by Presiding Officer, the Rt Hon George Reid MSP.

The Award, which marks the twelve winning language projects from the UK as among the best in Europe, recognises excellence, innovation and the ability to serve as an inspiration to others. The awards will be presented by Sir Trevor McDonald, patron of CILT, the National Centre for Languages, which co-ordinates the Award in the UK.

The ceremony will incorporate inputs from two of the winning projects. Guests will witness a multilingual debate on the importance of language skills with interpretation from undergraduates at Heriot-Watt University. In addition, two students from Aveling Park School, London will give short taster sessions to the audience in their home languages – Turkish and Amharic.

Isabella Moore, Director of CILT, the National Centre for Languages said, ‘This is a unique opportunity for our winners, who fully deserve to enjoy the prestige of a ceremony in a venue as important as the Scottish Parliament. I’m sure it will be a day they never forget.’

The public gallery will be open to visitors wishing to enjoy the ceremony and a number of headsets will also be provided for the multilingual debate.

Members of the media wishing to attend the event should contact the Scottish Parliament’s Media Relations Office to request accreditation to the event. Contact Kathleen Pringle on 0131 348 6852 or e-mail media.relations@scottish.parliament.uk. Accreditation requests must be received no later than 10am 25 September.