#languagesarecool

Year 4 pupils from local primary schools enjoyed a Modern Foreign Languages Masterclass (Mandarin, German and Spanish) at Roehampton University, as part of the Cool to be Clever programme. The programme is a learning collaborating project between Putney High School and Roehampton University, and aims to help some of the brightest primary children in Wandsworth to fulfil their potential. Last session, held in September at Putney High School, was a Maths code-breaking masterclass.

The name of the scheme is derived from It’s Cool to be Clever, the biography of Edson C. Hendricks, who, through his work on computer networks, invented the design for the Internet. The book recounts episodes where Hendricks was bullied at school because he was clever. At Roehampton University and Putney High School, it’s indeed cool to be clever and even cooler to speak many different languages!

The warm-up started promptly; Year 11 students Fabienne Syson and Izzy Glynne-Percy presented different ways to say hello and goodbye in French, Spanish, German, Mandarin and Latin. In fact, at Putney High School, the girls are introduced to all five languages during their time at the school, and can study up to three languages at GCSE.

Primary school pupils then had activities and games based on greetings, the highlight being a video of Frozen’s famous song Let It Go, sung in no less than 25 different languages! It was a real challenge, although some pupils did give it a go. 

Pupils from Granard School were excited to find out that they were going to start with a Spanish session. Miss Pedregosa, Spanish Lecturer at Roehampton University, said: “The pupils love the idea of Spanish, but when they start learning it, they realise it is not that easy.” They learned basic questions (¿Cómo te llamas?, “What’s you name?”¿Dónde vives?, “Where do you live?”). The children did some role-play to consolidate their knowledge, pretending to be footballer Lionel Messi, in England and needing an interpreter.

In the Chinese session, pupils focused first on Chinese characters, trying to guess their meaning based on their shape.  

Then, they watched a small video clip about the 12 zodiac animals; they learned each story and identified the Chinese characters of the animals. 

During the German session, conducted by Putney’s Head of MFL Miss Morgan, the primary pupils had fun discovering the original version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle. They showed some fantastic language and detective skills when asked to spot some key words in the story. Then, they had to work retelling the story in German and illustrating it. “All the children had lots of fun and were really confident to take part” said Miss Morgan.

Miss Wen, Mandarin teacher at Putney High School, said: “I was pleased that during the plenary, most of the pupils remembered words in the three different languages that we covered during the morning. They were really engaged and enthusiastic about learning languages that are not taught often in schools.”

It was overall a very enjoyable and engaging Cool to be Clever morning both for the pupils and teachers.