26 September 2017
Francesca Luchi, ERASMUS student, MSc Management
On 26th September I and a fellow Ustinovian, Rumy from Indonesia, student travelled to Sunderland to celebrate European Languages Day with primary school children at Hill View Infant Academy. It was an amazing experience. I am Italian, and was able to teach the kids several Italian words to the kids – greetings, numbers and colours – and showed them pictures from my region, and famous monuments of Italy. The kids were very curious and asked me lots of questions. They were particularly fascinated by the tradition of the Palio, a famous horse race that take place in my home town Siena twice every year. I also played videos in Italian to them as an enjoyable way of learning foreign languages. We talked about different subjects such as food, traditions, places, tourism, geography, weather and so on. The kids were all from British families and had not had many international or multicultural experiences according to their teacher. I hope that they will remember not only the few words Italian they learnt, but the value of knowing different cultures and meeting people that come from other parts of the world.
Rumaisah Azizah (Rumy), Indonesia
It was really great to take part in this cultural exchange the primary school students! They were so enthusiastic about meeting new people from different backgrounds and countries, and they asked me many questions about what my country is like, and wanted to learn words from my language. They looked at pictures of my Indonesia and learnt how to make simple conversation, asking about common words around family, colours, numbers even animals. For me, it was a great experience meeting them – they were really nice, telling me where to travel and great places to visit in UK. The visit taught me how to communicate with primary school students, and it really enhanced my English since they are so fluent. Thank you for giving me opportunity to meet them and to sort of promote my country!
Karen Ridley, Teacher, Hill View Infants Academy
Languages Day was a very busy day this year with all children in school participating at some level. All pupils chose a country and came dressed in the colours of that flag. Many brought in books and work from home too about that country. As we were successful in having students outside of Europe too from Ustinov College, Durham University we decided to have a general languages day rather than just focus on Europe.
We were very lucky having Francesca from Italy to come and talk to Year 2 pupils and also Rumy from Indonesia who worked with older pupils. Rumy had pictures of houses to show them which the children found fascinating, and she also taught the how to introduce themselves in Indonesian. Francesca had lots of photos of Italy and maps to show pupils and they thoroughly enjoyed learning about Venice with no roads. They all decided that they wanted to visit the beaches and by the end of the morning could count to 10 in Italian!
