In a time when the world feels more divided than ever, we all benefit from real human connection. By opening ourselves to those on the other side, we realise that we’re not so different after all. Let’s break the barriers we create in our minds. Connections Begin When Barriers Break. ❤️💙
I’ll be sharing this with my learners in my next Language of the Month assembly, if not before!
Today I attended the Trent and Tame Language Hub (TTLH) Primary Launch Event and was asked to share some ideas for European Day of Languages.
I’ve posted a few ideas in the past on my website – have a look at using a song or the Omniglot website – but felt it might be useful if I wrote up some of the ideas I shared in one place for those who weren’t there, and for those who were but would like a reminder!
European Day of Languages or EdoL (over recent years the o has been added to avoid misunderstanding!) is celebrated each year on 26th September. It is a Council of Europe initiative and has been running since 2001 and is celebrated across Europe with the aim to promote plurilingualism. Each year there is a focus. This year it is Languages for Peace. You can find out more on the website https://edl.ecml.at/ where there are competitions, resources and opportunities to join with learners across Europe to celebrate our linguistic diversity. This year they include the pronunciation of Irish names and a summary of Words of the Year from various countries. In previous years we’ve used Lara’s Journey and also quests involving the language stickers that are associated with the event.
September 26th isn’t far off the start of the school year so you need to plan ahead, even before you break up for the summer. There are lots of quick ideas that you can use to celebrate that can be the launchpad to bigger/wider initiatives. This is one (the only?) advantage of how soon in the school year it occurs. Below are a few that could create a buzz that can then be built upon.
Expanding on a few of those – you can read about what happened at my school when we each class chose a language in this post from 2008! If you need some help with different languages, the Digital Dialects website is amazing. Also tap into languages known in your school community and ask children, parents and neighbours if they could support you. – when dressing up, rather than ending up with a legion of French onion sellers and sevillanas dancers, why not ask learners to dress in the colours of or as the flag of a country, or in the national dress of that country, or as a famous person from that country. Stereotypes are worth discussing but not reinforcing!
Holding a Bake Off is great fun. We did it a few years ago and I had the pleasure of tasting every one of the more than 50 entries! The brief was to create a bake that either represented a country (flag, colours, in the shape of etc) or that came from another country. As you can see if you watch the compilation videos below, we had some amazing entries and the children really enjoyed it. They do love a competition! It was a shame that we couldn’t let the children eat the cakes due to allergy worries but children took them home (apart from the ones that made it to the staffroom!) It was lovely to see creativity in action but also to celebrate some traditional bakes from Sweden, Germany, Australia, Spain and India.
KS1 entries
KS2 entries
Another idea that worked well and also had a huge impact on the school was around celebrating linguistic identity and the ‘superpowers’ of many of our learners who already know two or more languages before they learn Spanish with us.
We used the Language Profile template on the Multilingualism in schools website and asked chidlren to consider their linguistic identity – whihc languages do they speak, have they experienced, do they feel a connection with or simply like or enjoy learning? Initially it seemed to many that they only wanted to add English but having talked about it with others, all sorts of feelings came to the surface including solidarity with eTwinning project partners, languages related to reading matter, and some interesting thoughts about being bilingual! This was coupled with finding out which languages were spoken by the children and adults in each class, and the creation of a poster for the door. This led to children learning that there weren’t the only speaker of their home language, and also the revelation of some hitherto unknown skills! Both of these activities feed well into Cultural Capital, British values and celebrating our diversity, all very high on the primary curriculum agenda.
Another idea on a similar theme is to hold a Celebration of Languages in which the learners are invited to share. We’ve had several of these, most recently as you can see above on Mother Language Day. Each time we’ve held the event we’ve had a mixture of songs and rhymes, role plays and greetings and even a clapping game this time. Sometimes children share their home language, sometimes a language that they’re learning or that is ‘in the family’ and sometimes learners have learned something specifically for the event. It takes guts to stand in front of your peers and speak, and I am often struck by how often children who are reluctant to speak in class volunteer to share. It’s quite humbling to see how they value these special language opportunities!
Perhaps you want an activity that can be completed over a week, a little at a time, or that can be set as a homework task, or even a competition. The British Council has a Great Languages Challenge that can be downloaded from the Resource section of their website. As you can see from the image above, it’s available in a language non-specific version as well as one for Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Irish, Mandarin and Welsh. You could ask classes to complete it with learners or groups of learners assigned certain tasks, or set levels for the number of tasks completed eg Bronze might be 8-12, Silver more than 13-17 and Gold for 19 or 20 of the 20 tasks. We awarded certificates for all attempts and small prizes like stickers, pencils, rubbers with books for those who had completed the task independently. We also celebrated and shared in assembly including a memorable rendition of Happy Birthday in Yoruba! Activities like this can count towards a British Council International School Award (ISA). You can find out more about how the requirement and how to apply (it’s free!) on the website but feel free to comment or message me if you need support as I’m a British Council Ambassador and have been trhough the process several times, most recently in 2022.
