Making Literature Travel

Mother Tongue Other Tongue is a multilingual poetry competition that celebrates cultural diversity and the many languages currently spoken in schools in the UK. It is a national project, led by UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, Director of the Manchester Writing School at MMU.  The project is currently being rolled out nationally as this year’s Laureate Education Project, with regional events and competitions taking place throughout 2013.

Mother Tongue encourages children, who do not have English as a first language, or who speak a different language at home, to share a lullaby, poem or song from their Mother Tongue and to explain what it means to them.

Other Tongue encourages children learning another language to use that language creatively by writing a poem in that Other Tongue.