On Friday 7th March, 9 Year 12 linguists set off for the Oxford University Department of Education, bound for an amazing day of language workshops!
French
French students had the opportunity to research and learn more about les bandes dessinées, which are a big part of French culture – France is the second leading purchaser of bandes dessinées in the world. We also had the chance to do a really fun exercise where we were aristocrats, trying to find an escape from the peasants during the French Revolution through the medium of French grammar exercises.
Spanish
Spanish students had the chance to broaden their knowledge on Spanish idioms – we learnt that ‘estar como una cabra’ (to be like a goat) means to be crazy. We really enjoyed the exercise in which we had to create a short script in Spanish including as many idioms as possible. We felt that by the end of the day our fluency had improved with our new-found knowledge of idioms.
German
In the German workshop, we were able to delve into the world of German fairy tales. We learnt about all of the well known Grimm brother stories, like Sleeping Beauty (Dornröschen), Snow White (Schneewittchen) and Little Red Riding Hood (Rotkäppchen), but we also got to learn about some lesser known ones like Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten (The travelling musicians of Bremer). Later on we also used our new fairytale vocabulary to write our own stories in german. It was a really fun opportunity to learn about something beyond our A Level.
This event was an amazing opportunity to enrich and expand our knowledge of the culture surrounding the languages we study for A Level – we’re all really grateful we were lucky enough to take part.