Languages Block Roundup

Teachers and students across the whole school have been learning about the diversity of languages we speak in our daily lives. The activities we have completed during this month have awakened our cultural awareness and brought us closer together as an international community. It’s an amazing experience to realise the diversity of languages at our school and it is something we can rightly be extremely proud of.

During the first assembly after our Winter break, Primary students were tasked to teach their partners to count and pose the basic “How are you?” question in their own mother tongue. Our Secondary students had a slightly different mission, teaching their peers the basics of introductions in their native tongues, as well as translating various English words into their mother tongues.

Brainstorming activity

Students across Primary school were thinking about two words: SLOVENŠČINA (Slovene) and FRANÇAIS (French) and had to express their creativity on paper.

Mojster Jaka compilation

Students across Primary have been making a recording while they were singing the Slovene song Mojster Jaka.

Tourne, tourne and La baleine compilation

Years 3 and 4 have been making a recording while they were singing one of these popular French songs.

Poems and parts of short stories

Students across the school were dramatising a few beautiful poems and parts of short stories in their own mother tongues. How many languages can you recognise?

Recipe challenges

Students across Secondary school created recipe videos for the whole community, recording the way to prepare delicious traditional foods in their mother tongues, presenting their videos in diverse ways. We highly recommend that you check out the recipes in these videos and photos below:

Culture Day of Slovenia – Prešeren Day

In the Languages Block, we were also celebrating an upcoming cultural day. The 8^th of February is Prešeren Day across Slovenia. France Prešeren was the greatest Slovenian poet, who wrote Zdravljica, a Slovene anthem, among other excellent pieces of work. Students across our Primary school were watching an animation about the famous story Povodni mož, while our Secondary schoolers were listening to Prešeren’s well-known poem O, Vrba sung by popular Slovene singer, Vlado Kreslin.

La France voyage – French workshops

To wrap up the "Language block" our students from Y7, Y8 and Y9 will benefit from the program "La France voyage" organized by the French Institute of Slovenia. A young French teacher will lead on-line workshops in French for our students. Those workshops are suited for students with or without knowledge of French.
The goal is to make discover the French language differently, to promote its learning, to motivate the students through a direct encounter with a young Francophone, boost the teaching of French in our school and support the daily work of French learning.

The Friday workshops are organized with the aim of working in a fun way on the vocabulary that students have learned during this year – it will be an Interactive Pictionary!

Burns Night

Many people around the world may not be acquainted with Burns Night, and the celebrations which go with it. Burns Night supper is a celebration of the life and poetry of Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns. Here at BISL, we celebrated it with a whole-school poetry reading event.

Haka

Our Performing Arts team also joined the Languages celebration, by learning the traditional Māori ceremonial dance with our students.

Many thanks to everyone and we hope you have learned one or more words in different languages which are meaningful part of BISL as an international school.