European Day of Languages 2015

For this year's European Languages Day my colleagues and I prepared some interesting interactive quizzes, tongue twisters, associations and other language games. Traditionally, we celebrated this day with the representatives of other primary schools from our town and nearby villages.

We started our celebration with a short film showing different quotes about the importance of learning foreign languages, as well as mother tongue. It was followed by a fun activity called 'Getting to know you' in which two volunteers from each team tried to find their 'fellow countrymen' just by using gestures, without speaking. The teams then checked their knowledge of the languages spoken in Europe in the quiz about the alphabets, word origin, family of languages and language in general. We continued with the listening game called 'Look who's singing' and the teams were asked to guess the language they heard in the songs performed by the former winners of the Eurovision Song Contest. Then, in the association game called 'European Record Breakers' the participants and the audience found out a few interesting things about the European countries which broke records in different areas, while in the 'ABC game' they were required to order the given English words starting with the letter T as they appear in the dictionary. The 'Translation Workshop' was a real challenge because the teams translated messages by using the Braille Alphabet. The programme ended with another fun game - the students read tongue twisters in Serbian, Italian, German and English.

Pen friends

Dear Pedro,

Thanks for your letter. I hope you're well.

Let me tell you about me and my family. I am 14 years old and I live in Kikinda, Serbia. My mum is a housewife and always does her best to make the flat comfortable for the rest of us. My dad has several jobs. He's a businessman, audio engineer and a musician. I also have a brother, Gabriel, who is 1 year old.

School starts at 8 o'clock in the morning shift and at 1 o'clock in the afternoon shift. I always go on foot. When I come home I always do my homework. Then I usually surf the net or hang out with my friends. I also have tennis lessons. At the weekends I always go out with my friends.

Write soon.

Yours, 

Kris

Kristian Balaž, VIII2, 10 September 2015

Dear Pedro,

thanks for your letter. I hope we can meet each other in the future.

I'm 14 years old and I live in Kikinda. I have a sister and she is 10, soon to be 11 years old. My sister and I get along well. My mum writes traffic tickets and she works at the firehouse. my dad is the head of the local fire department.

I go to Sveti Sava Primary School. School starts at eight o'clock in the morning shift and at one o'clock in the afternoon shift. When I go in the morning shift, I wake up at 6.30 and in the afternoon shift at nine or eight. In the morning shift, my dad takes me in the car, but in the afternoon shift I go o foot. I get back home at 1.30 or 6.30. I usually do my homework in the evenings.
I have been playing volleyball since I was nine. I have my practice 5 times a week. I often listen to music or watch TV series.
What about you? What kind of music do you listen? What do you play?
Write soon.
Yours,
Anja

Anja Berić, VIII2

Hi Pedro,

Thanks very much for your letter. I'm so happy to meet you.

Firstly, I will describe you myself and my family. My name's Tijana and I'm 13 years old. I live in Kikinda, Serbia, with my parents. My mum is a chemical technician, but she hasn't got a job. My dad is and engineer. He works as a CNC programmer. I'm a pupil at Sveti Sava Primary School. My older sister, Tamara, who lives in Novi Sad, is 21 and a good student.

This is my typical weekday. I wake up at 7:15, have breakfast and go to school on foot. My lessons start at 8. At 13;30 I'm at home and I do my homework for two hours. Then, I play computer games and watch TV. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 19 I have table tennis lessons. At the weekend, I usually go out with my friends. We like going rollerblading.

What about you and your family? What's your favourite free-time activity? 

Write again soon.

Lots of love,

Tijana

Tijana Varađanin, VIII2

Dear Pedro,

Hello. My name is Milan and I'm your new pen friend. I'm 14 years old and I live in Kikinda, Serbia. I go to primary school and I am in Class 8. The name of my school is Sveti Sava.

My father is an electrical technician. My mother is a teacher and she works in my school. My sister is 12 years old and she is caring and pretty. We live in a flat. It is opposite my school.

In my free time I usually play football with my friends. On Fridays, we always go out. We like going to the cinema. I love horror films. They are so scary.

Well, that's all about me for now. Write back and tell me about yourself.

Milan

Milan Jakšić, VIII2

Hello, Pedro,

My name is Ivana and I hope we'll get to know each other well.

I'm 14 years old and I live in Kikinda, Serbia. My dad is a taxi driver and my mum i a shop assistant. She works at a kiosk. They both work long hours. I have a brother, Nikola, who is 9. We are very different. My grandpa Slobodan lives with us.

School starts at 8 o'clock. I wake up every day at 7, get ready and then my dad takes me in his car to school. I get back home at 1.10 in the afternoon. I usually do my homework in the evenings. In my free time, I go out with my friends or watch a film. I love playing volleyball and my hobby is acting.

Well, that's all about me. Write back soon and tell me about yourself.

Ivana

Ivana Varađanin, VIII2

Dear Pedro,

Thanks for your letter. In this letter I'll write something about myself.

I am fourteen years old and I go to Sveti Sava Primary School. I live in Kikinda, Serbia. My father is an electrician. He works in Belgrade. My mother is a shop assistant. My sister is twenty-three years old and she has graduated from Medical University in Novi Sad.

In the morning shift, school starts at eight o'clock. My Grandma wakes me up at seven o'clock, but I extend to half past seven. I can't have breakfast and I go to school on foot. I get back home at twenty past one in the afternoon. I have lunch and after that I have my practice at three o'clock every day. Before practice I do my homework and learn new lessons for one hour. At seven o'clock in the evening I water the plants and trees in my garden. At ten o'clock I go to sleep.

Tell me something more about you.

Best wishes,

Luka

Luka Važić, VIII2

Dear Pedro,

Thanks for your letter. What are you doing right now? I'll write you something about myself.

I am 13 years old and I live in Kikinda, Serbia. I go to Sveti Sava Primary School. My father is a security worker and he works in Srpska Crnja and Kikinda. My mum is a cleaning woman in a primary school in Kikinda. My brother is 9.

Every other week school starts at eight. I wake up every day at 7. I don't have breakfast and I go to school on foot. School is over at ten past one in the afternoon. I go home, have lunch and do my homework. In the evening, at 7 o'clock every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, I have my training. It is over at 10 o'clock in the evening. After that, I go home. 

On Saturday and Sunday, I go out with my friends. I love action movies and rap and trap music. Do you like rap and trap music?

Write me soon,

Milica

Milica Vesin, VIII2  

Fun activities

One of the 2-3-minute activities for practising word order, just right for the beginning or the end of the lesson, includes group work. I shared it with my students the first time I saw them after our summer holidays.

I asked them to organise groups of four. Each person said a random letter and then, as a group, they made a sentence with the words starting with the given letter. 

Here are a few interesting sentences my Year 8 students came up with:

JCAZ: Jump carefully around zebras. (Julijan, Bojana and Branislava VIII4)

KERB: Katy eats red bananas. (Kosana, Andrea, Tijana and Ivana VIII4)

SMND: Summer memories never die. (Dunja, Ivana, Miroslava and Emilija VIII4)
ETIA: Every tiger is amazing. (Elena, Tijana, Ivana and Anja VIII2)