"Viva Languages" at the University of Manchester
Angela Sorby
/ Categories: News
Holly Samphire-Noden, Year 9, reports.
On Tuesday 6th January we took part in the ‘Viva Languages’ event at the University of Manchester. When we arrived, we were seated in a room and met a lady named Sonja who was from Germany. She told us she came to England because she was fascinated by our language when she was a little girl and wanted to learn it. She also showed us a video on why it might be a good idea to speak another language as it will help us to communicate with other people. We learnt that the best poem or the funniest joke could be in a different language. After, we got into groups with a university student who was learning a language and we had to make a mini role play of something we had learnt recently in a language lesson. We chose between Spanish and French and wrote out a scene which we performed whilst being filmed.
After we finished filming the mini role plays we went to a Japanese lesson in which the teacher taught us how to say greeting and our name which were ‘Hajimemashite’(how do you do?), ‘Watashi wa Holly desu’ (my name is Holly) and ‘Dozo yoroshiku’ (nice to meet you). Then she taught us how to say good morning (ohayoo), good afternoon (kon nichiwas) and good evening (kon banwas). Then after the lesson we went back in the main room and watched each other’s mini role plays and said what we liked about them. The day was very enjoyable and has made me think about studying languages in the future.
Holly Samphire-Noden Y9