St Joseph's Primary School

In St. Joseph's Primary School Milngavie, we celebrated EDL 2015 by organising a fun day for everyone to take part in!

The P7s and their teacher Miss Gormley organised and ran the whole event. They started off with a short play to teach the rest of the school about the differences between Scottish schools and schools in France (since French is the language that all classes are learning). They finished the play with a short performance of Goldilocks and the 3 bears in French.

After the play, P7 set up all their stalls and activities and each class was timetabled to come and take part in as many activities as they wanted. The activities were raising awareness of lots of different European languages as well as looking at the flags of European Countries. The winners of the games received a prize which SCILT provided, either a rubber bracelet or a snap bracelet.  Runners up all received one of the stickers. The day was a huge success!

Greenwood Academy

"Did you know it was the European Day of Languages?"

The pupils and teachers at Greenwood Academy in Irvine certainly promoted this celebration and enjoyed a variety of activities on Wednesday the 23rd of September to showcase the European Day of Languages. The day kicked off with the young people introducing themselves in a variety of languages ranging from Punjabi, Dutch, Cantonese to French and Spanish. As a starter to their lessons they sang a selection of songs in different languages and at lunchtime enjoyed sampling the French, Italian and Spanish delicacies on offer at the canteen.

The fun continued into the evening where parents were able to take advantage of the talents at Greenwood Academy with a great variety of workshops. A representative from Scotland’s National Centre for Languages delivered a workshop around how languages are good for young people, their skills and their careers. The Modern Languages department showcased their trips abroad, and the parents also enjoyed tasters in Spanish and German as well as being taught Chinese chess from the young people in the Mandarin club.

The evening went down a storm with parents with comments ranging from "I enjoyed hearing how Modern Languages help in the future" to "It was informative to see how the children learn".  What a wonderful end to a European celebration!

Douglas Academy

This year’s annual celebration of the European Day of Languages took place on Thursday 24th September. The whole school were encouraged to celebrate the diversity of culture and language we can experience right here at Douglas Academy and in our wider community.

As usual we had some excellent posters handed in by our S1 pupils which showed why learning another language is a good thing to do. We had some very thoughtful and artistic entries this year so well done to all who took part. Senior pupils also took part in an essay writing competition on the same subject and there were prize winners from both S4 and S5.

In Modern Languages that day every year group took part in activities and quizzes focussing on a variety of different languages from all around the world. Some classes read and listened to extracts from Harry Potter in various languages and other classes got to sing Old MacDonald in Latin. The canteen put on a great spread of European cuisine, including some very popular crêpes, and during lunch everyone in the social space was invited to take part in a quiz where they had to identify the correct language from some texts written in other languages by various staff members who are either bilingual or learning another language.

Overall it was a lively and active celebration of different languages and cultures and during the day we had some great discussions, some good food and a bit of fun along the way.

Aberdeen City Schools

Europe Direct, based at Aberdeen City Central Library, organised a Euro Quiz for P6 pupils from Aberdeen City schools. Ruth Gould and Hazlehead Academy pupil Shuya Zuo collated questions testing pupils’ knowledge of European Food, Celebrities, Animals and Flags.

Six schools - Bramble Brae, Dyce, Hazlehead, Seaton, St Peter’s and Westpark - gathered at Aberdeen Beach Ballroom on Friday 25th September. They were greeted by language students from Aberdeen University and the 2015 GET students.

The morning started with games set in 4 stations: Italian “Bingo”, German “Hangman”, Spanish “Pin the Country” and French colours “Corners”. The language students monitored the games and pupils rotated to a new station at the blow of a whistle. After a break, the pupils sat in teams of four for the “Big Quiz”.

The teachers and pupils involved enjoyed the event which was an opportunity to have fun while practising languages

All Saints RC Secondary School

The Modern Languages Department at All Saints RC Secondary in Glasgow celebrated European Day of Languages with a four-day languages fest beginning on Monday 21st September with their French Day. Pupils were met with teachers dressed in clothes to represent the language of the day and class events took place throughout the day.

On Tuesday, it was our German Day with the Goethe-Institut team coming in to run their German Language Game for S1 pupils. Again, teachers dressed in the German colours and in particular the German football fanzine base went down a storm.

Wednesday was our Spanish Day as well as our European Breakfast for school staff from 7.45am – 8.45am with donations going towards sending our S6 Euroscola students to Strasbourg this year. Staff could choose from croissants, pastries, tea and coffee to get their day started and again the modern languages staff were dressed to the nines to celebrate Spanish Day.

Finally on Thursday we celebrated our Italian Day with classroom events to promote all things Italian including a fantastic PowerPoint and talk by Niall one of the Strathclyde University Ambassadors. A big thanks has to go to Cédric at the University of Strathclyde for helping the department out with the University Language Ambassadors who came in every day to promote language learning to our pupils.  Each Ambassador spoke about their language experiences and where they are now on their language journey. We were fortunate to have Declan, Dorothea and Niall who all made their own impression on our pupils and students.

How many sleeps until European Day of Languages 2016?

Bishopbriggs Academy

Bishopbriggs Academy hosted an event with S1 pupils in the assembly hall to promote the European Day of Languages.

