To promote language learning and celebrate the power of music to bring people together, Undergraduate students of the Department of Languages, Cultures and Film at the University of Liverpool worked with 16 primary schools across the Liverpool City Region to teach them children’s songs in a range of languages, including a song in Ukrainian.
The school choirs performed these songs at the міні Eurovision Festival Finale (міні means mini in Ukrainian) at the Tung Auditorium on Friday 28 April 2023.
Trained and supported by Resonate, the Music Education Hub for Liverpool, the University of Liverpool students helped develop Padlets, providing assistance with pronunciation and translation and distributed to schools across the city region to enable them to run their own міні Eurovision contests.
All 16 school choirs attended this live event and performed the foreign-language songs they learned. Students from the Department of Languages, Cultures and Film at UoL presented the event and commented on the performances. They recreated the Eurovision atmosphere by showcasing not only all the languages that can be learned at the University but also the diversity of languages spoken in the schools that took part, emphasising the diversity of the city region as a multi-lingual community. The міні Eurovision Festival Finale included a virtual workshop, developed with University of Liverpool’s partner, the Sumy University in Ukraine. Entertainment at the event featured performances by a Chinese-language children’s choir from St Nicholas Catholic Academy in Liverpool, and a Ukrainian choir led communal singing of a Ukrainian children’s song at the close of the event.
