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European Day of Languages at Parkroyal School26th September 2008
The Fanfare for a Common Man sounded across the hall telling all of the 400+ children present that something exciting was about to start.The fanfare faded and dissolved into Ode to Joy the anthem of Europe. The webcam showing the bread oven in a Paris bakery faded into a “Welcome to all “ slide on Mr Warren’s PowerPoint. European Day of Languages 2008 was at the starting gate and was now up and running. The children were very excited, it was a non-uniform day, and the theme was flags. The assembled throng was very colourful, T-shirts had been drawn on, flags were made into clothes, everybody was very proud of their efforts. Flags from over the world adorned the children and truly reflected the rich cultural diversity of the school. The assembly hall was a carpet of brightly dressed excited children eagerly awaiting the day’s activities. The boys and girls have made some mosaics of the flags of each country from where we have children. Fifteen mosaic flags are attached to the walls at the front of the school.
The school dressed ship for the first major event of the academic year, the foundation stage farmyard in the entrance hall – À la ferme - has paintings of farm animals. Combien de is asked for les vaches, les poules, les cochons, les brebis, les moutons. Tintin occupies the grand corridor with a length of posters about the characters featured in Tintin films – in both English and French. Bianca Castafiore and Capitaine Haddock are both firm favourites. Every room has a display that informs the embedding of French into the class curriculum. Le Café de Year 2 with its challenge to write a menu with “Can you use some French words?” on it is very appealing. “More than six thousand different languages in the world,” said Mr Warren – that takes a lot of understanding. Each child here could learn at least fifteen languages and still nobody would be learning the same one. Thinking on and by saying hello or good morning in all the languages that some of our pupils already know and speak at home we began to be amazed just how many languages we do have in school. Bonjour We have children from many different countries all over the world and the 26th September is the day we learn a little bit more about them. Lots of mums read us stories in different languages, Ben’s mum read to us in German, Noami’s mum read to in her language French. Anna’s mum is from the Ukraine and she not only shared a story in her own language, Russian, but she wore her national costume as well. Jakob’s mum is from Poland, Mrs Johnson is from the Philippines, Alec’s mum speaks German as does Olivia’s mum who lived in Spain, Hugo’s mum is Japanese and all shared stories with the children.
Mrs Mo is from China and has not got a lot of English but the children really enjoyed learning how to write using Chinese characters. We had a visitor from Denmark who did some really interesting work about windmills, all in Danish of course. Year 1 children learned about Handa’s Surprise in French and now all their fruits and colours. Elmer the elephant helped lots of children learn colours in French and German. Miss Tibbles did some cooking in Spanish – ummm the smell of the cakes was delicious. Her class did an amazing play about the ingredients needed for a pizza but entirely in Spanish. Muy bien Y3. Mrs Hasler and Mrs Scarffe with their children from Year 4 redid the Olympic Games, ate some Greek food, learned some Greek language and even danced to Greek music. Mr Pearson the world famous magician from CiLT performed some amazing magic, delighting children throughout the school with his German prestidigitation. ( a posh word for tricks) Mr and Mrs Evans are water engineers and work a lot in India and Pakistan, both shared some of their knowledge of Hindi and Urdu with the children. Following on from the successful Mr Men animations of 2007, Year 6 were read some Mr Men stories in French and the children then created their own comic strips using uniquely French. The children had a lot of fun working out who all the characters were and what they were saying. Mrs Kennelly had been to Australia during her summer holiday, lucky teacher and she had come to EDL day ready with some Aboriginal language and activities for the children in Year 5. They really enjoyed themselves The children form Wincle School, a small school in the nearby hills came to Parkroyal School for the day and they all sang a wonderful song in Italian, a language they are learning and obviously enjoying. Lots of children had the opportunity to enjoy some continental cinema during the afternoon and Tintin was as always very popular. The film Les Sept Boules de Crystal was enjoyed twice during the afternoon by different groups and there were demands, polite demands for more Tintin in the near future. The parachutes in school were well used throughout the day providing a colourful picture as they floated up and down to a range of different games using a selection of different languages. Luckily the weather was good and we had as many activities outside as inside.
The end of the day came; a lot of words in a lot of different languages had been spoken and learned. Everybody involved, children and grown ups had gained a lot from the day, we had learned a little bit more about each other and a lot more about the world we live in. Roll on European Day of Languages 2009.
Article supplied by Parkroyal School
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Pupils take part in an Olympics-themed assembly 
Carrying flags at the Olympics Assembly 
Pupils enjoy parachute games 
Pupils play a blindfold game for parties called Topfsclagen 
