Welcome to Languages Week Scotland

For Languages Week Scotland, we welcomed visitors to every class for storytelling and activities. Languages included Ukranian, Urdu, Spanish and French. Pupils enjoyed learning songs and listening to stories as well as playing games. Volunteers were staff members, parents and friends of Kirkhill. Primary 7 were delighted to have S3 Language Ambassadors to speak with them in order to enthuse them and answer their questions on Languages at Mearns Castle High School. In each class, the meet and greet was in French (our target language) and emphasis was placed on French songs and activities throughout the week.

At St Joseph's we are a very multilingual school and we have celebrated Languages Week Scotland. P2 and P3 shared how to say 'hello' in different languages they know; P4 and P5 drew their Language Portraits; P6 and P7 discussed and learned why languages are important and open doors in your future. We also shared the LWS activities for parents and families so they can celebrate at home too.

Pupils in Alloa Academy were able to take part in a wide range of activities to celebrate Languages Week Scotland. To start off, all BGE pupils took part in a Wordwall quiz designed to get them to think about some of the facts and myths surrounding languages and language learning. S1 pupils could choose from a variety of activities to celebrate Languages Week Scotland ranging from learning some Gaelic on Duolingo or watching a Gaelic programme on BBC Alba, creating a dance to a foreign language song, creating a bilingual story using language we have learned so far, and sharing tips to learn a language. Pupils also shared their knowledge and interests by teaching the class French words they have learned through ballet – including a demonstration! Many pupils chose to create a welcome poster that celebrates the diversity in languages spoken by pupils in Alloa Academy. S2 pupils looked into how languages can be created for films, tv shows, and books. We watched a clip from YouTube that explained how the languages for Avatar, Game of Thrones, and Star Trek were developed. They were shocked to discover that people learn some of these made-up languages and even study them at university! S3 pupils looked at the benefits of learning a language using some resources from SCILT. They also read some job profiles from SCILT's website to learn about how languages have helped people in a wide range of careers. This was followed by researching recruitment websites to see the types of jobs available for linguists. BGE pupils in a bespoke ASN class looked at some Scottish words and created a poster or tea towel like you see in tourist shops around the country. We’ve had a great week engaging with Languages Week Scotland. Scotland loves languages!

We celebrated Languages Week Scotland to promote the multilingual classroom. We wanted to highlight Scots as part of the mix in the many languages spoken at Banff Academy, so bairns in S3 and senior Scots Language Classes were encouraged to think about why Scots and other languages are important to us - for the heritage and history of the area (and links with other languages, in the community and with family and friends, and also the importance of young people in keeping a language going. We also wanted pupils to think of all the different languages spoken by their peers in the school. Classes were tasked with finding out about Languages Week Scotland, and then to think of a way of presenting the information in a clear, colourful and informative way for other pupils. Personalisation and choice was key. Some pupils chose to focus on the words they had learned, others about what LWS is all about, and others on what their language means to them, and why it is important in the mix of other European modern languages.

As well as our regular Twitter posts to raise awareness of languages, culture, celebrate success and maintain good health and wellbeing, we did a few other activities this week to celebrate Languages Week Scotland. We asked pupils and teachers to share their opinions on why THEY love languages. We also launched our 5,4,3,2,1 task - this is a great way of checking, brainstorming, creating Spanish and French and also enables active learning, collaborative work and differentiation.

Cross Arthurlie Primary School held a few whole school projects to celebrate such as design a logo for our new twitter @XALanguages, a Kahoot quiz with facts about global languages and our teachers and a guess the language book quiz. P4 also explored the theme of LWS through their learning on Deforestation. We discussed how important it is to listen as well as talk when we are communicating. We had numerous homework challenges where pupils had to explore the origins of items in our houses.

• Liaised with the local secondary school who sent modern languages staff & senior pupils to deliver lessons, teaching French, Spanish & Portuguese lessons, to primary pupils (p5,p6 & p7)
• Staff all planned lessons centred around developing a culture of language. Children across p1-3 rotated round for the day, and pupils p4-p7 rotated around. lessons ranged from cultural dance,art, appreciating language. Children reported very positively on their experiences!
• Liaised with aprents/children in our school who speak another language and empowered them to teach others in our school community.
• Homework tasks were related to family learning opportunities aimed at celebrating languages!

As a whole school, we have completed a week's worth of fun activities designed to celebrate the different languages spoken in Beancross and the different cultures of our children. I developed a grid of activities that work across 1st and 2nd level CfE, spanning Literacy, Mod. Languages, Expressive Arts, Numeracy, Social studies, Art and HWB. Every day, classes chose activities and then completed their challenge(s). Every class will get a certificate presented in assembly to celebrate their hard work. Children with EAL and enthusiastic language learners also put on a wonderful Eurovision-style show on Friday. The whole school enjoyed amazing performances in: Yoruba, Ukrainian, Slovak, French, Greek, Urdu, Zulu, Arabic, Afrikaans, Scots and Shona. Performers will receive a special award and badge to mark their achievements and status as language leaders.

We audited the languages spoken across the school. Then around 15 P7 children volunteered to deliver a variety of lessons and taster sessions across the school during LWS. They also distributed QR codes of songs in different languages- this inspired other classes to deliver inputs of their own mother tongue to their own classes. We had a parent helper read Polish stories to classes and we had a BSL volunteer deliver a BSL taster. The information, photos and videos will be displayed in the school and QR codes will allow other children to continue to enjoy them. 2 P7 girls are now going to lead a BSL lunchtime club across the school- they are already oversubscribed! A great week was had by all.

S2 are on the topic of Film and TV, so for one of our starter tasks this week we looked at some multilingual actors and actresses. Pupils enjoyed this, and were impressed by these actors' language skills. BGE pupils are also completing a "lingo bingo" challenge sheet for homework, which we hope encourages them to find languages in their local community and have fun with languages!

During Languages Week Scotland we have tried to incorporate new vocabulary from a range of languages across our learning, in as many activities as possible. We have listened to lots of familiar stories in different languages and tried to make connections with our own knowledge of our home languages.