Language Acquisition

Paul Hughes visits LAB

Multi-award winning motivational speaker who specialises in wowing students and teachers alike about the importance of learning languages and how!

Motivational speaker Paul Hughes joined us on January 26th to tell Y10 students the story about how learning languages has changed his life. In a wide ranging presentation which was thought provoking, engaging and honest, Paul talked about how languages have changed his life. He describes finding school uninspiring, and later explained he was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD as an adult. After leaving school, he joined the Royal Air Force and was soon recruited to the Special Forces.

Over the years he had to learn Russian, Arabic and Pashto, which he had to use “on operations”. He has travelled all over the world using his languages and has even interpreted for Barack Obama! Since leaving the RAF he has done a Masters degree in cognitive science and he described how the brain learns language in a way we could all understand. Paul is now a successful public speaker and CEO of a forensic science company. He is currently one of the forensic investigators on the Channel 4 HUNTED programme.

Year 10 students at LAB were completely absorbed throughout the presentation and many stayed behind to ask questions and advice on language learning!