With an Italian colleague, I started a project for 8-14-year-olds where they would complete different language challenges published on the official EDL site. Since September, students and teachers from Croatia, France, Greece, Romania, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine have joined the project and shared interesting videos and lovely photos showing the completed challenges.
My Class 4 and Class 8 students managed to complete 25 challenges, but enjoyed creating and sending Christmas cards, writing their favourite colour, sport and animal in 3 different languages, quizzes and music challenges most.
Here are some of the completed challenges:
- Challenge 2: I identified 5 languages (correctly!) in the Which language is it? game on the EDL's website.
Students from Class 6 completed this challenge on 17 October. - Challenge 3: I counted from 1 - 10 in 3 different languages within 1 minute.
On 30 September, Luka from Class IV3 counted in English, Nemanja from Class IV3 counted in German, and Nevena and Dragana from Class IV3 counted in Hungarian. - Challenge 7: I identified 5 words in my own language that are the same as/borrowed from other languages.
Apart from English words such as film, lift, sport, TV or quiz, my class 8 students identified a lot of Turkish (e.g. šećer = sugar or dugme = button), Hungarian (e.g. mačka = cat or čorba = broth), Italian (pijaca = market or violina = violin) and German (štrudla = strudel or kelner = waiter) words. - Challenge 8: I wrote down my favourite colour, sport and animal in 3 different languages.
My Class VIII5 students used Serbian, Hungarian and English, while my Class VIII4 students used Serbian, English and German. - Challenge 11: I listened to 5 songs in different languages.
Our choices were: Time won't wait - Filatov & Karas, Parla con me - Eros Ramazzotti, Je veux - Zaz, Despacito - Luis Fonsi and Die Dinge haben sich verändert - Frida Gold. - Challenge 14: I introduced myself in a video using a foreign language.
Class IV1 students completed this challenge on 4 September. - Challenge 15: I made a phone/Skype call in a foreign language.
We organised an online meeting with our project partners on 18 December. - Challenge 16: I switched the language of my phone to a foreign language for a few months!
Some of my Class 8 students did it, including Vukašin from Class VIII4 (in the photo). - Challenge 18: I sent a text message in a foreign language.
Some of my Class 4 and Class 8 students did it. Nataša from Class VIII4 (in the photo) is one of them. - Challenge 19: I listened to an audio book in a foreign language.
Some of my Class 8 students, divided into groups, listened to audio books in November 2019 and then made their presentations. - Challenge 21: I posted a message on an online forum or social media platform in a foreign language.
Most of my older students often do that. - Challenge 22: I watched a film in a foreign language (with subtitles). All my students did it, and those in Class 8 even wrote their film reviews.
- Challenge 23: I watched a movie in a foreign language (without subtitles).
Class 4 students watched an English animated film about The Little Prince on 16 December. - Challenge 25: I used a dictionary to look up and learn 10 new words in a foreign language.
Some of my Class 4 students did it. - Challenge 26: I watched my favourite sport on TV in a foreign language. Veljko from Class VIII4 does it all the time.
- Challenge 27: I went to a karaoke session and sang a song in a foreign language.
My Class VIII5 love singing, so we often do it in the lesson. This is one of their favourite songs. - Challenge 31: I completed a quiz in a foreign language.
Class 5 students completed this challenge on 3 October. - Challenge 32: I told a joke in a foreign language and someone laughed!
Boris from Class VIII4 told a joke on 31 October and a few students laughed. - Challenge 35: I borrowed (and read!) a foreign language book from a library.
Class 8 students completed the challenge on 20 December. - Challenge 39: I wrote a short postcard to a friend sending a holiday greeting in a foreign language.
My younger students wrote their wishes in Serbian and English, and my older students used Serbian, English, German and Hungarian. - Challenge 41: I completed the EDL Brain Game using the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets in less than 5 minutes.
My students enjoyed playing the game. - Challenge 45: I memorized and recited a short poem in a foreign language.
Đorđe from Class VI3 recited a poem in Greek on 3 October. - Challenge 52: I played a matching English/Serbian Idioms game with my friends.
Class 6 students completed this challenge on 17 October.
