February 2017

Bonjour! Guten Tag! Hola! Hello! One word to describe the day...fantastic. A day full of laughs and new experiences. From quizzes to learning Russian, from learning Greek to conversations with Carly, the day was enjoyable from start to finish.

At the very start of the day we had a talk with Carly – an ex-High School student – who spoke to us about her careers and how languages gave her opportunities she never thought she would have. As a year group we spoke about our futures, and learnt what jobs languages would help with. After a funny true or false game with the teachers, it was off to our first lesson and mine was with the language assistants. This was probably my favourite part of the day, as it was extremely funny.  A battle of the assistants. We learnt about where they came from and some of the traditions they had there. We even got to try proper Swiss chocolate! It was now off to Spanish with Mrs. Hickman. Here we learnt to sing a Spanish song, and even got to dance with maracas to Mrs. Anderson!

After break-time, we were off to the computer room to learn about different countries. We were given a country and we had to find out many different things as well as drawing the countries’ flags. This was fun lesson, but it was now time for some Greek! With Mrs. Jones, we learnt the Greek alphabet and how to write it. We also wrote sentences in Greek for other people in our class to translate. If you thought learning the Greek alphabet was cool, next we learnt how to speak some Russian! And yes it’s as difficult as it sounds, but with Madame Barats actions to remember words, we got there in the end!

After lunch we were back in the hall together again. We had a general knowledge quiz, which was challenging but fun. My team even won! We then learnt about more former language students and what they had gone onto and achieved. One even worked for Google! For the last hour of the afternoon, we completed three logo quizzes. One was for Spanish, one was for French and the last one was for German. This was a brilliant way to end a brilliant day. I never knew that some of the typical brands we all used were actually Spanish!

Overall it was a BRILLIANT day! Also, on behalf of the students at SHS, we would like to say a massive thank you to all the teachers who made it such an amazing day and also to Carly who spoke to us for the first part of the morning. Thank you!

Lara Sanderson 9S

 
On Friday the third of February the whole of year 9 participated in Languages Day, the day was filled with learning about how to speak different languages, such as Russian, Greek and Spanish, and also learning about the different cultures and food around the world.

The day began with an amazing and very informative speech from Carly Morris, an inspiring ex Spalding High School student. The speech she delivered was full of information about how learning languages can set you off on an amazing journey; it makes it easier to find a great career and opens doors to so many opportunities, like making new friends from all around the globe.  Carly’s speech left everyone feeling inspired and full of questions about everything she had achieved since being a student at Spalding High School.

After Carly’s speech we went on to do a fun quiz to finish off the first period, the quiz was all about different countries, their capitals and their land marks, it was really fun to do but also educational, I’m  sure everyone taking part learnt something new from the quiz!

After a short break we broke off into our forms, firstly 9S gathered in the French room to learn all about the culture and the food in France! The two amazing languages assistants taught us all about where they are from, their culture and their favourite foods from their country. The form participated in a vote about where they would rather live, which culture they’d rather experience and also what food they’d rather try! It was really fun to find out more about where some of the food that you can find in English supermarkets is really from, such as cheese, chocolate, bread and many desserts. To end the period we tried some chocolate from Switzerland, it was so rich and tasty, and there wasn’t a single person who didn’t like it!

Afterwards we went downstairs to the Spanish room, where we joined Mrs Hickman in learning a Spanish song all about saying hello and how are you, the song was so catchy and easy to learn, which made it fun for everyone, even the people in the form who aren’t doing Spanish this year, we also had fun with maracas, a traditional Spanish instrument. By the end of the lesson, there were multiple people who were having second thoughts about Spanish for GCSE, and that they wanted to do it, this was great because it helped so many students pick out the right option for them.

Finally before lunch, we went into a Greek lesson with Mrs Jones; everyone went in knowing nothing about the language and Greek culture. During the lesson this changed, as Mrs Jones taught us the entire Greek alphabet and the correct symbols for different letters, the form caught on quite easily, as we realised the sounds weren’t too different to the English language! To finish the lesson we worked out some anagrams from Greek letters, it was confusing but we had handy sheets to refer to that we could also take home with us to go over again and learn the symbols a bit better.

To start the afternoon, we went into a Russian lesson with Madame Barats, where we learnt basic Russian phrases that were really helpful, the Russian language was very different to anything we’d learnt before, but even though it was complex, in the short game we played at the end the form had learnt basic greetings, manners and also the alphabet! Before we left the lesson we were able to have short conversations with our friends in Russian and understand them too.

After all of the lessons were finished, the year gathered in the hall for a short logo quiz, which included logos from around the globe. By the end of the day everyone had become more open minded about learning languages and we understood all about different cultures, and we even had tried new food! Overall the day was so fun whilst also being really interesting and informative.

Lizzie Lister 9S