Business Language Champions

Bouygues UK has a long history of workforce diversity and currently employs over 38 different nationalities within the UK. Firm believers that foreign language skills broaden the educational, business and cultural opportunities available to young people, the company has signed up to the National Centre for Languages' (CILTs) Business Language Champion Programme to support the organisation's aim to ‘inject new momentum into improving our country's record in languages'.

The programme involves working in partnership with organisations from the business community to create fun and informal workshops in schools to demonstrate the advantages that speaking different languages can bring to the workplace. By using interactive quizzes, videos and games, Bouygues has strived to highlight the importance of continuing languages at school and how this can assist a number of career paths.

To date, Bouygues UK has delivered the Business Language Champions programme in the London boroughs of Brent, Westminster and Tower Hamlets. Taking this one step further, students in Brent and Tower Hamlets were invited to Bouygues UK's head office to give a presentation in French following the initial programme workshop. This not only improved the pupils' technical understanding of a different language, it also gave them experience of how language can be used in a range of different environments.

Since the Business Language Champions programme was initiated, many schools have seen a considerable increase in the number of students opting to study foreign languages, supporting CILTs aim to ‘improve our country's record in languages' and expanding students' horizons on the career opportunities available to them as a result.