Last year the Global School Alliance held a competition to celebrate EdoL, asking learners to complete the sentence ‘For me, learning a language is…’in any way that they wanted – using art, video, poem or song, writing an essay or creating a poster. Entries were uploaded to the GSA platform so all participating schools could share the results, and an award ceremony was held online to celebrate and congratulate the participants and winners. Some of the entries were amazing, and I was overjoyed that two of my pupils earned a ‘special mention’ in the Primary category for their entries. You can watch the video below – our bit is at 24 minutes! I’m sure that there will be another event in 2024 so keep your eye on https://www.globalschoolalliance.com/ for news. However, there’s nothing to stop you holding your own competition with the same sentence to be completed!
Awards Ceremony – held online to celebrate entries from the UK but also from around the world.
Perhaps you’d like to use EDoL to dip your toe into cross country links. A good way to do that is to explore the Global School Alliance. Once registered you can browse other registered schools, look at project ideas or post your own. It’s an excellent way to find a partner (or more!) for a short exchange – perhaps you could exchange a culture postcard from your schools, or meet online to teach other greetings, or work on a common theme of peace for example. The initial activity might be so successful that you want to take it further but equally it could be that short!
Let’s be honest, school life is busy and it’s not always easy to plan and/or fit in activities that can be done by classes but each year I make sure that we at least hold an assembly that celebrates EDoL. In fact, it’s now on the school calendar so I have little choice! If we’ve held a day or week of activities, we share what we have done and celebrate our learning. I’ve mentioned above our Celebrations of Language but we’ve also had ones that have been done in classes based around books – can you identify the titles of these books and the languages in which they’re written?
Answers are at the bottom!
This year I took inspiration from the British Council resource Let’s Talk about Languages which begins with a song fromThe Little Mermaid in many different languages then has a guessing game based on the (literal) meaning of a variety of words including barbe à papa (Dad’s beard – candyfloss in French) and buwchgochgota (short red cow – ladybird in Welsh) I was inspired to continue on this theme and explore favourite words in English as well as other languages.
I shared some of mine – serendipity (English) and burbuja (Spanish for bubble) because I love the sound of the words, the untranslatable pesado in Spanish and so on. I was helped by a couple of books I have called What a Wonderful Word! and What a Wonderful Phrase! that revealed words like poronkusema which is the distance that a reindeer can walk without needing a wee (a popular revelation!) I asked staff for their favourite words and several shared, and then asked the children for theirs. Some had an immediate idea but I invited anyone who wanted to share their word to write it down and give it to me during the week. Below are some that I collated for an article I wrote about it for Languages Today, published by ALL.
There are many more things you could do to celebrate. I haven’t decided how we will mark EDoL in September yet but perhaps I’ll go back to past post and explore Silbo Gomero, a whistling language that is used on La Gomera. Whatever we do, I’m glad of the prompt to have a think and start planning.
If you have any ideas, feel free to leave them in the comments below.
I’ll leave you with a couple of links to other people who’ve shared ideas and a video that could be used as an introduction to the day. Nattalingo Teaching Ideas (Some lovely ways of making it really cross curricular
And the answers: We’re going on a bear hunt – Greek The Hungry Caterpillar – Punjabi Room on a broom – Italian The Three Billy Goats Gruff – Turkish Mr Tickle – Portuguese
Since I last wrote a post, I’ve presented three times about international links!
In November I was pleased to speak, along with Vicky Gough of the British Council, to the ALL Portsmouth Primary Hub about Making international links to motivate our young linguists and celebrate their achievements. My contribution was summarised as: Lisa took us on a whistle-stop tour of the many different projects she has been involved in over the past twelve years or so. What shone through was the positive impact these experiences have had on all involved – pupils, teaching and school staff and parents. Senior management have increasingly recognised the value of these projects and prioritised them within school planning. Comments from pupils and colleagues, and more formal statements from school leaders, provide testimony to their success.
In December I was invited to deliver a keynote at TMMFLIcons entitled International links and developing young linguists. I knew that 15 minutes was tight to say all that I wanted so I summarised the benefits/outcomes on the 3rd slide!
