‘MFL Mentoring  – Modern Foreign Languages’

When Laura, Lucy and the team approached us about creating a video to showcase the work they’ve been doing over the years, we knew instantly that it would be something right up our street. Bilingualism is something important to us not just in our daily lives, but in our day to day as a bilingual video production company. Both Director Joe & producer Megan are Welsh speakers, but also have an avid interest in language learning – Joe learning Greek over the years, and Megan Spanish. Having an interest in multiple modern foreign languages and having the basics to converse in multiple languages opens up so many door, and we’ve experienced this first hand.

The team at MFL Mentoring wanted us to create a fun, vibrant bilingual video encapsulating the work they have been doing over the last 10 years but also the amazing work the mentors are doing on a weekly basis in schools across Wales. Below is the outcome! 

MFL Mentoring supports young people in Wales by providing free language mentoring, workshops, and learning resources for students and teachers. Their mission is to raise the number of students opting to study International Languages at GCSE and encourage a better local, national, and global understanding.

“As a languages student, I’m very passionate about sharing the experiences that are available as a result of languages”

Over the last 20 years, the number of GCSE International Languages students has fallen dramatically, from over 550,000 in 2004 to just over 370,000 in 2024. MFL Mentoring is here to improve attitudes towards international languages – they believe that multilingualism is a valuable skill which can help young people excel, as well as give them a great understanding of the globalising world.

“Speaking French, German, or Spanish can actually change their view on the world and give them greater opportunities”

The project has trained 1,000 university students to work with secondary schools in promoting this idea, with 100% of Wales’ Universities as partners and 80% of Wales’ secondary schools in participation. Mentors are paired with secondary schools to deliver mentoring sessions and engaging workshops, helping GCSE students see the value in International Languages and the opportunities it can bring them.

“The mentoring sessions have 100% helped me understand what I want to and can do in the future”

The final video we produced was presented at The Senedd in November 2024, which you can read about in this article!

Filmed over 3 days, the first day was filmed at the amazing new Centre for Student Life at Cardiff University, which was a light bright space where we could capture interviews and potraits shots with everyone involved. We then followed two MFL mentors to two schools – one filmed in Welsh in its entirety where mentor Naomi taught a lesson based around other cultures and food, and one in English where Callum taught vocabularly of various languages through using different sports as examples. Mentoring through modern foreign languages was fascinating to watch and such a fun and engaging way to teach. 

Below are some behind the scenes shots from the filming days: