Erin Seils |
St Andrew’s and St Bride’s gets ready to celebrate European Day of Languages.
The Council of Europe declared that The European Day of Languages (EDL) was to be observed on the 26th of September every year, in 2001, after the European Year of Languages took place. The activities, which occurred throughout the year of 2001, encouraged people to learn other languages and celebrate the linguistic diversity in Europe.
This day was created to make people aware of how we should cherish the diversity of Europe’s languages and the importance of language learning at all ages, for a variety reasons (including less widely used languages) which results in people being able to easily switch between two or more languages and helps us to understand other cultures.
Unfortunately, EDL falls on a Saturday this year so we will not be able to celebrate in school on this day but we will of course still be celebrating.
The Modern Languages department have organised activities for every year group.
S1 will be taking part in a weeklong celebration. They will be comparing the life and culture in Scotland to France or Spain in class and will end the week with a fun class quiz.
S2 are going to be getting a real feel for Spanish culture in the afternoon of Thursday 24th when “Alba Flamenca” visit the school. Not only will they be watching the music and dance performance but will even have the chance to learn some basic moves! Having experienced this myself last year I can say that this is certainly very entertaining.
Some 3rd year classes will study a French film which ties in with their current topic of Media and Technology.
When the 4th years return from work experience they will be studying the topic of the “Importance of Learning Languages”
Higher classes are going to be looking at the idioms of the world, focusing on French or Spanish.
On Thursday the 24th, there will hopefully be croissants and pain au chocolat sold in the canteen.
Last year the S2 pupils made croque monsieur and the Home Economics department are planning on making a dish from a European country with the current S2.
Overall it seems like everyone is going to enjoy celebrating the European Day of Languages with all of the things that teachers have planned for everybody to take part in.
