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MFL Newsletter Articles

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  • Culture Day 2024 (Part 2)

    Published 27/03/24

    As part of our BGS Culture Day on Friday 15th March, our ACS and SEAS students organised a hugely successful and very well attended parade and celebration. The event took place after school and began with students visiting food stalls where they were able to purchase a variety of delicious hot and cold food. Following this, students went to the drama theatre where there was a parade - students were invited to participate or spectate. The atmosphere was electric! There was music and dancing and Ify did a super job as the compère introducing the different countries participating. Some students had prepared a special dance which showcased their amazing talent and was very well received by the audience. Nobody wanted the afternoon to end! Well done to the ACS and SEAS and to our Prefect Team who helped with setting up and clearing away. It looks like next year, we'll need a bigger venue!

    Mrs Savage, MFL Department

    Click on the link here to view the Culture Day 2024 Photo Gallery.

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  • Culture Day 2024 (Part 1)

    Published 25/03/24

    On Friday 15th March we celebrated Culture Day at BGS. Staff and students wore traditional attire or items of clothing representing their cultural heritage and participated in a range of activities throughout the day. Below are descriptions of some of the activities that took place - next week students will report on and share pictures of the fantastic after-school event organised by the ACS (Afro-Caribbean Society) and SEAS (South-East Asian Society).

    Bailes en Linea

    A large number of students in Years 10 and 11 joined Ms Giglione in the hall in their lunch period for some Bailes en Linea (South American Line Dancing). It was very energetic and great fun was had by all!

    Biscuit Decorating

    At lunch, I participated in the biscuit making in L3 and I thought it was really fun. It was a really good way of representing your country through creating unique designs using the abundance of different colours of icing. For example, since I am from Jamaica, I created the Jamaican flag as the design for my biscuit.

    Elijah, Year 11

     

    International Games Culture Day

    To celebrate Culture Day, the Language Club prefects hosted a session of International Games. We played Romanian Scrabble, as well as German Bananagrams. It was good to learn about how different cultures play games that are widely known around the world.

    Overall, it was really fun and something that would be fun to do again!

    Caitlin Gorman, Year 9

    International Crafts

    On Culture day, I helped to run the fan making activity during P6 lunch. We didn't know if it would be popular, but we ended up with around 20 people! It was fun and easy to do. I would encourage everyone to be involved in activities on any future Culture days.

    Lucy, Year 11

    Find the Flags Competition

    Throughout the day, students raced to find and name 20 flags hidden all over the school. Students who were successful claimed a small prize from the MFL Office!

    Year 7 Media Correspondents
    Culture Day Report

    On Friday 15th March, Culture Day was run by the SEAS and ACS which was lots of fun for everyone, with many activities throughout the day including biscuit decorating, a challenge to find country flags around the school, an international parade and food stalls!

    As well as this, many students wore clothes from their home countries, showing classmates all about where they come from. We are all individuals in a big supportive group, and we respect everyone, and take the opportunity when given to learn about other cultures.

    Culture day gives pupils the opportunity to celebrate and represent their cultures as well as a chance for everybody to embrace the customs, traditions and languages that make each culture unique.

    Lily, Year 7, said “It was a great opportunity to learn about other people's cultures and heritages.”

    Paige, Year 7, said “I really enjoyed culture day as it was a chance to celebrate other people's cultures and traditions.”

    Aysu, Tanvi and Kendra, Year 7 Media Correspondents

    Click on the link here to view the Culture Day 2024 Photo Gallery.

    Mrs Savage, MFL Department

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  • UK Linguists Olympiad

    Published 21/02/24

    On Thursday 8th February, 16 BGS students from Year 10 and 2 students from Year 9 took part in the UK Linguistics Olympiad 2024, a language-analysis competition for secondary schools in which pupils solve language puzzles. The aim of this initiative is to encourage a lifelong interest in the world’s languages.

    The language puzzles were presented in the following languages for the Intermediate level, which was sat by 4 teams:

    1. Xhosa, or isiXhosa: one of the eleven official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 10 million people as their first language, and by 11 million people as an additional language, mostly in South Africa, making it the second most widely spoken language in South Africa after Zulu.
    1. Tariana: an endangered language spoken in the Vaupés river area in Brazil, close to the border with Columbia. There are about 100 speakers left of Tariana, while there are a further 1,500 Tariana people who no longer speak the language.
    1. The Adinkra symbols: these are symbols that represent concepts originally created by the Bono people (Ghana). They represent various concepts or proverbs and can be used to convey various morals or beliefs.
    1. Kannada: a Dravidian language spoken by around 60 million people, primarily in the Karnataka state in south-west India. It is written in the Kannada script, and has a literary tradition dating back over 1000 years.