Even so, I still struggled to fit in everything I wanted to say so I wrote a summary of my points to share. You can download and read it below! If you want to see what was said and catch up with the recording, have a look at the @tmmflicons Twitter feed
And a couple of weeks ago, I spoke at Language World in Sheffield. Once more I packed in as much as I could into the time allocated, and still had more to say as I am passionate about sharing my experiences but also about the incredible value of international links and the impact it’s had on our school community.
After a bit of editing, I’m happy to share my presentation but I’m afraid that the file is too big to upload; you can however view it here or, if you attended Language World 2023, on the conference website.
I am really passionate about the international dimension, the power of links between schools around the world and the beauty of collaborating. Yes, it sometimes leaves me exhausted juggling and negotiating so that everything is done but it’s so worth it to see the impact on the staff, school, community and, of course, the pupils. Whilst some opportunities are no longer available to us and I still mourn for their loss, it’s not going to stop me. There are still ways to make links and work in collaboration with others and I will continue to search for more!
There’s a list in the summary document but a few to highlight: If you are looking for a school for collaborations such as penpals or exchanges, particularly a French one, you can try Match My School. The British Council has School Connect and also Partner Finding tools to help you find links and help them grow. And the Global Schools Alliance helps create, maintain and develop links with schools all over the world.
It’s also worth exploiting any links you have as a school community, and also looking to see if your town/city has a twin TownTwinning.
Taken at Colegio Esperanza, Tlaxcala November 2015
Films like Coco (watch it here), The Book of Life (trailer)and even James Bond have made this a festival that is much more well known than when I began teaching many moons ago!
*This is compilation of previous posts plus a couple of new ideas!*
This website is new and I love it! https://dayofthedead.holiday/ is well presented and comprehensive in explaining the festival – when, where, why, who and how – as well as offering ideas for how you can celebrate including make up tutorials, craft ideas and recipes.
This video is a helpful video that explains what happens during the festival, full of vocabulary and presented in steady clear Spanish.
And this one colourfully explains how indigenous festivals became mixed with catholicism to make the festival as it is today.
Finally I want to point out the Rockalingua song that has proved popular with my pupils in recent years. If you go to their website you can watch a video of the song as well as download the words, worksheets and other materials for free.
Taken in Mexico City 2015
I’ve shared ideas on this theme before; if you click on the images below, they’ll take you to the posts!
Crafts, a poem, a story and a song
This post was a review of a book all about a child getting his wires crossed (no thanks to his sister!) about what happens on Día de los Muertos. A lovely book – I recommend it!
I adore this video; it really simply explains what happens with no words and leads to amazing discussions. The post also includes many links to other materials and ideas including colouring, craft and downloadable PDFs to support lessons.
A video explaining the festival, a piece of music and a song.
An interesting news article about changes in the way Día de los Muertos is celebrated, and how it’s moving from private to more public. I was certainly struck when I landed in Mexico City on October 31st 2015 by the exuberance and spectacle of the street celebrations but also by the quiet of the personal celebrations by individuals on the subsequent days. I think there was a Halloween/Día de los Muertos divide going on, but that was my perception. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
A couple of years ago I was asked to help produce some lesson plans for around celebrating and exploring diversity and enabling everyone to be themselves without fear of discrimination.*
As part of this I did some research into books in Spanish that would be suitable for this purpose.
One of the plans I wrote was around families all being different and getting away from mum, dad and 2 kids = a family. At the time I did not use a book as the basis of the resources I made, but I’ve since found this book that I think is a lovely resource that I’d like to use next time we look at families. I envisage choosing a few chapters to read and discuss as a five-ten minute segment, perhaps in conjunction with RE/PSHE that I often teach as well as Spanish.
Mi familia es de otro mundo literally means My family is from another world, but actually means My family is out of this world in the sense of being amazing. The book tells the stories of seven children, each one with a family to share, each family different.
There’s Juli whose parents have split up and spends part of the week with each, Lu who has two Dads who get married with her as ring bearer, Santi who looks nothing like his parents as they adopted him as a baby, Sol and Matu who are test tube babies, Vale who has an Argentinian Dad and a Chinese Mum so has two cultural identities, Leo whose Dad died when he was small so it’s just him and his Mum – and Negro the dog, and Fran who has what he calls una familia enredadera, literally a tangled family with parents who have split up and have new partners and/or children.
Each story is told very simply in short paragraphs of a very sentences with a longer information box that clarifies or explores some of the ideas and issues raised. The book concludes with more family models including grandparents as prime carers, parents whose jobs mean that they don’t see their children for months on end, surrogate mothers, extended families. foster families and globetrotting families with children born in a variety of countries.
