EUROPEAN DAY OF LANGUAGES 26 September 2007 The main aims of the European Day of Languages are to raise awareness of the rich linguistic diversity of Europe and to encourage people to learn more languages. At Radstock, we decided to try and use our parents to help us celebrate the diversity of languages spoken at home.

The first step was to invite parents. We asked any children whose parents spoke another language to take a letter home: Dear Parents, Wednesday 26 th of September is the European Day of Languages. We would like to take this opportunity to celebrate the wide variety of languages spoken by children and parents in our school. As part of this, we are hoping to arrange for each class to hear a story read in another language. This does not necessarily have to be a European language. In order to achieve this, we are hoping for some parent volunteers that could read a simple story to a class. The most effective stories would be those which are illustrated and/or which the children already know. For example, some year groups have read ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt’ in French. Their previous knowledge of this story greatly helped them enjoy it in another language. We have access to stories in French, German, Spanish, Polish, Punjabi and Japanese – or you may have a suitable book at home. If you are able to translate an English book, it would be possible to use any book as it is not necessary for the children to see the written language. We would like to invite anyone who is willing to read a story to … Please indicate below the language which you could read in and the year group you would prefer to read to.

We had several volunteers and a variety of languages offered including Spanish, German, French and Polish.

The parents simply came in for the last twenty minutes of the day and shared the story with the class or a group.

Most parents also translated the story.

The children really enjoyed listening to the languages and either recognised the story, or were helped to understand it by following the pictures and picking up clues from the way the words were spoken. The children whose parents came in were really proud of hearing their ‘home language’ spoken and being able to share this language with other children.

As a follow on from this, we asked the children in each class about languages which either they are learning or can speak. All the children were very proud to be able to share their language skills with the rest of the class. Many who are only learning a language at school commented that they would like to try another language.

The languages are displayed on laminated posters stuck on each classroom door.