Last Thursday was the European Day of Languages, and our student language ambassadors led a week of inspiring and educational activities to celebrate European languages at Trinity.
The ambassadors are a group of Upper Sixth students who share a love of languages and aim to spread awareness by running various events throughout the year.
Last week, they led an inspiring whole school assembly, talking about why they were so passionate about speaking other languages. They also called on non-language teaching staff to reveal their own impressive skills, which Mr Hutchings, Miss Van Dal, Mr Porter and Ms Fulker demonstrated ably in front of a packed Concert Hall, much to the students’ delight.
Mr McIntosh, Teacher of German, ran a quiz for the Sixth Form – which included testing their knowledge of European football teams from their club logos and national football teams from their kits. Subsequent rounds covered knowledge of European famous figures and geography with students also invited to translate famous French, German and Spanish proverbs into English.
Mr Allison, Head of Modern Foreign Languages, also created a quiz for students in the Junior to Third Form; memorably, in one round, students had to identify languages from football commentary, a film, an interview, a song and a news report!
Ambassador Kristian ran an introduction to Hungarian, saying, “Both sides of my family are from Hungary, and Hungarian is my first language. As it is rather niche, I decided to teach a lesson introducing the basics by focusing on phonetics. I detailed all the sounds and letters that feature in Hungarian but not in English, and by the end of the lesson, students were able to pronounce basic greetings.”
This is not the first whole school event the ambassadors have been involved in. In April, they organised the inaugural Trinity Eurovision, bringing together singers of all nationalities to perform in languages including German, Welsh and Hindi. In June, they helped judge the Second Year French Spelling Bee and they also mentor students in the languages they have studied.
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