A week Of Celebrating European Languages

Published by St Margaret's Preparatory School, Calne on Tuesday 6th of December 2022

In assembly last Monday, Mr Bromwich launched our celebrations for the European Day of Languages.

At St Margaret’s, we marked the 21st year of celebrating this official day with a week of different activities led by Madame Colesby to recognise the importance, and joy, of speaking a different language and learning about different cultures.

In lessons, the children have had time to reflect on the reasons why learning languages is a positive and useful opportunity for all of us today, and for our future lives. Mrs Paroussi gave children a taste of Greek in her art sessions, and registers around the school were answered in a variety of different languages.

In their MFL lessons with Madame Colesby, children have been busy learning about different European Langauges. Upper Nursery listened to a song called Hello to all the Children of the World, and learnt to say ‘hello’ in different languages. They listened to the story The World's Family by Miranda Pau before looking at the illustrations and discussing how children are in some ways different in physical appearance or with regards to the languages they speak, but still need the same things - love, food and friends for example.

In Reception, children discussed the importance of accepting differences between people around the world and the value of learning other languages. They agreed we should all try to live in ‘Peace’ and called for it in various languages. Year 1 sang two French songs about parts of the body and practised some words for foods and drinks in Dutch. They were amazed to see how similar they were to the English words!
Year 2 had a taste of Spanish and used simple greetings to ask each other their names and created short conversations in pairs. They also did some detective work and matched up a few European countries with their respective languages. Meanwhile, Year 3 enjoyed some Italian, and focused on numbers 1 to 10. They found various links between Italian and other languages they have experienced in their lessons or whilst on holiday in Spain, for example.

Year 4 went on a hunt for German compound animals and were amazed to see how two small words are stuck together to create a new word. They also discovered that German has 3 genders and that nouns are either masculine, feminine or neutral. Year 5 concentrated on farm animals in Spanish and had a go at singing a version of Old MacDonald as an extension, while Year 6 embraced the opportunity to work with different European languages in order to complete a quiz on languages and solve puzzles to escape virtual rooms. They also enjoyed practising some fruits in Portuguese!

Madame Colesby reflected on the week and shared:

‘Once more, St Margaret’s pupils have made us proud! They have shown great respect for people and cultures from other countries. They have enjoyed and met every challenge given to them this week with curiosity and perseverance and have shown great communication and collaboration, as well as impressive critical thinking in their lessons- well done!’