Modern Foreign Languages Week

This term, St Bede’s Prep School held its very first Modern Foreign Languages Week. Pupils throughout the School, from the Pre-Prep up to Year 8, focused on the importance of language, as a means of communication and as an expression of community and cultural identity.

The school corridors featured publicity posters designed by pupils as well as eye-catching clues to two quizzes on foreign cultures and languages. Registration each morning saw a group of brave overseas and bilingual pupils acting as trainers in six different languages, teaching both staff and pupils how to meet and greet in either Russian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, German or Spanish. Even the lunch menus had an international flavour, with a different gastronomic tradition featured every day and everyone tucking into paella, coq au vin or bratwurst, amongst other delicious dishes. Also on offer were: an introduction to Japanese, how to order ice-creams in Italian (real effort was rewarded by real ice-cream!) and a fabulous Flamenco recital by two teachers from the school’s Music Department.

The traditional Friday morning assembly was the culmination of a week–long celebration of language. Year 1 gave a performance of one of their favourite French songs, ‘Les Quatre Familles’, to the whole school. Year 4 confidently sang ‘Savez-vous planter les choux?’ complete with actions, having been introduced by some of our native French-speaking pupils. Each year group in the School was greeted by its selected language trainers and responded to them with a great deal of enthusiasm and varying degrees of fluency. The Lord’s Prayer was recited eloquently in French and a group of Year 8 pupils signed along to Florent Pagny’s ‘Savoir Aimer’: this was an accomplished performance which echoed the theme of Languages Week; that language is simply a way of reaching out to other people, regardless of our differences. Following some hilariously chaotic rehearsals, the staff were relieved when they sustained several verses of ‘One Man Went to Mow a Meadow’ in Swahili. The entire week was proof that trying out new languages brings enormous rewards for everyone involved.