Click on the image to see Hermitage Primary School’s fantastic video of all the language learning which took place during LWS
Hermitage Primary School participated in Languages Week Scotland, this year’s focus being Languages for a Suitable World.
Each stage chose a country/language to focus on from a particular continent:
- Primary 1- Scotland/Gaelic
- Primary 2- Germany/German
- Primary 3- Italy/Italian
- Primary 4- Peru/Spanish
- Primary 5- Brazil/Portuguese
- Primary 6- Japan/Japanese
- Primary 7- China/Mandarin
Throughout the week the children engaged in a range of exciting cross-curricular experiences based around their country and language. These included:
- developing their mapping skills to identify their focus country on a map and compare it with their own location
- research and present the impact global warming is having on that particular country and changes that can be made to stop this
- discover how the various climates in different areas of the country impacts the use of the land in relation to animals and food production
- opportunities to listen and watch short stories and fairy tales in the native language
- learned and performed a traditional dance
- learned about a famous artist and recreated a piece of in that style.
In Primary 7, Mrs Guthrie taught the pupils about the impact of fast fashion on the environment as China is the biggest producer of clothes in the world as well as touching on the treatment of workers. This was something the pupils found particularly interesting as many of them were very familiar with the focused brands.
We also reached out to our wider school community to invite parents/carers and relatives with English as a second language to come in and share their native language and culture with the pupils. We were extremely fortunate to host speakers from different backgrounds including French, Gaelic, Brazilian and Chinese. The children thoroughly enjoyed listening to all the presentations and getting the opportunity to deepen their understanding during a question time session.
Families were also encouraged to get involved in the language celebrations at home. We provided a homework grid for the whole school so families could work together and choose from a range of fun activities to get involved in. One of the popular choices was the Creative Kitchen Challenge where they had to research and make a dish from a country of their choice. In Primary 3, many pupils loved making their own pizzas at home as well as trying out some tongue twisters in Italian.
To end the week off, we had a Heritage Tuck Shop where pupils were encouraged to bake a sweet treat from their native country or country of their choice and bring it in to share with the rest of the school.
Overall, the week was a great success and the children thoroughly enjoyed learning about a new country, culture and language. They enjoyed showcasing their learning at a whole school assembly.