Our activities were:

• A sorting game where pupils worked in teams to sort 27 languages into 24 official European languages and 3 non European languages.
• A quiz where pupils had to identify which percentage was the answer to each question. The questions were:
• What percentage of the world’s population speaks English?
• Which percentage is the number of European Union Citizens that can take part in a conversation in a language other than their own?
• What percentage of people in the Netherlands, Denmark or Sweden can hold a conversation in a language other than their own?
• What percentage of people in the UK, Ireland or Portugal can hold a conversation in a language other than their own?

• Tongue twisters - pupils tried to pronounce tongue twisters in English, French and Spanish through the microphone.
• A music quiz where pupils listened to tracks and had to identify which language was being sung.
• A selfie booth allowing pupils to dress themselves in stereotypical European clothing.

Killermont Primary School

Here at Killermont Primary School we held our EDL Assembly on Friday 2nd October.

A letter was sent to parents advising them of the assembly and asking for pupil volunteers to say a phrase or two in a European language as well as dressing up in the national colours of their chosen country. There was a great response and we had a group of Spanish speakers as well as German, Romanian and Dutch speakers and a small multilingual group of Norwegian, Arabic, Greek and Albanian speakers.

Pupils in classes from P5 to P7 sang some French songs and we watched two YouTube videos.

Peebles High School

The European Day of Languages is a time to celebrate the diversity of the languages spoken around the world, to promote language learning and to have some multilingual fun! On 24th and 25th September, the S1 classes from Peebles High School (Scottish Borders), celebrated the European Day of Languages by taking part in an EDL T-shirt competition! They all enjoyed that and as well as the wonderful prizes they received.

With our S2 French, German, Italian and Spanish classes we did the SCILT European Day of Languages quiz and watched some topic related videos.

Crown Primary School

Crown Primary in Inverness celebrated the European Day of Languages with every class taking on a different country to learn about.

Primary One did an amazing job of embracing a different culture. In the home corner an Italian restaurant appeared, they made the Italian flag and the children feasted on pizzas.  

Some of the other classes in the school had parents come in to share their home language and read to them. A few of the older children also went into the younger classes to read in their home language.

In P5/6 the children looked at the designs of Greek pottery and then created their own pots using clay after spending the morning researching different aspects of Greece (Gods, numbers, alphabet, ancient, modern, etc). Most classes learnt a few key phrases in their country’s language.

St Elizabeth's Primary School

St Elizabeth's Primary School in Hamilton enjoyed a week of listening to, repeating, learning and enjoying a wide array of languages. Hungarian, Polish, French, Italian, Scots, with a wee bit of Punjabi and Sri Lankan thrown in to celebrate the origin of some of our pupils.

Children got free pizza from a local Italian restaurant, dressed up in European flag colours and thoroughly loved playing around with languages.

Queen Victoria School

Higher pupils at Queen Victoria School led the whole-school Morning Assembly and read poems in French, Spanish, Japanese and Russian. Stickers were given out to the whole school, and pupils were informed of the events running that day.

Classes in the MFL department centred around a Kahoot quiz, with lots of fun video clips to support it. One of the English teachers played a 'Guess the movie' by letting pupils hear a trailer in a foreign language, and in Maths, S1 played with The Cube and practised their Spanish numbers.

Staff decorated their classrooms and offices - the library won 1st prize for it's transformation into a snowy Finland! There was also a dress-up competition for staff, and pupils judged the best dressed.

The catering staff provided a French breakfast, Spanish lunch and Italian tea, and themed the dining hall to match the cuisine! There was a 'Surprise' Film screening of l'Arnacœur for a small group of senior girls after school on Tuesday.

Sgoil Phaibil

Sgoil Phaibil had a wonderful celebration of European Languages Day on Friday. Pupils took part in a range of engaging activities throughout the day and celebrated with great enthusiasm!

Children came to school dressed in an authentic European national costume.  All 28 European Union countries were well represented!

Our activities included:

• European Union Mapping Skills
• European Landmarks 
• Gaelic Singing 
• Famous European Artists
• European Greetings
• European National Dress Game

At lunch time all our pupils were encouraged to sample some delicious European dishes which had been prepared and donated by our local restaurants, Stepping Stone, Temple View, Langass Lodge, Hamersay House and Lochmaddy Hotel.  ‘Hamersay House Hotel’ were kind enough to send their Head Chef, Joe Sinclair, who served lunch to all of our pupils!

The dining hall was decorated with European flags and photographs of famous landmarks were displayed around the hall.  Some of the famous landmarks had been created earlier by our pupils using newspapers!     

The finale - ‘Les Trois Petit Couchons!’ 

The highlight of the day was when all pupils sang the well known fairy tale, ‘The Three Little Pigs’ in French to the tune of Lady Gaga’s song, Poker Face! 

Sarah Jane, Head Teacher of Sgoil Phaibil:

The European Languages Day is the ideal opportunity to promote and encourage the importance of language leaning, celebrate cultural diversity and above all teach our pupils how much fun learning a new language can be!

European Languages Day also allows us all to improve our understanding and appreciation of different cultures and customs.

All pupils received a European ‘goodie bag’ containing European items.

A fun and productive learning experience was had by all… including the staff!