BOXER Amir Khan is inviting youngsters to take part in a multi-lingual poetry competition.

Mother Tongue Other Tongue aims to encourage children who don’t speak English at home to celebrate their mother tongue, while at the same time providing an opportunity for native English speakers to learn a second language.

The competition, which is run by Manchester Metropolitan University and Routes Into Languages, takes the form of a series of regional competitions, which will be split into two parts.

Mother Tongue will see children who do not have English as a first language write about what a lullaby, poem or song in their native language means to them, while in the Other Tongue section, pupils will create an original poem in a second language that they are learning at school.

Amir said: “I would have loved to have entered a competition like this, because it would have given me the chance to learn a little bit more about my mother tongue.”

The competition was first thought up by the Poet Laureate, Dame Carol Ann Duffy, in 2013.

Entries are now open, and schools can find out more from www.mmu.ac.uk/mtot.