On the 28th March, CPEB Las Arenas held its first ever Day of English! We spent a good few months planning activities and deciding how we would decorate the school for the big day. Everyone got involved making decorations and posters which we hung up throughout the building so that the school looked really festive for the occasion.
The younger primary children made mini flags to hang in the corridors as well as badges with the flags of countries where English is spoken. The older primary kids and secondary pupils made posters showing UK festivals and traditional British food as well as profiles of English-speaking countries such as Canada, Malta and India. All secondary pupils also made a poster of ‘My Favourite English Word’ which made a really great collage when we hung them all up in the corridor. We were also lucky to have the support of many teachers out with the English team, and a big thank you has to go to my extra-enthusiastic friends and colleagues who spent many hours helping us create a two metre high Big Ben!
We spent part of the morning doing a scavenger hunt-type quiz with the secondary pupils – each pupil had a question sheet and had to find the answers which were on cards dotted around the school. The kids really enjoyed this activity – and even those who don’t study English got involved by pairing up with an ‘English-speaker’. The primary kids also did quizzes in a similar style, and without exception they all got into the spirit of it. There were prizes and certificates for the three winners at the end of the day – so there was an added incentive to find all the answers!
At lunchtime, we ate some typical British food – including a main course of fish and chips. The kids really enjoyed the novelty of it, especially since the menus are printed in advance so they were excited about it for a month leading up to the Day of English! The afternoon was spent watching films in English (although with subtitles in Spanish!). 1º and 2º watched Up while 3º and 4º watched Bend It Like Beckham, although I spent the afternoon correcting quizzes so there was no rest for me!
As if there wasn’t enough going on, to make the day just that little bit more challenging, I vowed to go the whole day without speaking a word of Spanish. Which (given that I’m a native English speaker) was actually a lot more difficult than it sounds! As well as trying to organise various bits and bobs throughout the day with a certain head of studies who claimed her knowledge of English extended only to the question ‘Do you have a pen?’ the students enjoyed trying to catch me out, and admittedly I did slip up once or twice (OK, three times!). However with a lot of pointing, gesturing and dragging English-speakers into conversations to translate I managed to survive the day.
The Day of English was definitely worth all the hard work we put in to make it a success – it was great to see the whole school behind it and spending the day learning and practicing English in a whole variety of ways. I’m hoping we’ve now started a yearly tradition and I’m sure next year it can only get bigger!!!
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