Languages and Cultural Appreciation Morning

Languages and Cultural Appreciation Morning

On Thursday 30 November, the Language Department hosted a Languages and Cultural Appreciation Morning for all Year 8 students. The purpose of the morning was to celebrate our cultural and linguistic diversity and, also highlight the importance of language study, not only as a ‘workout for our minds’ but also as an important advantage when seeking employment.

 

Firstly, we presented a PowerPoint displaying the large number of Blackfriars staff who have second (or even third or fourth!) language skills. Some were quite surprising; Mrs Tynan is fluent in Thai, Mrs Wilson speaks French and Indonesian and Ms Dittmann speaks German, Japanese, English and Spanish!

 

We invited two guest speakers; Dr Matteo Farina and Mrs Susan Schodde to share their personal stories or language acquisition, travel, study and employment and how languages have shaped the people they are today.

Mira’s performance on “A taste of Italy” shared stories of migration, food, song and even had the students up and dancing traditional folk dances!

 

Our Karate demonstration demonstrated skill, power and precision and had the audience captivated.

Finally, all students were treated to a serve of either Matcha (green tea) ice cream or Italian gelato - a perfect end to a warm day!

 

We wish all our students a well-deserved break and we encourage our boys to keep exploring languages and look for the opportunities and possibilities available to them when they study hard and take a leap of faith.

 

Chikako Oguma

Languages Coordinator

And the Language Team