Goethe Institute Virtual Work Experience

 Apparently, I do requests now 😊.

I was asked to blog about the virtual work experience that the Goethe Institute offer, as one of my Year 12 students took part and got a lot out of it.

Last year, one of my Year 12 students signed up to the Work Experience that the Goethe Institute offer. Sadly, as with most things over the last year and a half, if couldn't have in real life, so it became a virtual event. This was in the form of making a podcast. Students were put into groups to work together on a podcast, learning how to make it and then creating questions for an interview with someone who worked with languages, finally completing the interview and then the podcast was published on the Goethe Institute website.

Here is the link to the podcast page (my student did the Deutsch und Sport interview with Nik Brumsack)

Podcast page

It seems that this was a really valuable experience for my students and she has said that she thoroughly recommends for other students. It is fabulous that the Goethe Institute has been able to still create the opportunity to complete work experience despite the difficult circumstances in which we have all found ourselves in recent times.

You can find information about the virtual work experience here:

Virtual work experience information

Students can register their interest for the next academic year 's projects here:

Register interest

International Week

A year ago, I had a crazy idea of having an International Week. Originally, it was planned for the start of March. However, with lockdown we decided to postpone until the week of 21st June which meant that everyone was in school and the weather was good, should we want to do something outside.

I don't know what I originally imagined...assemblies, lots of flags, a quiz or two and a wine and cheese evening for parents. In reality some of them happened, so didn't and some couldn't happen. This was the first time we'd done this so it was probably lower key that I imagined it being but it's definitely something we can build on and, fingers crossed, next year we will be able to invite parents into school for some activity as well.

The most important thing to remember when planning whole school events is that "Teamwork makes the dream work" and most certainly we could not have run the week without all members of the MFL department pitching in a working together. Each of us took and activity and organised that and this meant that the jobs didn't seem as huge.

So, what did we do?

Staff

Each room was allocated a country and our Year 12 prefects created signs for each one (some are below). Staff were encouraged to greet students in the language of that country and even do a starter about something that linked their subject to that country. It was wonderful hearing a range of different languages ringing out across the school as the week went on. 

    

   

Assembly and Form Time

Naturally, any event needs a whole school assembly (hooray!). I didn't want to focus solely on languages, as this was "international" rather than languages but inevitably there was a strong language focus. I thought it would be a nice idea to make a video (less for me to do) of pupils saying "hello, how are you?" in various languages. I had intended to use different groups of my classes to say the words however, when I was telling one of my classes about it, a student said "I speak Persian, I can say that" and this started me on a voyage of discovery into the wide variety of languages that our students speak. In the end, we had 14 different languages from Lower Prep singing "Hallo Felix, Hallo Franzi" from the Goethe Institute primary scheme of work, through Hindi, Urdu, Thai, Russian, BSL, Spanish and Japanese (with lots in between) to even SLT saying "goodbye" in French and German. I even managed to persuade one of my Y7 form group to assist with editing the video! I talked a little about how communication and language is essential for international relations, and finished with Ton Christ est juif. 

          

Students then went off to form time for an international quiz, which included rounds on "hello" in different languages, fun with flags, foreign songs in the UK charts (which went down very well, especially the Macarena), foreign art and architecture and where in the world. We give prizes to the winning team in each form group. 

   

Quizzes

We had 2 treasure hunt quizzes. One based on French and German-speaking football players and the other based on French and German-speaking musicians and actors. Students seemed to really enjoy themselves quizzing around the school, finding out about a range of celebrities for other countries.

                                                     

Display

We have also had form groups contribute to a display. All students have drawn round their hands, written a greeting in a foreign language and decorated. Now, my task is to turn all 200+ hands into something creative!

All in all, I think the week has been a success. We have started small(ish) and something on which to base things in the future. Next year, I would like to be able to invite parents into school to view the art project that our Y7s did earlier in the year and also the see the Superheroes project that Y8s did, combined with something other creative ideas we have in store for next year. 

Watcht this space...