PUPILS from Our Lady's Primary, Stirling, are amongst the first to take part in the Language Linking, Global Thinking programme.

Myrtle Breckenridge, 17, from Glasgow, who has just left Shawlands Academy, will be travelling to Ghana in September to help teach English, science and maths at a junior secondary school and a primary school in the Volta region. As a volunteer with Project Trust she has already been given training in languages and teaching before she leaves for the year-long placement.

Under the partnership with Our Lady's, Ms Breckenbridge has already visited the school and will arrange video link-ups between pupils in Scotland and Ghana so they can share lessons. The pupils will also be set up as pen pals.

"I am really excited to be able to share my first-hand experiences of learning a language in Ghana with primary students. I hope this scheme will encourage some to want to learn languages in the future," she said.

"I didn't have anything like this available to me when I was in primary, and it is an amazing way to increase pupils' global awareness from a young age."

Ms Breckenridge will mainly be giving the Stirling pupils some lessons in Ghana's culture, and also teaching them a few words of a local dialect.

She said: "By learning the language of a community you are able to have a much deeper understanding of its culture. It is a mark of respect and willingness to learn towards the community you're living in, that you aren't going to live there but demand they speak in your language."

Project Trust is an educational charity specialising in overseas voluntary placements in 21 countries across Africa, Asia and the Americas.