St Mary’s – Languages News
13 Feb 2015
We’ve had another busy half term in the Languages Department! The second stage of the year 7 French Spelling Bee was this week and 8 of our girls took part. It was a very close competition round! The 4 winners going through to Stage 3 are Karishma, Salma, Amelia and Jasmin who will compete again before Easter. Four will then become two, and these two girls will compete in Stage 4 which is the final in the Summer term. Good luck to all girls!
Congratulations to Lydia, Yedi and Reema who have now all passed their Mandarin exam with flying colours, amazing!
The new “Word of the Week” initiative introduced this term has been very successful. The languages teachers choose an English word and display it in French, Spanish and German on the notice board. The girls then have to find out the meaning themselves, and the first one in each class to say the word in the language and tell their teacher the meaning earns a House Point. The word can then be used in sentences in class during the week for extra House Points and can stimulate discussion regarding the type of word (adjective/noun/verb) and similarities to the other languages or to English. The word this week has been le coeur/el corazón/Das Herz (= heart connection with Valentine’s Day!)
We are pleased to be able to give the girls access to linguascope.com, a valuable resource that they can use for French, Spanish and German in their own time and during lessons. Log-in details can be obtained from the Languages teachers.
We were delighted to receive letters last month for Years 7-9 from our partner school Collège Notre Dame, Agde, in the South of France. All girls who wanted a French pen friend have written their replies and we are now awaiting the next set of letters from France! There were even enough letters to extend the opportunity to girls in Year 6 and we look forward to continuing to correspond with the school on a variety of topics. Furthermore, a link has now been established with a new German school and we are now awaiting first letters!
All learners of German were given the details about how to enter the Oxford German Olympiad competition. The Year 8 German class have been working hard to put together both an individual entry and group entry and I look forward to seeing their entries in due course. The deadline for entries has now been extended to Mon 23rd February.
We are now looking forward to hosting our annual French Verse Speaking competition again in March, with a record 23 schools due to attend! To all who will be competing, bonne chance!