Languages Week

Spanish News: Monday Assembly

Rebecca Wells, former Channing student from the Class of 2012, came back to school on Monday to talk about her Undergraduate studies in French and Russian at the University of Bristol and the plethora of opportunities that this brought about, before studying a Masters in Linguistics at the University of Oxford. We heard about her exciting and evolving career in International Development, Sustainability communications & strategy, as well as Freelance writer and editor, which really shows that languages can take you anywhere. Her yearbook picture below highlights the number of students from her cohort that went on to study languages at university with the yellow stars showing those who studied 2 languages and the blue stars were those who combined a language with another discipline. It was inspiring for our pupils to hear how passionately Rebecca spoke about the joys of learning a foreign language.

MFL Competition

We held our annual MFL poetry competition this week and the finalists performed in Assembly this morning. Students were judged on intonation, recall and delivery of their poems in the foreign language and the winners’ announcement and awards will take place in Mark Reading at the end of term.

Year 7 News

In groups, our pupils were given a Latin American country and they had to invent a product that they could export using materials found locally. We were amazed by their creativity!

Year 8 News

This year, pupils looked at the history of zines and made one of their own in Spanish.

Year 9 News

After considering the role of marketing and translation, students were tasked with coming up with a name, slogan and promotional poster for Jelly Babies in a Spanish market.

Year 10 News

Researching how Fairtrade works in Spanish-speaking countries, students made these informative posters.

Year 11 News

To practise the simple future tense, students thought about what a luxury space hotel will look like and designed posters with descriptions using this grammar point.

French News

It’s been a busy Languages Week in the French department. Year 7 created projects on different aspects of French culture and presented on everything from Asterix and TinTin to Notre Dame and Quiche Lorraine. We have been so impressed by the pupils’ efforts – even going so far as baking quiches, croque madame, crepes and chocolate eclairs!

In Year 8, pupils chose different francophone countries and produced outstanding fact files including the official languages, the cuisine, currency and must-see tourist destinations of each one. We look forward to putting them on display.

In Years 9, 10 and 11, the focus has been on film this year. Year 9 have looked at the different genres and studied ‘Les Crayons’, piecing together the action and sharing their opinions before completing a short summary in French. Year 10 have developed their critical analysis skills through watching specific scenes in ‘Intouchables’ as well as learning about French slang. Year 11 arranged an after school showing of the light-hearted film ‘Qu’est-ce qu’on a fait au bon dieu?’ helping to improve their listening comprehension skills alongside some delicious sucreries!