It's the time of year when primary schools are planning French Days, Spanish Days, days for other languages or indeed international days. Schools are also starting to think about European Day of Languages in September. Posts looking for advice and ideas for these sorts of days are common on the primary social media groups.
I've pulled together lots of ideas, mainly from the Languages in Primary Schools Facebook group (LiPS), so many thanks to everyone there who has posted ideas in the past. I thought that having everything in one place would be helpful.
The main thing that I think should be borne in mind when planning a French Day or Spanish Day is that 'French' is not just France, and 'Spanish' is not just Spain. It is advisable to incorporate as many as possible of the countries where the language is spoken. It is also advisable to steer clear of stereotypes such as berets and onions for French and a Mexican sombrero for Spanish.
If it's a French day you're organising, you must read this blogpost by Jane Birtwistle. It's full of great ideas and pictures. These activities I have listed have French and Spanish (the languages that I teach) in mind, but they can be adapted for other languages or for international days.
Francophone and Hispanophone countries around the world
- Each class is allocated a country where the language is spoken, and the children 'travel' to each classroom to do a different activity. The children have a passport, which they could design and make (a minibook would work really well), and they can be given a stamp or sticker in their passport to show they have been to that country.
- Each class is allocated a country where the language is spoken. The children dress up in the colours of that country's flag. They could also dress up as a famous person from that country.
- Each class is allocated a country where the language is spoken, and prepares a presentation about it. They could find out where it is, label its cities, find out about famous people from there and its traditional music. They could write about it in English, creating postcards, tourist brochures, poems or descriptive writing.
Food
- Have a café serving typical foods. Older pupils can be waiters and children can design the menus. Invite parents, governors and other people from the school community.
- Ask the school catering staff if they can make a special dinner menu for the day.
- Ask supermarkets to donate food. They like to have community links.
- Taste some foods from the countries where the language is spoken.
- Have an Eiffel Tower building competition. Children can use all sorts of materials, such as spaghetti and marshmallows, Lego, rolled up paper and masking tape.
- Recreate the Pont des Arts in Paris and its padlocks. Children could write a message on their padlock.
- Learn about the French Fête Nationale on 14th July (Bastille Day) and its celebrations.
- Learn about celebrations in Spain such as San Fermín and La Tomatina. If you are feeling brave you could recreate these in some way!
- Pay for a visiting theatre company such as Théâtre sans Frontières, Onatti or Big Wheel Theatre Company.
Films
- Show an appropriate film that is set in a country where the language is spoken, or a familiar film in the foreign language with or without subtitles in English.
- Read a story book in the language
- Learn a poem
- Create calligrams using some foreign-language words.
- Learn a song
- Have a mini Eurovision-style song contest, where each class learns a song in the foreign language and performs it for the rest of the school.
- Create artworks in the style of an artist from a target-language speaking country. For French try Matisse, Monet, Seurat, Rodin or Dégas. For Spanish try Miró, Gaudí, Picasso or Frida Kahlo.
- Create a whole-school artwork, where each child contributes a small tile.
- Play traditional sports from the target-language countries, such as pétanque and boules for French. Handball is popular in many European countries but almost unheard of here.
- Have a team competition where each team has the name of one of the countries where the language is spoken. Have an opening ceremony like the Olympics.
- Play playground games from the target-language countries.
- Have a treasure hunt or scavenger hunt.
- Hold a mini Tour de France or Vuelta a España with bikes, trikes or scooters.
- Learn a traditional dance.
- Have a go at some of the activities from the Lumen Language Challenges.
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