“I speak in Bengali, and Italian a bit. Oh, English… I forgot English!”
It’s 2019. Over 300 languages are spoken by London’s children, yet language learning is in decline, and the Prime Minister laments that “English is not spoken by some people as their first language”.
What does it feel like growing up in a multilingual environment when English fluency is increasingly equated with the right to belong?
Following an arts residency at Gearies Primary School, Neela Doležalová’s new play explores multilingualism in contemporary Britain. Drawn from recordings with students, teachers and families, and music composition by Richard Melkonian, ‘At Home I Speak’ will enchant and provoke. Immerse yourself in the corridors of this East London school, where grandmas’ voices sing from the tannoy, and their children have plenty of stories to tell.
Includes a post-show panel discussion on attitudes to multilingualism with Malachi McIntosh, Godela Weiss-Sussex, Naomi Wells, and Amina Yaqin.
This event is part of the Being Human festival, the UK’s only national festival of the humanities, taking place 14–23 November. Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, in partnership with the Arts & Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. The 2019 festival is themed around ‘Discoveries & Secrets’.
‘At Home I Speak’ is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through the Arts Council England. It is also supported by the Institute of Modern Languages Research and The Open World Research Initiative.
Creative partners include Gearies Primary School and Wasafiri Magazine.
Being Human Festival Website / BeingHumanFest Instagram / The Space Between Website / Modern Languages Website
