What Did You Learn?

This September at St Margaret’s, culture swept the corridors and variety stormed into the classrooms as St Margaret’s embarked on it’s first ever celebration of the European Day of Languages.

All of the teachers wore a badge depicting a European country and were asked to concentrate on any aspects of the curriculum with a European slant.

Whether it was Miss Kinloch looking at the genealogy side of the day, or Mr Derringer telling his classes stories about Austria and Austrian composers, this focus had everybody thinking about other cultures. I asked Ms Naessens, Head of Year 8 and English teacher, how she thought that the European Day of Languages was good for the school and she believed that it prompted a sense of European community and works to eliminate the fear of other cultures and xenophobia. CDT teacher and form tutor, Mr Flannery believed the importance of understanding other languages was essential for job opportunities, so if you were offered a job in France or Italy, you would need to have the qualifications and the necessary linguistic skills to be successful.

Other teachers put a continental twist on their everyday lessons. Geography teacher Mrs Williams talked to her classes about the different climates in other countries and also talked about holiday resorts in Europe. She also believed it showed her how little people knew about the number of other languages spoken in Europe. Also Art teacher Mr Bradfield-Smith spoke to his Year seven classes in Spanish and made them answer ‘sí’ in the register! Even the Science department left Great Britain and explored Europe as Miss Shilton had a ‘question and answer’ session with her form and had a European Quiz.

In my opinion the ability to speak a foreign language encourages people to accept other cultures. I know many teachers did a lot of things during this celebration, but there are too many to mention.

This day made me realise that we in Britain are European. The Channel tunnel has brought our European neighbours even closer and they have so much to share with us. If the only barrier to this is language then credit is due to the Modern Foreign Language Department for making great steps to break down those barriers.

Au revoir! Auf Wiedersehen! Adiós! Ciao! And……Goodbye!

Christopher Hine 9R