Modern Languages Day
We welcome St Gregory’s
‘If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.’ (Nelson Mandela)
Two of Ealing’s Catholic schools joined together on Tuesday 17th March when our Lower II was delighted to host Year 5 of St Gregory’s RC Primary School in spending a day together exploring the magic of modern languages.
At St Augustine’s Priory we believe in the importance of learning languages early. Whether French, Spanish, Mandarin or Russian (or the classical languages of Greek and Latin) we know that the earlier you start to learn, the more proficient you become, the more doors that will open in your future life. We were therefore very happy to share our facilities, skills and teachers with St Gregory’s, a fellow Ealing school.
Mr Alejandro, Head of Modern Languages, together with his colleagues, put together an itinerary which encompassed the discovery of a variety of languages.
The day was spent in a multitude of language-based activities commencing with a session on Artistic Poetry (students listened to a poem and then drew what they felt) and a session on learning the basics of Cyrillic script. After morning break there was a Modern Languages Quiz and taster sessions in Armenian, Cantonese and Punjabi.
Following a modern languages themed lunch, the children went into the grounds and learned Salsa and Irish dancing. After this, learning to sing in Hungarian was on the menu with the afternoon continuing with the play, ‘The World’s Gone French’, performed by Onatti Productions.
Both schools enjoyed this opportunity to share learning and laughter; one St Augustine’s Priory pupil commenting, ‘I loved hosting my school with others and we had a very memorable day’ while another participant said, ‘Yay! This day was a day to treasure and I’m so happy I was part of this experience!’
Further comments included one pupil stating, ‘Today I learnt a lot of new words from different languages and I thought it was fantastic’ and yet another said ‘I made some new friends, it was the best.’
We loved having St Gregory’s RC Primary School here and look forward to more opportunities to experience learning together.
In the words of one of our Lower II girls, ‘Today we had a lovely time with St Gregory’s. We would like to do this again’.
Categories: Junior
