Ideas
to Celebrate Languages and Cultures
- Hand out the MLA "Knowing Other Languages
Brings Opportunities" brochure and have students discuss
the key points to share with their parents.
- Give students ribbons/flags for the language
they are studying.
- Hold a department wide "Talent Show"
where students perform skits, fashion shows, sing, dance and
basically show off all of their skills
- Have a "Language Bowl". Teams
of teachers and students compete against each other answering
questions about languages and cultures.
- On the announcements play world music.
- Hold a "Mystery Language Contest"
using foreign exchange students or students from your school.
Each day have a different language spoken and the class that
gets the most correct guesses wins a donut party. Sneak in clever
languages like Old English, Pig Latin and English from different
countries.
- Give a daily language fact that alerts
students to the importance of learning languages.
- Have guest speakers who use language in
their daily jobs come to the school to discuss the importance
of knowing other languages.
- Hold a poetry reading contest.
- Have a pronunciation contest with native
speakers being the judges. Prizes could be CDs in the language.
- Have a school wide Internet "scavenger
hunt" in which teachers and students compete to find information
about different languages.
- Put up posters with quotes and facts about
languages.
- Hold an "International Say What Karaoke
Contest" in which students lip sync to world music.
- Host International Lunches in which different
language clubs host a culture specific lunch.
- Put up flags of different countries throughout
the campus.
- Have a "Mystery Country Contest"
where students are given clues about a country and have to identify
the country and locate it on a world map.