El Mundo de Juli – Dos casas
El Mundo de Vale – Dos años nuevos
El Mundo de Lu – Papá, Papi y yo
El Mundo de Santi – Tomados de la mano
I really like some of the images that are used to explain families, in particular the idea of some families not fitting on a family tree but rather a family climbing plant!
The book concludes as below. In English:
Every family has a way of living, of sharing, of celebrating, of arguing, of loving. There are no two the same.
Sometimes because of that when we compare our family with another we think “My family is from a different world!” Or when someone sees something in a family that is a bit odd to them they whisper “Every family is a world (or each family to their own)”
But in fact, there is only on world, this one, where there’s room for all families.
This is a message that I think is really important as we look to encourage children to value diversity and to understand that our life is much richer by learning about and from others’ experiences. We might not share their beliefs and we may find some of their ways a little odd but we all live on the same planet, have the same basic needs and, in the words of Jo Cox, “we have far more in common than that divides us.”
I’ll share more of my ideas of how we can do this in other ways too in future posts. Other books that might interest you along the same lines:
Thanks to Vicky Cooke for sharing this lovely image this morning and the luxury of a train journey to London and back on which it write this post!
Whilst Intercultural Understanding (ICU) is no longer an explicit section of the Languages Programme of Study, it opens with the following words:
Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world.
I firmly believe that learning a language needs a context to bring it to life, and that context should not be limited to Spain for Spanish, France for French or Germany for German; the latter all the more important to me as I learned German in Switzerland! So I’m always looking for ideas to incorporate an aspect of ‘culture’ into activities. What’s more, learners really enjoy such activities. Clare has some marvellous ones on Light Bulb Languages such distances between Spanish cities to practice large numbers, Moorish tiles to look at shape and colour, Saints days to practice saying the date and so on. In fact there’s a whole section of resources marked ‘Intercultural understanding’ that includes Guatemalan worry dolls, Aztec codices and Mayan maths.
I’m about to start a unit on colour and shape with Y3 and, with a long-ish half term, Y4 are going to finish their topic early too so I’ve been looking for a little something to fill a gap. I was therefore pleased to see Vicky’s post this morning which sparked an idea. Can’t say it was earth shatteringly original but it was a good idea nonetheless (Vicky had it too!)
The above map plus the one on the left show the ponchos worn across Argentina and I’ve so far thought of the following:
1. Knowledge of Argentina – count the provinces, name them, pronounce them. Countries that border Argentina.
2. Compass points / prepositions – Santa Cruz está en el sur de Argentina.Jujuy está en el norte de Argentina en la frontera con Chile y Bolivia.Entre Ríos está en el este al norte de Buenos Aires.
3. Colour – giving the name of a place and requiring the colour(s) in response, either in a single word, a phrase or a sentence. Soy de Chubut ¿de qué color es mi poncho? or ¿De qué color es el poncho típico de San Luis? – blanco y naranja/Es blanco y naranja/El poncho típico de San Luis es blanco y naranja.
4. Pattern – ¿Cómo es el poncho de Salta?Es rojo con una franja negra en el cuello y en el borde. This site gives a description of some in English as well as historical information about ponchos. And here is a more extensive article in Spanish.
5. Combining all the above. Soy de Neuquen. Está en el oeste de Argentina, en la frontera con Chile, al norte de Río Negro, al sur de Mendoza y al oeste de La Pampa. El poncho típico de Neuquén es blanco con puntos azules.
I’ve also found more useful graphics on this subject:
A chart of ponchos in three sections according to their geographical position in Argentina at would be even better for detailed descriptions.
A chart of traditional Mapuche patterns used in ponchos – it would be an interesting challenge to replicate these patterns using graph paper – cross curricular link with maths there!
A colour wheel giving some of the symbolism of wearing that particular colour.
6. Using the above, design your own poncho using traditional colours and patterns: Mi poncho es …… El rojo significa ….. Tiene estampa…… Es como el poncho de ….
(A similar activity can be found on Light Bulb Languages for flags/banderas)
Here’s a blank poncho that you might use (or you might just like to draw your own!) NB this poncho is the wrong shape as is this one.
You could also make a mini gaucho out of a lolly stick or old fashioned clothes peg like the chap on the right!
I’ve saved some links on Pinterest – Argentinian ponchos including the image below.
If you like the original map, I’ve also found maps of Argentina giving animals according to region and mates too as well as a beautiful vintage map of Argentina with images depicting the terrain, industry, dress and wildlife of each area and an info graphic of ‘La Argentina, el país dé los seis continentes’, the slogan of an advertising campaign I’m 1998 that emphasises the diversity of Argentina. Finally, a map of 24 ‘must visit’ places in Argentina. Having never been there, I couldn’t say whether it’s a comprehensive list or whether there are other places to add?
