École St Margaret celebrates language week with Olympic-themed activities
It was an exciting day at École St Margaret on Friday, February 9th as the school celebrated language week—“151 Reasons to Choose bilingualism!” The school celebrated being able to speak a second language with an activity filled week, ending with the staging of an Olympic games day with Kindergarten to Grade 8 students. The students researched and chose to represent countries that had French as one of their official languages.
The students got a chance to play hockey, curling, sports trivia and other Olympic-themed activities that showcased all the countries that spoke French or had it as a second language. Principal at the school, Sarah Phipps says being able to speak a second language in Canada is a unique opportunity and the week’s activities was a fun way of showcasing this with students. “We try to celebrate 151 reasons to be thankful to have bilingualism or to speak a second language. We’ve tried to focus on reasons why kids would want to come to school and learn a second language but also ways that are fun. We did not only focus on academic activities as we always do but activities that are fun from around the world. The Olympics right now is a very big thing for us so all our activities surround- ed the Olympics and the children also earned medals,” said Phipps.
She says being bilingual is an essentially commodity and it was important for the students to know and celebrate being able to learn a second language. “The other thing we did is really focus on countries around the world that spoke French, so the kids knew that anywhere they went in the world, being able to speak French is a commodity for them and a benefit for their lives. We’ve also done a lot of activities with our senior students by partnering them up with students at Vanier throughout the week to do fun things and showing them that coming to school and learning a second language is fun and it is a unique opportunity that other students may not have.”
The students were very excited about the week’s activities and showed confidence in speaking French. “The kids are very excited for these activities. They are pumped especially with the Olympic theme. Some dressed up, others made flags representing countries that speak French; we made t-shirts and they are very excited to be part of these activities. It is nice to see the students interacting with each other in French. It is a unique opportunity across Saskatchewan for kids to be able to learn French and also for parents to realize the benefits of learning a second language.”