Language Show Live 2016

Calling all language enthusiasts, Londoners, students and teachers!

The Language Show Live in London has come to a close for 2016 and we had another successful and enjoyable time this year.

We met many lovely language enthusiasts at our stand (602) – which was right behind ‘The Piazza’ – the heart of the show – with many fun events happening throughout the long weekend.

We travelled down on Thursday afternoon with a car load of leaflets, posters and apples. Setting up our stand and meeting our neighbours for the next three days was great fun and I hope you agree that our stand looked great 🙂

We then checked in to a nearby hotel, ready for the next three days of fun.

Friday morning came around quickly and we started meeting many people who were interested in our competition – a free French programme in Nice! Here are a few posts from the lovely people we met:

These guys came and chatted to us about French and Spanish courses abroad. You can too! #lsl16 #applelanguages

A photo posted by @applelanguages on Oct 14, 2016 at 4:48am PDT

Jan the man came to see us to enter our competition in the last hour of the show. It’s not too late to come and see us to talk about your dream language course! #LSL16 #competition

A photo posted by @applelanguages on Oct 14, 2016 at 9:24am PDT

Sylvana’s Language Show Adventure

Sylvana is a Dutch student who is with us until the end of January and came to help out/see what was going on during Saturday, the busiest day! Below you will find her report from the show:

My journey to the Language show in London started very early in the morning. I had to catch the 8:42 train at Loughborough station, but to get there it’s a 20-25 minute walk. Well, actually it’s just 20 minutes, but I have an old habit of getting lost! Anyway, I arrived at the station around 8:30, so had plenty of time.

When the train arrived, I was lucky enough to get a nice place to sit. Unfortunately, when we got to Leicester – the only stop between Loughborough and London – I found out that you can reserve seats on the train, so a lovely older lady and I had to move to another seat. We chatted a little and before we know it, we were already in London!

St. Pancras to Olympia

The trip from the train station to the underground went better than expected, I had instructions to just follow the blue line (thanks Jon, they’re all blue ;-p) to Piccadilly. Before taking the tube, I first had to top up my oyster card, which wasn’t so hard to do, since we use pretty much the same system in the Netherlands! I was told to ‘Mind the Gap’ whilst getting on the tube and surprisingly got out at the right station, which was just a little walk to the Olympia.

For future reference, the easiest journey is to catch the underground from St. Pancras to Barons Court and then walk a few hundred metres North from there. There are maybe slightly quicker and more convenient journeys, but this one was the best for me!

Arriving at Olympia at approximately 11:00, I still had the whole day left to make the most of my time in London. I was a little shy to approach people at the beginning, but that was over soon when I realised how nice everyone was!

Working at the language show

I started to talk to many people, asking if they are interested in learning a language abroad, even answering as many questions as I could. When I didn’t have an answer I would refer them to Phillippa or Catherine – one of my experienced colleagues. We had a great spot very near to the piazza, so we got to see all the performances there.

On Saturday we were treated with some Japanese dancing and singing, Chinese performances including Kung Fu, and music performances with typical Chinese instruments. We even met a Paralympian Gold Medallist! A lot of lovely people were really interested in what we were offering and came to chat to us. I also had a little walk to see what was going on at the other stands. There was a wide range of exhibitors, even the army and a dog welfare charity were there!

In the early afternoon I went for lunch. At first I wasn’t really sure where to go to, since I don’t know my way in London. But I found a few benches, which felt like a mini park and decided to buy a sandwich from Tesco (because I knew it was around the corner). I sat having my lunch in the fresh London air. It was really nice, the sun was shining and there was a light breeze – perfect, as it was really warm in the Olympia building!

When I went back to the Language Show (without getting lost!) I started to hand out our cute, little apples to kids and families. Most of the kids I met really appreciated it! Who wouldn’t like a free apple? At the end of the day there was an awesome Latin American rhythms band. You felt like you just had to dance at their really nice music! To make it even better, after the band finished, we had a Salsa demonstration. Of course we volunteered!

My colleagues and I ended the day at a nice local pub, where we had a drink and something to eat. After that, I travelled back to Loughborough with Phillippa whilst Catherine stayed on to cover Sunday with our other colleague Monia. It all went pretty smoothly, except for the train delay, 🙁 I eventually arrived back at home, took a shower and just fell, exhausted, in to bed.

It was a great day and I can’t recommend it enough!

– Sylvana

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Pre Language Show info

We are looking forward to meeting all our old friends and making new ones 🙂

Make sure you stop by our stand and get one of your five-a-day!

How do you like them apples?

We will keep you posted on everything that is going to happen via our social media sites.

Come and follow us on:

• Facebook,
• Twitter
• and now Instagram!

Monia, Catherine, Sylvana and Phillippa are already looking forward to seeing you in London!

– The Apple Languages team