Madame Helm (Head of MFL)
Celebrating the International Mother Language Day on Monday 21st February kicked off a fortnight of celebrating languages and multiculturalism at BGS.
Observed globally, the idea to celebrate the day was approved by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation or UNESCO in 1999. The event promotes linguistics, cultural diversity and multilingualism. As stated by UNESCO: “All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education, but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world…”
The events started with a themed International Bake Off, which celebrated multiculturalism. We had some great cakes/biscuits from traditional recipes such as Welsh Cakes, to Victoria Sponges decorated with words, flags or international themes. We even had some Chinese Dragon cupcakes and a special mention and thanks to Nazor (Year 7) for bringing her superb cake in and sharing it with her form!
During form time and lessons, students entered a Blooket quiz with lots of language and countries related questions. The competition was intense and many facts about languages were learnt including idiomatic expressions from all around the world. In Year 7 German lessons with Frau Arrowsmith, students were taught some Bulgarian, Danish, Urdu and Punjabi by native speakers. Mlle Stuart got her Year 9 students to share their favourite words in their own language and to justify their choices. Veronica’s (Year 9) favourite word is 謝謝 - Thank You in Cantonese. She said: “I like this word because it is used a lot during conversations and in writing. I say 謝謝 when someone gives me gifts. There is also another way to say, ‘thank you’, which is pronounced as mm-goi, 唔該, which I usually say when someone helps me.”
Ava’s (Year 9) chosen words were สวัสดี (sa-wa-dee) = Hello/Hi, For males สวัสดี ครับ = sa-wa-dee-krap, and for females สวัสดี ค่ะ = sa-wa-dee-ka. She said: “These words are a nice way to greet anyone whether they are older, younger or the same age as you. They are the first words I learnt in Thai because it is an easy way to communicate politeness and friendliness to any Thai person despite not knowing how to speak the entire language.”
Madame Willard's Year 8 class spoke about carnivals and watched videos about carnivals around the world taking place in February before designing their own carnivals.
Our Language Assistants, Eva, Katharina and Oceane, led engaging sessions about carnivals in France, Germany and Spain. In Madame Hosking’s hugely popular Hama Beads Club we created languages and flag inspired designs.
This week marked International Women’s Day on Tuesday 8th March and the French Department decided to pay tribute to the French artist Yseult and talk to students about her work which addresses mental health issues, racism and bias in French society.
We are looking forward to la journée de la Francophonie on Sunday 20th March, which is this year focused on the future #Francophoniedelavenir. We will have some activities in class to celebrate this event.
Finally, we are also celebrating three students who entered a GCSE in their native language (Russian and Spanish) in November and received the highest grades 9. Well done Katie (Year 11) , Esther (Year 11) and Athena (Upper Sixth). They are an inspiration to other students who are thinking about entering a GCSE in their home language, and this summer we have students entered for Arabic and Turkish GCSEs.
