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MFL Newsletter Articles

April 2022

  • The Languages Local to You

    Published 27/04/22

    University of Exeter ran an exciting photo competition in March and several BGS students took part with great enthusiasm. The contest focussed on showing languages other than English in their local areas - shop signs, bilingual street signs, film posters, advertisements and so on.  We submitted our top 3 entries before the Easter holidays, alongside over 100 schools across the country.

    Huge congratulations to Nimrat Matharu (8REL), whose submission was selected as one of the top 25 by the judges and to Lev Griffin (8CPB), selected as a national runner-up for the competition and who won a £25 Amazon voucher as a prize!

    Thank you to all our participants for the wonderful submissions, we look forward to taking part again next year.

    Miss Giglione, MFL Department 

    The photo shows signs jostling for attention on a cold day on Welling High Street, including one for a Chinese food supermarket with Chinese characters displayed on the shop sign, a language I am currently learning in school.

    Lev Griffin, Year 8

    Nepalise is not a language I speak, but it is commonly used within the area I live in. Many supermarkets, corner shops, etc. are owned by Nepalease people. People who work in these shops also speak Hindi, which allows them to communicate with other Asian people from places such as India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

    The picture above is a money transfer shop which allows others to send money to a specific place abroad. In addition, this shop includes jewellers and clothes shopping, but it only has these things for those who are natives of Nepal

    Nimrat Matharu, Year 8

     

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  • Titschen

    Published 27/04/22

    For the first time ever, along with my classmates, I took part in the Annual Titschen Competition. Titschen is the German name for an egg fight, in which painted/coloured eggs clash together in an “arena”. After a short countdown: drei… zwei… eins… tisch!” the 2 eggs collide with each other. One will inevitably crack and one will stay strong.

    My experience of Titschen in school was amazing! Even though I did not win, I enjoyed it very much as the tension rose throughout the competition.

    Congratulations to Billy for winning the competition and I hope we will be able to take part in this tradition again next year.

    Kristian Nachev, Year 7

    On the morning of Friday the 22nd of April the most epic Annual Titschen Competition the world has ever seen took place. The hard-boiled eggs were dressed to impress many in the colours of the German flag and one particularly dashing egg had the Berlin Skyline in silhouette embossed across its midriff, another was in traditional Tracht: Lederhosen. It was a rollercoaster of emotions: there were highs and there were lows. From Zidan's heroic dash to Reception to collect his misplaced battle egg, which got him through 2 rounds of legendary titschen to an unfortunate explosion during play between Hailey (who had forgotten to hard-boil her egg) and a good humoured Jamie, which saw both Jamie and I being covered in raw egg and the moment the crowd went wild as Billy was crowned Titschen King leaving a defeated Jack in the dust as runner-up! 7JOO, you are true warriors, I am very proud of you all.

    Miss Reed, MFL Department

     

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  • My French Language Course Holiday

    Published 27/04/22

    I went to Antibes in the South of France during the Easter holidays for 10 days. I attended a French language course. We started the mornings at school, we ate, then we went to lessons, there was a 20 minute break, then we had 2.5 hours of lessons, then we went for lunch. Some days we had outings like Lasertag or Escape Rooms. We played ping-pong and table football. I got a certificate for speaking French at B1 level in the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for  Languages), with 100% attendance. I also got 4 ECTS credits, which equates to 60 hours learning. 

    The certificate describes me as a motivated, serious, versatile and dynamic student with good participation in interactive games.

    Daniel Lambin,  Year 7

    Bravo Daniel! Ms Orchard and the BGS language department are very proud of you!

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  • Dante 700

    Published 20/04/22

    In celebration of the 700th anniversary of the death of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, author of La Divina Commedia - Inferno, Purgatorio e Paradiso, the University of Oxford is running the Dante 700 Competition and more than 50 BGS students of Italian took part in this cultural initiative.

    In the MFL Department, Italian teachers took this chance to teach KS3 and KS4 students about Dante’s Inferno, with a focus on Lucifer. Dante is one of the most influential Italian authors of all time and Inferno is part of the Italian school syllabus at KS3, KS4 and KS5. Students were asked to produce either a visual or a written response to Dante’s masterpiece and the result was a tremendous amount of imaginative entries (including a Dante-themed focaccia and a Lucifer-inspired cake!), which have now all been submitted to the university portal for the national competition. We have high hopes that some of these works will feature in an online anthology on the Oxford University website to be published soon.

    Best of luck to all our participants (or as we say in Italian, in bocca al lupo!)

    Miss Giglione, MFL Department

     

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Click here to view the Dante 700 gallery. 

     

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April 2022