These wonderful language displays are courtesy of Joe Debono and his school Newbury Primary in Ilford, Redbridge in London.

There are over 40 languages spoken in the school and Language of the Month was introduced to help the children to learn a little about and share each other’s languages.

As well as displays the initiative includes online audio visual resources and specially designed simple games.

I think the initiative is fantastic and it will give a real sense of validation and respect to children and their families for whom English is not their first language.

Online Resources and Downloads

The school hasn’t stopped there though. They’ve made all these resources freely available via their web site. You can hear children speaking simple words in their own languages, download the activity booklet which has suggestions for over a 100 games and other pdf files to help you put up your own language of the month displays.

I’m going to use it myself to try to master a few simple words from languages I might encounter amongst my students next year. How about you?

Group 6 - Pimp My Neigborhood, originally uploaded by Red Colander.

Just look at the wonderful things this school in Amsterdam have been getting up to!
Nienke says:

Our entire school just finished a project around the theme “I Live In… Amsterdam”. Every class examined a different subject.

The youngest kids (Group 1/2) made pieces of art and placed them around the school, they also examined animals that live around the school.

Group 3/4 (Grade 1/2) looked at buildings/roofs in Amsterdam.

Group 5 (Grade 3) went to the film museum, made a movie of grade 1/2 working and also did research of animals in the city.

Group 6 (my class, Grade 4), did the project “Pimp My Neighborhood” (’pimp mijn buurt’). They had a workshop in making photos, they made photos of ugly places in the neighborhood, made drawings of how to improve these place, they made statues of LEGO and K’NEX and they crafted items to pimp up the hood….

Group 7 (Grade 5) looked into the VOC (East-Indies Trading Compagny), did a VOC-walk in Amsterdam and made a radio play.

Group 8 (Grade 6) looked at the streetnames in the neigborhood, which are all names of people that died in World War II, and wrote about their lives. They also made sculptures about peace.

In the end, all the children of the school gave a presentation to (grand)parents, friends, classmates and kids from other grades.

Have a look at the slideshow of everything else they did too.

IMG_1967, originally uploaded by LMH_.

This hall display was made to represent the diverse nature of the school population.

The background was divided up with masking tape and painted with fabric paint. The hands were made by children drawing round their own hands, cutting them out of felt, and sticking them on. It was made with the help of one of our school’s learning mentors, Julie Lawrence. It’s meant to symbolise the circle of friendship in our school.

I think it looks very effective with the light coming through and it carries an important message. Many of the children who worked on this were troubled in some way and the learning mentors used the making of the display as part of an informal friendship building programme.