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European Day of Languages 2007

How did we celebrate it? It was very early on in the school year and we were just getting to know the children so I wondered what our school could do to ensure that the children had a really good fun day! Every year from nursery through to year 6 wanted to take part, even our Office Manager. As a starter, I put packs of information about individual countries together, allowing each member of staff to choose one.

Our year 1 teacher is Welsh and a Welsh speaker, (English is her second language!) so I thought her year should look at Wales. Other staff could choose from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, Holland, Greece, France and a few others. I also put together some ideas of the types of things that they could teach during the day, for example where is that country in the world? What are their flags like? What does the national dress look like? Anything that would fuel the children’s “want to learn” and still be fun, but not too much extra work for the teachers. I also set a few simple tasks for the children and staff, so that by the end of the day each child would be able to count to 10, say a few greetings words in their chosen country's language, know the colours and pattern of the flag and some facts about that country.

On the day, every child and all the staff came dressed in the colours of the country chosen. It was lovely to see them all arriving, with me trying to "guess the country” as they walked in.

I had chosen the Czech Republic for my class and had set some homework for them the night before, which was to find out the capital city and which football team plays there. They couldn’t wait to tell me as they entered the classroom. Our day started off looking at my holiday photos of Prague and the countryside around Prague. We looked on the atlas and found out where the Czech Republic is, and which countries surround it. We looked at their flag and traditional dress, then coloured in worksheets. I ran competitions during the day of who could colour the neatest flag? Who could colour the neatest traditional dress? Who could manage to count to ten in Czech? 

The children worked with partners to produce a poster about the Czech Republic and lots of them included Czech words for numbers. They drew footballers and the kit, and included their research into the posters! While they were working I played some classical music by Smetana and Dvořák.

During the morning my teaching assistant took a group of children out to make Czech potato pancakes for everyone to try. While this was happening, the others played games, putting the numbers (words only) into order, matching the greetings with the words, and so on. When the potato cakes arrived, they were so popular many more had to be made!

The cooking smells throughout school were fantastic, our Czech potato cakes, Year 1 made Welsh cakes, whilst Year 3 were looking at France which added smells of brie, camembert, baguettes and crepes. Reception cooked Spanish omelettes, Year 6 added Greek salads and feta cheese and finally Year 2 had frankfurters.

As for language, Year 2 had their mental maths starter in German - numbers bonds to 10! I even used the Czech in my PE warm up by using the numbers to get the children into groups and counting, eg ten star jumps, running on the spot for a count of ten.

Everyone completed their tasks and had a fabulous time. It was great seeing the staff have “fun” as well as the children.

I’ve already started thinking about what we can do next year!

Heather Bailey, Wargrave C of E Primary School in St Helens

For more information about the European Day of Languages and available resources please visit the CILT website