European Day of Languages

European Day of Languages at ES Culham

By David Parker

There are over 6000 languages spoken in the world and behind each and every one of them lies a rich and diverse culture. That’s what the European Day of Languages (EDL) aims to celebrate - by showing people across Europe how important languages are, and what fun can be had learning them.

26 September was the all important day and 2011 marks the Day's 10th anniversary following the decision of the Council of Europe to declare a European Day of Languages to be celebrated on 26 September each year.

At Culham, we decided to celebrate this day in two ways. Firstly, we gave lower secondary school students special taster lessons in a range of languages they would not normally be exposed to in school including Russian, Czech, Hungarian, Swedish, Irish, Portuguese, Yiddish and Ukrainian.

Nearly all lessons were provided by teachers and parents from ESCulham which demonstrates our rich linguistic diversity. Students really appreciated the opportunity to get aflavourof other European languages, to increase their intercultural understanding and enjoyed seeing teachers take pride in their existing language skills. Student feedback to these lessons was very positive “I’d really like to take up Czech later on” enthused one first year student.

In preparation for the European Day of Languages, students were also encouraged to get involved in finding out about language learning in the school through surveys as well as investigating the culture behind several languages in Europe. The results of their work were displayed as poster presentations around the school.