Hyndland Secondary School

European Day of Languages at Hyndland Secondary in Glasgow was celebrated across the school and throughout the week.

S1 pupils took part in a group quiz and S2 pupils took part in a Kahoot game which tested their knowledge of European culture and languages.

 Pupils from the winning groups won prizes provided by SCILT. Here is an S1 class enthusiastically showing off their bracelets and pencils! Huge thanks again to SCILT for offering these fantastic prizes to schools!

S1 pupils took part in a European themed photo booth using Green Screen. They were transported to different countries including Russia, Spain, Italy and France.

The department also organised two competitions for BGE pupils. The first was “Why learn languages?”, an impressive effort from our pupils!

The second competition was to produce a sign with the word “Welcome” in different languages.

Senior pupils also got in on the act by completing a QR code treasure trail. They found out about the different careers linked with languages as well as a wide variety of opportunities and experiences available to them if they continue their studies in languages.

The Modern Languages Leaders organised an international themed coffee morning for staff in aid of MacMillan Cancer Support. The staff room was decorated with flags of different countries.

The school’s librarian supported our event by organising a display about European countries and celebrities who are multilingual.

Throughout the week, we also had a guess the language through the use of our departmental Twitter account. Staff across the school got involved by displaying their signs which showed pupils their language skills or by using the European themed starter activities with their classes.

Across the week, pupils wrote their personal reasons for language learning which were then displayed. Lots of very impressive ideas from our pupils!

Overall, both staff and pupils enjoyed the variety of activities on offer and we hope to continue celebrating European Day of Languages for years to come! It is an enriching experience for our pupils as it shows them the importance of languages in the job market as well as how they can improve relations among countries and people.

Lockerbie Primary School

To celebrate European Day of Languages P7 pupils at Lockerbie Primary School wrote poems in English in the style of Gloria Fuertes’ Poema al No then translated them into Spanish. They then shared them outside in the school’s amphitheatre. 

This was a joint activity with pupils at one of Lockerbie’s partner schools - in Arta in Mallorca. 22 Lockerbie pupils will visit Arta in March 2019 to spend a week in the school.

In addition, every class in the school learned a song in a European language then performed these at a community assembly.

Braidhurst High School

The Modern Languages Department at Braidhurst High School celebrated the European Day of Languages last week, and pupils took part in a variety of activities as part of their celebrations.

S1 pupils engaged in an interhouse ‘Who Want to Be a Millionaire?’ in French, with the winners being Morven House who reached a million euros! S1 also made a wall mural of a sea of hands, each depicting a country with words of its language adorning the fingers. In addition, they completed a quiz about famous European scientists made up by Biology teacher, Miss Ruth Watson.

S2 worked in pairs to create a poster of a European country of their choice. They used iPads to research geographical, historical, cultural and culinary facts about the country, as well as some of the language.

S3 and S4 pupils had great fun in the Home Economics Department making French pancakes according to a French recipe, and these tasted ‘delicieux’ indeed!

Other cross-curricular activities included an S2 French boules championship carried out in the PE Department by Mr Ryan Egar; an introduction to French mime delivered by Mrs Karen Reilly in the Drama department; and Mrs Maureen Kinnaird of the English organised a 'French words used in the English language’ group activity with her S1 class and excellent posters made by the pupils were displayed in the corridors.

In addition, the very brave Dr Peter Gardner delivered a lesson in French to his National 5 Chemistry class and PT Science, Mr Martin Campbell, taught a Biology lesson in French to his Higher class.

Mrs Laura Ballantyne incorporated German words and phrases into her teaching of the ‘World War 1’  topic with S2 and Mrs Jennifer Hunter set her pupils a set of Maths challenges. They also played a board game involving translating sums from French to English.

In the IT Department, pupils played the online game ‘Kahoot’ in French and showed themselves to be extremely engaged, enthusiastic and competitive!

Under the guidance of Modern Languages teacher, Miss Dawn Lennox, pupils with English as their second language produced guides to their country of birth and their mother tongue.

Pupils who attend the Hub played French and German games organised by Mrs Andrea Currie and were also treated to a French breakfast!

All pupils, as well as members of staff, across many curricular areas thoroughly enjoyed their experiences and have improved their knowledge of French, German and hopefully other languages in the process!

Larbert High School

We turned the European Day of Languages into Languages Week at Larbert High this year. 

We held a languages concert where pupils and staff performed at lunchtime in lots of languages from Spanish to Swedish! 

We had a coffee morning for staff who had to order their food and drink in French from our S2 pupils. There was also a cake decorating competition.

We held a Movie Night for our P7 and S1 pupils to come together to enjoy a Spanish film. 

We got all pupils and staff involved in our Languages Challenge Sheet, many shared what they´d been doing on Twitter.

We had a tannoy challenge each day at form time. We asked for a different item to be brought to a different location in a different language. The first form class rep to get to the right place with the right item wins!  

We encourage other faculties to add some languages to their lesson. The computing department got their S3 class to program a verb conjugator ... 

Largs Academy

At Largs Academy we had a rotation of 6 classes which all S1 pupils attended and all languages senior pupils helped organise/plan/run.  

Additionally many staff were involved speaking a variety of languages - German, Japanese, Russian, French, Italian, Spanish and more and these are all posted on our Twitter page which was very popular! There were many likes and relikes and everyone enjoyed seeing all the teachers and their linguistic skills (not the ML teachers!)

Our pupils had the opportunity to experience:

• European cakes and delicacies
• Creating Eiffel Towers using only newspaper and sellotape
• Learning Portuguese
• Doing a German vocabulary race activity with paper plates
• Learning a French song and making a music video with props and cameras
• Learning Italian opera, led by a very talented S5 pupil who sings with the Scottish Opera
• Learning about languages all over the world, especially in Malawi and combining this with an awareness of our Malawi Partnership.

A wonderful day was had by all!

Taynuilt Primary School

At Taynuilt Primary we held a whole school European Languages Day with each class hosting a nation.

Nursery focused on Italy, with a real chef making pizzas, P1 Germany with saurkraut and frankfurters, P3/2 Switzerland with cheese and chocolate, P5/4 Portugal with custard tarts and of course P7/6 France - we had pétanque with positional language, a cafe with croissants, pain chocolat, cheese and sausage, home made French World Cup football swap cards and Lotto!

Each class had food to taste, games and activities and a song or some target language phrases. The children learned about the host country in their own classes in the morning and in the afternoon took turns to be Ambassadors and show children ‘around Europe’.

It was a very successful day!

Wellington School

Hot on the heels of our multilingual and multinational Erasmus+ week, pupils and staff at Wellington have been celebrating European Day of Languages on 26th September 2018.

This year, we were delighted to welcome Mark Pentleton to talk to the girls and boys in P7, S1 and S2. Mark is the Managing Director of Radio Lingua, an Ayr-based company which offers language learning courses and podcasts worldwide. He talked to S2 about his route into languages and the value of a knowledge of other languages in the workplace and for enhancing quality of life when travelling and making new friends.

P7 and S1 pupils thoroughly enjoyed their workshops where they discovered the world of language families, learned to say ‘I can speak Mandarin Chinese’ in Mandarin and played a very lively quiz which included identifying foreign languages and translating song titles. A final sing-along to Baby Shark, Castle on the Hill and Beauty and the Beast by our young polyglots meant that everyone left the workshops with a big smile on their faces.

Merci! Danke! Gracias! Grazie! Hvala! Tak! Obrigado!