Languages

‘Languages to the Rescue’ was the theme of the annual GDST Languages Festival hosted by NHEHS in February with an astounding number of students and teachers participating from fellow GDST schools Brighton and Hove High, Putney High School and Sutton High School.

Mr Piesse and the MFL Languages department had organised a busy day of activities highlighting the importance of languages in today’s world.

Kicking off the morning was an inspiring talk from Wimbledon High Alumna Amy Harland from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This was particularly useful for the sixth form students who were able to see how languages are utilised in the world of work.

The first activity for Years 8 and 9 was the “Learn/Teach a Language” challenge where the keen linguists from each school adopted teaching roles. They were judged on how interesting they made the lesson, their use of resources, and most importantly teamwork. The real challenge was that each school had to teach a brand new language, including Swedish, Dutch and Farsi, and had to deliver the lesson without using any technology!

In the meantime, Year 7s from all four schools demonstrated very impressive levels of concentration and focus at the Spelling Bee, as they had to translate and spell in French, German, Spanish and Mandarin under timed conditions.

After break, we enjoyed the much anticipated Eurovision ‘Sing Off’ in the Recital Hall as the multi-talented Year 7 and 8 linguists performed singing and dance routines in the four languages before the judges. After the judges’ deliberation, Brighton were judged the winners with their medley of French pop songs which had the whole audience clapping along in time! At the same time in the Main Hall, the Year 9s were also performing, using their dramatic and creative skills, they were challenged to perform four minute original plays using at least two languages. There were many impressive plays that utilised languages in an original and creative way. However, the NHEHS Year 9 Mandarin group were declared the winners for their play about being lost in the centre of London.

After lunch, NHEHS Alumna Anna Allatt (Duty Editor, BBC3) led a Career workshop for the Year 10 and 12 students together with Mrs Eberlin (Acting Head of German at NHEHS).

At the final session, all the linguists came back together to find out how the Year 10 and 12s had taken up the challenge set by the Year 12 Language Reps: “Create news stories videos on Ipads showing how languages can come to the rescue in an apocalypse!”

Having spent their morning brainstorming ideas, the girls demonstrated great GDST spirit by working together to produce an amazing variety of dramatic news stories, which they filmed all over the Senior School. The Year 12 Language reps got involved too and, overall, the videos were a triumph.

At the Prize Giving the audience were treated to the winning performances from the NHEHS Year 9 Mandarin Play and the Eurovision winners, Brighton, while certificates were awarded to the winners of all the other activities.

Many thanks to Mr. Piesse and the NHEHS MFL department for all their hard work putting together such varied and fun activities to inspire our language learning!