How much does your school value, celebrate and promote the learning and teaching of languages, and the languages spoken in your school community? How do you do this? Remember to start small to make it manageable.
Wall Display - create a wall in the school / in individual classrooms showing key language being taught, information about the country or languages spoken by the school community.
Share learning - use assemblies for classes to perform songs in another language, share information about festivals etc
Normalise other languages - encourage staff to greet one another in another language so children hear it
Whole-school themed cross curricular work - see if you can weave in life/culture of another country eg. Trees - paintings by Van Gogh, Renoir, Klimt, Dali
Focus on languages at key points in the year - Language Days/Weeks, Awareness Days, Cultural Days (see below for ideas)
Promote languages in your classroom or school on this day. Why not organise an event, do a quiz or teach another language? Here's a pack of ideas for Primary, Secondary & Families.
Why not celebrate by taking languages outside! Here's an e-book for a great class project linking languages, literacy, digital literacy & outdoor learning for European Day of Languages.
Don't forget to check out the ECML & SCILT sites for more ideas.
Each year Languages Week Scotland has a different theme. SCILT provides different resources and daily challenges on their website/Twitter feed - follow @LangsWeekScot. Share your work using the hashtag - #ScotlandLovesLanguages. See theirwebsite for lots of ideas for schools, families & the local community. The Northern Alliance also has language specific resources.
See what other schools got up to during Languages Week Scotland in 2020 with this collection of twitter posts - maybe it will give you a few ideas of what you could try. Don't forget to share what you do within your school community - in assembly, in classes, with parents and the local community or on Twitter using the #ScotlandLovesLanguages & #HighlandLovesLanguages & follow @LangsWeekScotland.
Are you looking for inspiration?
Here's a poster with 5 simple ideas to try to celebrate languages and can be done in Languages Week (whatever the theme). There is one for every day of the week. The activities can be done in the classroom or by learners at home - just share the poster. You could ask learners to share whatever they do - voice/video recording, using an App like Chatterpix, a drawing or a Googleslides presentation.
Languages Week Scotland 5 Ideas.pdf
Celebrating French & Gaelic cultures & languages
Have a look at this e-book for some easy and quick ideas to celebrate languages with examples in French & Gaelic.
Overview Rights Approach to Language Learning.pdf
Celebrating the rights of language learners -
FOR STAFF
Multilingual posters to share with learners/print
Learners Rights Approach to Language Learning.pdf
Celebrating the rights of language learners -
FOR LEARNERS
Activities for upper primary/secondary - in class/at home.
This event celebrates Scottish Gaelic across the globe. There are lots of ways to get involved with different events nationally, or why not organise your own?
Celebrate all things Gaelic
Lots of resources here and challenges to celebrate the Gaelic language. Why not have a go?!
Annual Competitions
MTOT- Poetry competition in own language or another.
Raise awareness about how different cultures & countries worldwide celebrate key festivals like Christmas , New Year or national days. What's the same/different?
Don't forget to link in learning languages with festivals - revise language by asking learners to describe what they see in photos or videos of traditions. Or teach them some new vocabulary linked to the festival. See below for some examples & resources. For more head to section 10. Culture, Traditions & Festivals in Developing How I Teach Languages - Module 1 - T he Basics.
Schools often celebrate special days or get involved in themed weeks such as World Animal Day, Roald Dahl Day or Maths Week. These are great contexts for learning language linked to the theme or to focus on a different country eg. animals in Scotland or the words for these animals in Gaelic or Scots!
Celebrate what your learners know with this free computer game. Available in French, German, Spanish & Italian & suitable for a range of levels. For more info & ideas about assessing languages see Module 7 - Assessing Progress.
A great chance for staff and learners to share info about another country or even focus on the language itself.
Local Community
Invite parents to read stories in another language or share their culture. Why not have an event using another language eg. a French cafe! Or create a partnership with a local business that uses a language you're teaching.
Head to Promoting Languages for more ideas to help rasie the profile of languages in your school.