Author: Sheila Gallacher, SCILT
The Mother Tongue Other Tongue (MTOT) competition has been running in Scotland since 2014, offering young linguists from P1 to S6 the opportunity to ‘find their voice’ through poetry and to be creative with their language skills, whether in a language spoken at home with their families or a language learned at school or independently.
MTOT 2022-23 launched on National Poetry Day on 6 October, and we received a record number of entries with over 140 in 31 different languages!
This year, the plight of so many displaced Ukrainian families who have relocated to Scotland led us to partnering with colleagues in the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain (AUGB) who kindly offered to sponsor a special prize for entries in Ukrainian languages.
Entries demonstrated Scotland’s young linguists’ ability to play with language and evoked a wide range of emotions ensuring our judging panel of experts from the universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Strathclyde had an extremely difficult task to select their final shortlist.
The online award ceremony took place on International Mother Language Day on 21 February, and we were delighted to be joined by shortlisted nominees, their teachers and invited guests. This year’s event gained support from poet, writer and influencer Len Pennie, herself a language graduate, who opened proceedings with a tribute to the pupils for embracing poetry to use their language skills creatively.
The winning and highly commended poems were announced and showcased, with all receiving awards of certificates and book tokens. You can find videos featuring all of our shortlisted poems on our website. The winners can also have their poems published on the Children’s Poetry Archive (part of the UK National Poetry Archive), and feature in a special episode of the international Kids' Poetry Club podcast.
Mother Tongue Other Tongue never fails to inspire and move us. Once again, we are humbled by the depth of talent in Scotland’s schools. Our thanks to all the teachers and pupils who supported this year’s competition. Keep writing and finding your voice!