Largs Academy

At Largs Academy we did a full celebratory day for our new S1 pupils who had the opportunity to take part in lots of activities to celebrate European Day of Languages.

They were able to sample a little bit of Portuguese with Mr. McFadyen and partake in some language learning quizzes!

Mrs Tait from our Religious Education department invited some pupils who had recently been to Malawi to share stories from their trip, and they gave pupils some insight into colonisation. This gave our pupils a greater appreciation of the great work that Mrs Tait and her Charity Committee do for our Partnership School in Malawi.

Pupils were able to put their team building and engineering skills to the test with Miss Kerr's Eiffel Tower Building Challenge. This activity brought out the competitive side of our pupils with some great attempts to re-create the Eiffel Tower using only newspapers and tape.

Pupils tested their Disney knowledge with a song competition working out songs in different languages from around Europe - they said they loved this class led by Miss Drion!

Other pupils worked with two fantastically talented senior pupils learning about and singing Italian opera and identifying different words in different languages.

Finally with Miss Gall the S1 pupils used acrylic paints to decorate 'language stones' with the theme of Europe. Some fantastic designs were created and while some pupils took their stones home, others will be strategically hidden round Largs and any pupil who finds a language stone has to send a photo of themselves with the stone and tag 'languagestones' on Facebook as well as upload to Twitter and they will find themselves the winner of a prize! 

Many other teachers in the school joined in and shared their language knowledge and stories with our pupils. A great day was had by all!

Aberdeen City Council

Aberdeen City Council schools were invited to join in a morning of activities for P7 and S1 pupils at Lochside Academy on Friday 27th September to celebrate EDL. The event was run with the support of Aberdeen University School of Language and Literature student volunteers, German Educational Trainees and a FLA.

The morning started with a series of games in French, German, Spanish and Gaelic. Primary and secondary pupils joined in teams and practised vocabulary in languages often new to them in a fun and interactive way. After a break, they took part in a quiz with questions about languages, travel and culture.

The feedback from teachers and pupils was very positive. The participation of the language students made the event more relevant and motivating for the pupils. Opening the event to P7 and S1 pupils was an opportunity to build relationships between primary and secondary Modern Languages colleagues.

The pupils were all issued with a certificate at the end of the event.

Dunbar Primary School

At Dunbar Primary School we held a 'Bring your language learning to assembly' on European Day of Languages. 

Gill Eunson, Depute Head shared the importance of language learning and some related facts.

P4 showed a French weather stations game, P6 taught us all a French alphabet song and P7s a Ma Famille song.

The P1s sang their morning Bonjour song. A couple of P7 classes did a Europe quiz. 

Grange Academy

S2 pupils in Grange Academy recently celebrated the European Day of Languages by taking part in various workshops organised by the Modern Languages Department and our Senior Language Ambassadors. Pupils worked in groups through a series of challenges as they reflected upon the importance of language learning in the modern world.

They were challenged to build free standing models of the Eiffel Tower using only tape and paper. They had to learn to count from 1-10 in Mandarin whilst doing Kung Fu.

Pupils were also tested on their knowledge of Europe in a QR code quiz and were asked to identify different flags.

One of the most popular activities was the photo booth workshop where everyone enjoyed dressing up and posing with props – including staff!

At the end of the event pupils had to write down what they saw as the benefits of language learning and their insightful comments were most impressive.

Feedback was hugely positive and in the words of one S2 pupil “European day of Languages was a great day. We all had fun and it was a good laugh.” We can’t ask for more than that, can we?

Dalbeattie High School

At Dalbeattie High School in Dumfries and Galloway pupils and staff organised a Crossbar Challenge during lunchtime to celebrate the European Day of Languages on Thursday 26th September.

The pupils are engaged in an Erasmus+ project with 4 other schools in France, Romania and Portugal titled 5x4ODD Schools on the Road to Sustainable Development and are currently working on SDG3 'Health and Wellbeing'. All 5 European schools ran a language challenge to celebrate EDL and sport. Inclement weather on the day led to the Crossbar Challenge taking place in the gym rather than the outdoor pitches.

Erasmus pupils coached students in the 3 languages of the project focusing on the languages each will use on their visits to Europe. Pupils also competed in Spanish, which is taught alongside French in the school. To win a chance to kick and hit the crossbar pupils had to say a sentence in the foreign language. Pupils could try and take a shot multiple times but had to use a different sentence or phrase each time. In the end, the winning language was Romanian scoring 12, Spanish came second with 11 and French and Portuguese had 2 strikes each and 4 individual prizes were awarded to pupils who succeeded in hitting the crossbar more than once. Boys in particular were keen to join in and have a work out both in languages and football skills at the same time.

Bell Baxter High School

Our recently appointed Language Ambassadors at Bell Baxter High School in Cupar, Fife have been doing some outstanding work to celebrate European Day of Languages!

They have been meeting on a weekly basis all term to organise a European market and quiz for S1 pupils.

They created displays and encouraged staff to hold stalls representing the different countries that they are from in Europe.

Along with completing the quiz, both pupils and staff enjoyed trying a variety of foods and even took part in some Greek Zorba dancing.

S1s really enjoyed the event and all pupils who organised and helped out exceeded our expectations and showed themselves to be mature and responsible young adults. We are very proud of them.

Milne's High School

For the second year running, teachers and S6 pupils at Milne’s HS have worked together to organise a vibrant whole school event in celebration of EDL and created a challenge that proved informative, fun and engaging for all pupils from S1-S6. 

Croissant fever hit the school the week before EDL when pictures of an intrepid travelling croissant and croissant jokes began appearing on all the walls and doors. The following week, all classes from S1-S5 kicked off Period 1 with a slideshow introducing them to the European Day of Languages and our EDL character, Hugo Croissant. Hugo explained he was on a gap year and needed the pupils’ help to travel further around Europe.

Firstly, each class had to cut out Hugo’s picture and give him a personal touch such as a beard or a beret. His first destination was Germany and each class had to correctly complete Round 1 of Hugo’s quiz on Germany. Before they could move on to Round 2, two pupils from each class had to bring their own Hugo pic and his passport to the Modern Languages Department where they had to correctly pronounce a phrase in German in order to get past the S6 border police and enter Germany where Hugo’s passport was stamped and their photo taken against a German background. Pupils repeated these steps to help Hugo travel to Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Greece. While the pupils were out, the classes watched a short clip about EDL or the country that Hugo was visiting.

The event was a huge success with pupils and staff alike. The pupils said they learned a lot about different countries and cultures and many said they felt more positively about learning a language as a result. Our S6 prefects showed fantastic leadership skills running the challenge.

The resources used will be available to share via the SCILT website.