Délicieux, merci beaucoup!
- Mrs Duncan on embracing foreign languages and cultures at our school
St Mary’s Junior School, Cambridge celebrated European Day of Languages on Wednesday. The day started with an interactive multi-lingual assembly and ended with our annual French café, where Acton Hall is turned in to a French patisserie for an afternoon.
During assembly many of the girls shared their language skills and presented short dialogues, and everyone else had to guess what was being said. The pupils heard Spanish, Italian and French as well as a few languages which were less easy for the girls to recognise, like Welsh. In fact, the group could make sense of the Norwegian for ‘good morning’ – ‘god morgen’ – more easily than the Welsh equivalent, ‘bore da’. Many of our Russian and French speakers recognised some of the greetings shared and everyone had the chance to sing a song which includes ‘hello’ in four different languages, taught to the girls by Mr Minchin.
Miss Martinez, who is Spanish, shared some photos of her favourite Spanish festivals; one was La Tomatina, the tomato throwing festival, which all agreed looked like great fun, and the other was the human tower, which clearly requires great skill and a strong head for heights!
At the French café later in the day all the girls had a go at speaking French, buying their croissants or pain au chocolats, and the superb pronunciation and accents were very impressive. Thank you to the kitchen team for sourcing some lovely authentic and fresh French pastries – délicieux, merci beaucoup!
This week our first twilight session of the academic year also emphasised our commitment to foreign languages, and we are grateful to Sophia Huang for running an excellent Mandarin introductory session for parents.
Recognising the European Day of Languages is important for our school, as we celebrate not only the 40 languages spoken across Europe, but also the rich variety of cultures that exists across the continent. Marking this day promotes harmony and respect between our many nation states in Europe. For those pupils who speak English as a first language, the day encourages them to think about their own language and to realise that English alone may not be sufficient to prosper and enjoy their lives, and careers, especially in the future when our pupils will be living in a world which is most certainly getting ‘smaller’.
We are fortunate that our Junior School truly embraces cultural diversity, and already boasts a wide range of different nationalities and languages spoken – over 12 countries are represented at the moment.
The way I see it… a word from Assistant Head, Mr O'Reilly
For me it all started in 1997, during my first German exchange; the beginning of a love of Germany, its language, people and culture which has stayed with me ever since. This initial experience is what led me to read German at university, study for a semester at Heidelberg University and work in Cologne in 2007.
This summer I returned to visit my exchange family again, Familie Schmitt, for the first time in nearly twenty years. This personal connection to a country was crucial in motivating me to learn German, and I strongly believe that new languages shouldn't be learned in isolation; the culture, people and traditions of a country should be incorporated into learning so that the experience is broad and immersive. This is something we invest in doing at our Junior School through interactive lessons, international festivals and then through to Senior School when students can take advantage of a range of exchange programmes. Maybe it will ignite a passion for foreign cultures and languages in our girls which will similarly last a number of decades, if not a lifetime!