To celebrate the European Day of Languages on 26th September we have asked schools in our region to let us know what plans they have to celebrate this exciting day. Here are some of the news items we got in reply. The top 2 schools with the best ideas will win one of the new Routes into Languages Board games:
Beverley High School
At Beverley High School they are celebrating the 26th in several ways…
- Posters have been created in 11 different languages (Estonian attached) and one will be displayed in each classroom around school. Teachers of all subjects are supporting the message of ‘multilingualism’ by using the poster to greet each class and to say goodbye! (Several teachers have approached to ask if they can use their own second / known language for this!)
- Stickers have been downloaded from the CILT website (‘hello’ in 30 world languages) in produced. Each student will be given one to wear on the school jumper for the day, and they will be encouraged to have a go at greeting each other in this ‘new’ language that day!
- A Fairtrade Languages Café will be run at break time, designed to encourage students to use their French or German (the 2 languages taught here) to order their hot chocolate.
- A reflective presentation will be delivered by all Form Tutors during Tutor Time, highlighting the meaning of multilingualism with examples of famous polyglots and also a young married couple who live locally and who, between them, speak around 10 different languages!
- The school canteen will be serving a themed menu designed by our Student Subject Leaders for Languages. It includes Hungarian goulash, pizza and black forest gateau.
Halifax High SChool
On the agenda the evening before the 26th is their famous Euro café which last year made the local press! Here the Language Ambassadors don false moustaches and professional aprons and wait upon our 150 plus staff, serving European delicacies and pastries in a choice of languages, prompt cards are available on tables for the lesser linguistic members of staff.
Now it’s Euro day! Upon entering the school all pupils will be greeted by a pop up graffiti wall of welcomes in many languages. Throughout their journey through the faculties of school pupils will be amazed and inspired by the pictures and stories of famous Europeans related to that Faculty whilst stepping into different time zones displayed on clocks around school.
What’s in store? A Euro breakky of course! All Year 7’s are invited to a traditional crepe breakfast, served in French by a real French Person!
So the work begins workshops are run throughout the day covering a selection of classes from the full school. Workshops include Capoeira, Flamenco Dancing and the creation of a foreign language DVD.
At tutor time classes will be taking part in a Languages Quiz with prizes attached. All staff will be badged up with their funky language badges. For those not at their tutor base, they will be in assembly watching the Euro News and being dazzled by the Euro performances of their peers. To top the day off pupils will leave to European music and Goodbyes in many languages… and then the staff will sit down for a well-earned Parisian coffee!
Language students from Leeds met are also going in to work with the students on the day and at lunch time all pupils have the chance to attend the Halifax High Kino, where euro popcorn will be avialable to accompany the viewing of an exciting, foreign language block buster!
Beverley Grammar School
At Beverley Grammar School they are doing a workshop with all of year7 to introdocue them to the importance of language learning with quizzes and general knowledge facts and also an opportunity to learn some new greetings in languages not taught at the school.
Wetherby High School
We launched European Day of Languages to the staff on Tuesday 18 September - this was done in Staff Briefing. The entire briefing from start to finish was held in foreign languages. It certainly got staff talking afterwards and they had to read their briefing notes to find out what had been said! I enlisted the help of staff who speak another language. We had announcements in:
| Portuguese | German | French |
| Spanish | Twi | Japanese |
| Finnish | Punjabi | Urdu |
The announcements were about getting staff to think about what they could do during their lessons and Registration on European Day of Languages itself. The aim was that every lesson that day would have a language element (even just greeting the students in a different language) and reference to other countries/cultures.
On Wednesday 26 September the school was decorated with flags in the main entrance and Dining Room and posters with quotes about language learning were put up around school. On the screen in the main entrance there was a powerpoint displaying 'hello' in lots of languages and details about the different languages spoken at Wetherby High. Each member of staff was also provided with a quote about learning languages (in a different language) and a poster with 'hello' in a different language to stick on their door/in their classroom. In the dining hall there were posters with 'Enjoy your meal' in different languages and posters highlighting the countries the food for that day came from.
To encourage staff to use different languages/use examples from other countries/cultures in their teaching, there was a comptetion sheet for them to record the activities they were doing.
A form competition was also launched for EDL - to research a country and then produce a collective poster/collage about it. To build on the legacy of London 2012 each Year Group (7-11) was assigned a continent and then there was a draw for the countries for each year form group. The countries were chosen from those that had sent both olympic and paralympic teams to London in the Summer. Due to limited time in form period this work is still ongoing and a space will be found in school to display the work after half-term.
And from a school in Derbyshire:
Hope Valley College
- They are having local business people in to talk about how languages can be useful and European signage is being put up around the school (temporary becoming permanent in the near future).
- All other departments will be doing something with a France/Germany/Spain leaning on that day so that food technology will be cooking French food.
- Foreign food will be on sale at the school canteens (French/German/Spanish cuisine), plus free tapas to try
- There will be a launch of the MFL games club (cards, etc) as well as flags and bunting up around the 00-building
