INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGES DAY
Frohen internationalen Sprachentag, Joyeux jour de langues internationales, Feliz dia de la lengua internacional, Happy international languages day!
This important day has been celebrated for numerous years and here at Warminster School, has become a tradition as we are a very international community and understand the quality and value of different languages and cultures.
There are countless advantages of studying different languages. They enable people to communicate with native speakers in other countries, which can turn into a unique experience. Also, not all people speak English. In fact, as we learnt in assembly on Friday morning, 75% of the world’s population don’t! There is absolutely no doubt that languages broaden your horizons and provide us with an incredibly wide range of opportunities in the future. They make moving to a different country, for example for job opportunities, so much easier. It is also proven that languages increase your brain capacity, improve your memory, and increase creativity. Finally, speaking different languages allows us to experience and discover new and different cultures.
In the Prep School, the celebration assembly was conducted in French by Mr Titley and Madame Mortimer. Year 5 sang a song in Zulu and many pupils stood up to speak in different languages (which had to be guessed!)
Throughout the day, pupils read stories and played games in different languages and even the newsletter was sent home with “les vedettes de la semaine” in French. Also in the Senior School we enjoyed an assembly and many teachers and pupils talked about their experience with learning and speaking other languages.
For the first time, the MFL department organised a “European Day of Languages Bake Off Competition”. Pupils and teachers baked language based cakes and the best ones were awarded a prize. There were different pupil and staff categories and the effort that everyone put into baking was truly amazing – there was an Eiffel Tower cake, a French baguette and onion themed cake and many more!
The winners of the first MFL Bake Off
Prep Staff: Mrs Finnigan
Senior Staff: Madame Tolley
Senior Day pupil: Rachel Shepherd
Prep Day pupil: Skyla Mercer
Boarders: Ivy House Group effort
For those that missed out on the 'live action' on Twitter this morning, take a look!
At the end of the morning, the cakes were sold and the money that was raised will be donated to the ‘Just William’ charity.
Just as last year, a huge range of activities were carried out on the day. There was a language frame that pupils and staff could take pictures and videos with, and many teachers taught parts of their lessons in another language! Some subjects were led by our international pupils which was a great success that everyone seemed to enjoy.
We were fortunate enough to welcome a group of Spanish pupils from our partner school in Zaragoza for 10 days who are joining some IB1 and IB2 students in their lessons. These students definitely add a lot to the diversity of Warminster School, especially on this day.
It wasn’t only European Languages Day this week, but we were also fortunate enough to welcome back the Onatti Theatre Company who performed a funny play for Years 7 to 11. The play was entirely in French but because of lots of action and audience participation, everybody managed to understand the plot.
It is incredible how widely the enthusiasm for languages has spread in our school and how pupils understand more about the importance of being able to speak another language.
Everybody seemed to fully embrace what Mrs Rogers said in Friday morning’s assembly: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart“ Nelson Mandela.
Lucie Brinker, Sixth Former and Miss Mitterrutzner