Mother Tongue Other Tongue
North West England competition details
Mother Tongue Other Tongue North West England Competition
Please note that the information on this page relates to the 2024 North West competition which has now finished.
Details of the 2025 North West Mother Tongue Other Tongue competition will be posted here shortly. To receive updates on the 2025 competition, please join the Manchester Poetry Library’s mailing list.
Entries to the North West Mother Tongue Other Tongue competition are welcome from schools, libraries and other groups from across the UK and beyond.
Other regions across the UK, including East of England, North East England, Scotland and Wales have their own versions of Mother Tongue Other Tongue, with different deadlines.
Winning entries to the North West competition are celebrated by publication. In previous years, this has been in a series of anthologies, which are presented to the young people at a celebration event in July. All entrants will be sent information about this event, which, in 2024, will take place on Thursday 18 July. Schools entering the competition will be notified in June about this and about how their pupils’ work is to be celebrated this year.
How to enter the Mother Tongue Other Tongue North West competition
- Competition deadline Monday 3 June 2024
- Individual or collaborative entries welcome from pupils aged 8-18 (school years 4-13)
- Entries must be submitted via teacher or group leader (6 each for Mother Tongue or Other Tongue, for each of the 4 age categories (Primary / Yrs 7,8,9 / Yrs 10,11 / Yrs 12/13)
- Free to enter – all entries must be accompanied by a cover sheet (downloadable here). If you are submitting the work of pupils from more than one age category, you should adapt the cover sheet to include details of all the entries, or submit a separate cover sheet for each group.
Mother Tongue
- Any language welcome
- Poem, song or lullaby – can be an original piece, written in a mother tongue, or a piece that has been shared or remembered or taught
- Not judged on the piece submitted (or the translation, if provided) Each piece should be accompanied by a commentary, written in English and focusing on why the poem was chosen/written and what it means to them (no more than 100 words)
- NEW TO 2024 . In addition to the entry and, separate from the commentary, we invite pupils to say a little about their own language background and how they come to regard this as their ‘Mother Tongue’. This should be no more than 50-75 words. It will not be part of the judging process, some entrants chose to do this last year and it was extremely interesting to find out more about the languages spoken and the stories behind them. We may do something extra with these language stories if we get enough.
Other Tongue
- Must be an original poem written in a language being learned in school
- Languages limited to those we can find someone to judge, so (French, Spanish, Italian, German, Urdu, Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Polish, Ukranian) – check with us if you are unsure
- Should be accompanied by a translation/explanation of the poem – not for judging but to give context and this might be used if a piece is selected for inclusion in the publication. Keep this relatively short, though there is no word limit for this as it will not appear in print, it just helps the judging process.
How we judge Mother Tongue Other Tongue entries
We do not pick an overall winner for the North West competition. Entries are judged, within their age categories and according to competition criteria, with a view to selecting the best to be published. So this is more of an editorial selection process, than a competition.
All entries are read by at least 3 judges, who select according to the following criteria:
Mother Tongue
- How well the commentary communicates an understanding of the poem, lullaby or song shared
- The individual story: how well the commentary explains the pupils’ reason for wanting to share (or write) the piece that has been submitted
- Passion: for the language, the idea behind the poem or song or the personal story being shared
- Quality of writing
Other Tongue
- Creative use of language in the poem (rhyme scheme, use of imagery, form etc)
- Accuracy of the language used
- The poem’s X-factor - sophistication of the idea, charm or originality of the idea
In scoring against the criteria, judges will take into account the age of the author(s) and make allowances for English as a second language. We are not looking for perfection, the process is about encouraging and celebrating the young writers and their languages and cultures.
Entries are usually judged on written content, though we welcome recorded entries (audio or visual) of the poem or song shared in either category, providing an accessible link can be shared. Any recorded entries need to be accompanied by a written commentary, taking into account the word count as laid out in the criteria. If these are selected for publication we would need to link via a QR code, so the quality of the film or audio submission may influence what can be included.
Sometimes, entries are beautifully illustrated and presented and, if scanned versions of these are submitted and the pieces are selected, we will try to feature original artwork in celebrating the work. This can work well for group entries. For Mother Tongue entries, a typed commentary must accompany the hand-written or illustrated piece. Please also include a typed version of any text.
Resources
Resources to support schools and other groups wishing to take part, including films, workshops, ppts and other useful links, including links to an offer made by Routes into Languages North West, specifically for North West schools, can be found here.
Promotional Materials
Finally, to help you to promote the competition in your school or centre, we have produced these free to download Posters and Flyers. Please enter details of your group or school co-ordinator so that pupils know who to approach. We do not accept entries from individuals, only group co-ordinators.