The Mother Tongue Other Tongue (MTOT) competition has been running in Scotland since 2014, offering young linguists from P1-P6 across Scotland 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.
Initially the competition format focused on the written word with winning poems featuring in a printed anthology. Since the global pandemic dictated new digital ways of working for teachers and pupils around the country, a natural evolution was for the competition focus to shift to the spoken word to reflect this change.
SCILT was delighted to host the Mother Tongue Other Tongue (MTOT) multilingual poetry competition once again for pupils in Scotland during session 2022-23.
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.
SCILT received several entries from young Ukrainian refugees displaced by the war in Ukraine. We wanted the world to be able to access these wonderfully creative and emotive pieces of writing. Along with our partners at the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain (AUGB) Glasgow branch, which serves as an information and support hub for Ukrainian refugees, we created an online exhibition. Launched as part of Refugee Week Scotland 2023, the "Voices of Hope" exhibition aspires to raise awareness of the experiences, sorrows, hopes and dreams of the children whose poems are showcased here. We hope that it will provide a lingering sense of solace and hope for refugee communities, Ukrainian or otherwise, and offer their peers the chance to understand what their new friends are experiencing. The online exhibition launched at the Ramshorn building on Wednesday 21 June 2023 and can be viewed now on our "Voices of Hope" exhibition webpage.
Not only did we receive a significant number of entries from speakers of Ukrainian languages, but a record number of entries in Mother Tongue Other Tongue's history, with over 140 in 31 different 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 Strathclyde, Glasgow and Edinburgh had an extremely difficult task to select their final shortlist.
We were joined by our shortlisted nominees, their teachers and invited guests at an online awards ceremony held to coincide with International Mother Language Day on Tuesday 21 February. 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 at our online event, with all receiving awards of certificates and book tokens. 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. See the prizes section below for more information.
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!