Efthimios Mavrogeorgiadis
User blog: Efthimios Mavrogeorgiadis
Thursday, September 26, 2013, was the 13th anniversary of the European Day of Languages. Since 2001, when the European Day of Languages was celebrated for the first time, September 26 is usually the date that sounds the alarm for language teachers across Europe to set up events that celebrate multilingualism and promote language learning among students.
Of course, our school could not pass this opportunity and, thanks to the initiative of the teachers of the English, French, and German languages, our students had the opportunity to enjoy participating in quite a few activities that were organised on the school grounds as well as at Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki and Institut Français de Thessalonique.
Our 7th grade students that study German visited Goethe-Institut, where they had the opportunity to play games such as Glossomobil's parachute, create badges, sing German songs and get involved in many other activities. They also visited Goethe-Institut's interactive exhibition Hands-On Mathematics, where they touched and "experienced" more the 20 exhibits.
The rest of our 7th grade students, who study French, visited Institut Français, where they split into groups and created language calendars and posters about their favourite city. After all groups had presented their work, they were shown around Institut Français.
The students of the 8th and 9th grade remained at school but they surely didn't stand idly by watching the youngsters wave goodbye. After watching a short presentation on the merits of multilingualism and language learning, they were introduced to Europe's cultural and linguistic diversity through the sounds animals make, as they are perceived by different linguistic groups around our continent. Then they visited the Trees of Languages in our school quad, where they got acquainted with everyday phrases from languages across Europe. The day ended with lots of candy and chocolate for all participants.
You can read more about these events in Greek and check out a few photographs in the file attached.