Celebrate languages and creativity with our series of daily challenges, running throughout Languages Week Scotland. Work with your class, your teacher, your family or your friends and join in!
Monday: The multicultural society
More than Words
People in Scotland communicate in many ways. Today’s challenge is to create a simple message and watch how it travels through Scotland’s multilingual society. This challenge can be completed as a group or individual, with your class, family or friends.
- Create your message. This could be a word or a short phrase that represents Scotland today, for example: Hello / Everyone is welcome here / This is Scotland
- Investigate how your message is expressed in as many languages as possible. Include languages seen, signed or heard in the local community; these languages are part of life in Scotland.
- For each language, learn how to write, speak or sign the phrase.
- Showcase how your message translates across all the languages you discovered. You could create:
- a poster, mural or digital slide
- a short video or audio-visual recording
- a spoken-word, signed or mixed-mode performance
- a wall display
- Share your multilingual messages with us and celebrate Scotland’s multilingual landscape! Tag @langsweekscot and post on Instagram or Languages Week Scotland on LinkedIn. Post on Instagram and tag @langsweekscot using #ScotlandLovesLanguages. Alternatively, email us for inclusion on our blog.
Tuesday: Global citizenship
Language skills equip us to be effective global citizens: they give us the power to spread the word about problems and the solutions, and today’s challenge is about doing exactly that! We will be using film shorts from Take One Action, a movement that brings communities together to harness the transformative potential of film and storytelling for collective change in Scotland and beyond.
- Watch one of the films from this curated collection. The collection is in three sections:
a) Setting the Scene – climate activism in general
b) #KSBYouthClimateFilms – made by amateur film makers for the Youth Climate Films competition run by Keep Scotland Beautiful
c) More – other relevant shorts
- What is the strongest message in this film?
- Create an eye-catching image or film of your own to communicate this message and make it multilingual by including dialogue or text in one or more languages besides English.
- Share your multilingual images and films with us. Tag @langsweekscot on Instagram or Languages Week Scotland on LinkedIn using #ScotlandLovesLanguages. Alternatively, email us for inclusion on our blog.
Wednesday: Skills for life and work in a global context
In a global workplace, people use different languages, but they still need to understand each other and work towards shared goals.
Your task:
- Choose a word or short phrase linked to working life (for example: teamwork, respect, ideas, problem, solution, welcome).
- Find out how to say this word in at least three languages. You can include languages you are learning at school, languages spoken at home, or languages used elsewhere in the world.
- Share your word on social media – you can make it into a picture or graphic if you’re feeling creative! Tag @langsweekscot on Instagram and we can repost your work!
- Think about why multilingual skills are important when working with people from different cultures and talk about this with your class.
Thursday: Contributing to the development of a better world
Contributing to the development of a better world – the same, but different
“Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.” (Flora Lewis, award-winning American journalist)
Learning languages is not just about words – it’s also about understanding how people see the world through their own cultural lens, and how we do too. So, learning about languages and cultures helps us to get a much clearer picture of the world we live in and that makes us stronger, better-informed, more confident people.
Spin the World and pick a country (this is great fun!). Now, find out more about one of the languages or cultures of this country.
Share one thing from your research with us on social media using #ScotlandLovesLanguages. You can find us on Instagram and on LinkedIn.
Friday: Global influence and engagement
Creating ripples, making waves
Wherever your school or organisation is located, you can bet its ripples extend far beyond the physical building! But how far is that exactly?
To find out, all you need is a world map.
Ask those people connected to your establishment – pupils, staff, families and community connections – to pop a pin in a world map to represent a language, culture or community they have a connection to.
They might choose to put a pin in:
- a place with a special family connection – even better, a special language connection!
- a place where they love to go on holiday – maybe they have learned a few phrases of a local language!
- or a place whose language they speak, even if they haven’t had the chance to visit it (yet!)
Take a photo of your world map see just how far around the world YOUR establishment can reach!
Share your photo with us on social media using #ScotlandLovesLanguages and let’s see whose reach extends the furthest!
You can use a physical map or create a digital one using a tool like Mapcutomizer or Google Maps.
