Pittards PLC -
Wadham School
Headquartered in Yeovil, Somerset, Pittards is world renowned for manufacturing and supplying high performance leather to leading brands of gloves, shoes, luxury leather goods and sports equipment. Amongst its clients it boasts Adidas, Lacoste and Louis Vuitton.
Decline in languages a challenge for business
Before engaging in the BLC pilot project, Mike Dodd, Director of Pittards plc was already aware of the decline in languages offered at schools and the lack of pupils enrolling on them. Being involved in the scheme offered Pittards the chance to help influence language teaching in schools by encouraging students to see it as key to their studies. Mike’s contact at Wadham School, Melanie Stanbra, reinforced Mike’s impression when he met her. Melanie confirmed that the students were suffering from a real lack of enthusiasm for language learning and didn’t seem to ‘see the need.’
Melanie and Mike met to organise how they were going to tackle this lack of motivation and help the Wadham School students to see just how vital languages are in the world of work. The students first met Mike when he visited the school to talk to a group of year 10 students about the way the company uses other languages to help them win overseas business. Mike showed the students examples of how their leather is used in different products, like racing gloves and shoes, and also examples of how these are marketed across the world in other languages.
Trip shows languages at work
The talk was closely followed by a trip to the Pittards factory by the students, on the 22nd July where they were able to see the leather process in action. They took part in an email exchange in French, and had the opportunity to observe Pittards staff dealing with enquiries from customers and suppliers in foreign languages.
In addition to this, the students have set up a project to produce a leaflet in French, based on information about one of the processes and practices at Pittards. This way the students had a focus to their visit and could draw more from the visit.
Real experience motivates learning
Melanie told us that: “Following the trip they are already more motivated and enthusiastic and have begun to appreciate the relevance and importance of languages in the world of work. Some very demotivated students have become actively engaged with the project which is great. It is not just the students who learnt more about the way the company communicates
“I have learnt more about how language knowledge plays an important role in business, i.e. in the repairing of machinery, sales abroad and publicity. By taking part in this project it has drawn a link between us. Sometimes school can seem detached from ‘reality’ and the real, business world. The BLC project has forged a link now.”
Mike Dodd said: "We have to import raw materials and equipment from 12 countries and we export to 30 countries so at almost any level in the company and at any stage of our operations languages can come in useful. Pittards has always valued language capability and we have a history of recruiting language graduates.
"Most companies now are getting more and more global in their operations. If, as a country, we become complacent about language teaching then in the future we will not be able to fill job vacancies which require language skills with our own students."
