Pupils at Gosford Hill School, in Kidlington, applied the principles of speed dating to language learning to mark the eighth European Day of Languages. Scores of students gathered in the school gym to teach one another more than a dozen different languages.

Each pair had a few minutes to swap a handful of words before the whistle blew and Portuguese became Mandarin and then Turkish. The lunchtime event marked the end of a series of activities held at the school.

Pupils took part in a 'spellathon' in French, German and Spanish, an international food tasting event — also held in the gym — and watched foreign films.

Sandy Williams, head of modern foreign languages, said the speed language learning session had been a great success. She said: "It was wonderful to see the students teaching one another and making new friends. It was a no-pressure learning experience and the pupils enjoyed themselves."

Mrs Williams said a recent survey showed 19 languages were spoken at the school: English, French, German, Spanish, Punjabi, Turkish, Gujarati, Telugu (spoken in India), Polish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Korean, Romanian, Croatian, Swahili and Japanese.

She said: "We wanted to raise the profile of languages in the school and we had a really positive response from students and teachers."

Kevin Njoroge, 12, of Kidlington, said he enjoyed teaching Swahili, but added: "It was quite tough. I had to repeat myself lots."

Karen Fung, 14, also of Kidlington — who is studying English, French, German and Spanish — added: "I think it's difficult for people to learn Cantonese. European languages use an alphabet, but we use characters."

Languages teacher Sue Eglinton said: "It was interesting from a teacher's point of view to see children teaching — some pupils who are really quite quiet in class came out of themselves.

"The food tasting was also great. We had some of our Polish students cooking apple pies — they were delicious."

Headteacher Dr Stephen Bizley applauded the modern foreign languages department for organising the week-long festival, which finished on Friday.

He said: "It's been an excellent week — fun, full of variety and a great celebration of our cultural diversity and students' talents."

Half of British adults have forgotten the languages they learned at school, according to a new survey.

The poll — commissioned by language software specialist Rosetta Stone — found that more people had kept up with sport and friends made at school than carried on learning the languages they were taught. But 52 per cent said languages were important to a career.