Languages in the Community - Adult Language Classes

Train journeys can produce some very interesting results: from a chance conversation between two rather bored commuters on a train from central London has resulted in The Grey Coat Hospital running language classes for a large cohort of employees from TfL. Kate Ryan, our community co-ordinator last year, fell into conversation with a fellow commuter who turned out to be the manager of Waterloo station. When he discovered that Ms Ryan was a languages teacher, he said how he had been trying to find the funding to run language classes for staff from his station who, because of the Eurostar which was then arriving at Waterloo (now Kings Cross St Pancras), have to deal with tourists with little or no English. As a Language College, we, of course, have funds to run exactly these kinds of classes and coincidentally were at the time looking for adults from local businesses who might be interested in learning a foreign language in their lunch hour.

From this chance conversation, we were able to set up lunch time language classes in French, Spanish, German and Mandarin and have now recruited TfL employees from other stations who are keen to learn a language prior to the expected influx of tourists for the 2012 Olympics. The classes, which consist of both operational and managerial staff, also include employees from the SSAT. They will all leave at the end of the course with an ASSET languages qualification.