Last Friday we took part in EDL for the first time. Since 2001 we have held specialised days in October to celebrate "Languages Work!" and indeed in 2004 we won a CILT award for our project...I wasn't there at the time.
But as happens in life we often need to turn over a new leaf, so rather than do a Languages Work! event we decided to join in the fun of EDL.
We decided to concentrate on our new S1's, mainly because in this their first term at TGS we have been concentrating on highlighting the cultural aspects of language learning rather than the language itself; along with a bit of basic grammar (English and TL) thrown in for good measure.
My classes are putting finishing touches to presentations about some aspect of life in Germany, which will be soon available for Rating on Rate My Mates.
Anyhow, our focus for EDL was to have the pupils try to understand how much of an influence the entity of Europe has on their lives and as a consequence how important it is to be able to communicate in another language. So we had a couple of our senior students talk about why they still learn a language. We had a sketch by some more seniors which highlighted the "plight" of the typical Brit abroad and we also had a parade of nations. This started out merely as an exercise in class to see who had relations in places other than Scotland. In the end it turned out that throughout S1 there are over 20 countries with which pupils have direct familial links worldwide. Pretty amazing we thought, considering the size and location of our wee town.
Ok enough is enough, I've whet your appetite. Here's EDL08@TGS
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I also hope that the "European Day of Languages" encouraged many people to learn a new language. Especially in the United Kingdom where the interest in learning languages seems to be declining.
You may know that four schools in Britain have introduced Esperanto, the neutral international language, in order to test its propaedeutic values?
The pilot project is being monitored by the University of Manchester. Why not extend this project to other countries as well? Further academic appraisal is essential.
An interesting video can be seen at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8837438938991452670
Otherwise http://www.lernu.net might help ?
Posted by: Brian Barker | Monday, 29 September 2008 at 22:53