     In order to solve these puzzles, students have to use a range of skills: pattern-recognition, analysis, lateral thinking and problem solving. What’s most impressive is that competitors have to not only make these analyses mentally, but also put them into words in an explicit explanation of how the underlying system works in order to solve the challenge.

    We are very proud to have such brilliant, talented linguists in our school, and we wish them the best of luck while we wait for their results. Last but not least, well done to Ashna Adhikari for coordinating all teams!

    Ms Giglione, MFL Department

     

    Below you can find some of the challenges from the Intermediate paper.

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  • MFL Spelling Bee Success!

    Published 07/02/24

    On Tuesday 23rd January, we were delighted to welcome students and teachers from Dartford Boys Grammar, Beths Grammar and Townley Grammar to compete in the ‘Inter School Spelling Bee Final’.

    All Year 7 and Year 9 (MFL2) students competed in ‘in class Spelling Bee heats’ in the lead up to Christmas or just after and winners in each group were invited to compete against the other schools. Bexley Grammar students did an amazing job competing in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Chinese - the standard of the competition was incredibly high, and they made themselves and the school proud!

    Caitlin G and Rowan B both finished in second place (Italian and Japanese) with winner Yu Xuan winning the Mandarin spell off correctly spelling an incredible 26 words in 2 minutes!

    Well done to all our amazing participants:

    Year 7: Dilinna E, Saviru A, Areeb A, Freya F, Krista T, Ethan E, Aysu B.

    Year 9: Vidhya B, Maya S, Tianming X, Cedric M, Sophie A, Millie W, Caitlin G, Rowan B, Rayon M, Yu Xuan O, Edwin S, Sophia L.

    Mrs Savage, MFL Department

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  • Year 7 and 8 MFL2 Book Decorating Competition

    Published 22/10/23

    Our Year 7 and Year 8 MFL2 students have done an amazing job decorating their books on the theme of the language they are studying. Well done to all students, it was so hard to choose the ‘best decorated book’.  Winners were Jessica B in Year 7 for her beautifully decorated French book and Kimran W in Year 8 for an amazingly detailed cover for her Russian book.

    Mrs Savage, MFL Department

         

                         Kimran 8ERR                                                            Jessica 7SDA

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  • GCHQ ~ National Language Competition

    Published 18/10/23

    This half-term, 41 BGS students from Year 9 and Year 10 have been selected to participate in two virtual outreach workshops hosted by GCHQ, the largest intelligence agency in the UK. As the government's premier employer of linguists, GCHQ is always seeking bilingual graduates who can contribute to the cybersecurity of the UK.

    Most impressively, two weeks ago, seventeen Year 9 students attended an interactive session tailored specifically for French speakers, led by a GCHQ language analyst. The students decoded messages in French and participated in a Q&A session regarding career opportunities at GCHQ.

    We are currently gearing up for the GCHQ National Language Competition, which will take place from Monday, November 6th to Friday, November 10th, 2023. This virtual competition pits teams from schools across the UK against each other in solving language-based puzzles to earn points. There is still time to sign up - for more information, please email giglione_m@bexleygs.co.uk.

    Ms Giglione, MFL Department

     I thoroughly enjoyed the experience as it showcased the diversity among the language analysts at GCHQ. It also presented the methods they employ when working with different scenarios. It helped many of us understand how important learning a language is when it comes to careers that will come after it and how this recruitment is needed for linguists.

    Leo Demyan, 9STA

    Languages are essential for communication, and they are extremely important to society as well as creating jobs that require a creativity AI can not achieve.

    Diep Anh Nguyen, 10LPV

    Having a languages degree can be very useful, helps you to meet new people and enhances communication skills. What I also found interesting was how they discussed online translators, and how the job of translating can not always be done by AI, because a lot of languages have phrases that mean different things to their direct and literal meaning. Thank you for giving me this opportunity; it was really interesting to see where my love for languages could take me!

    Hana Ostrowski, 10DCC

    Being able to learn new languages gives you the freedom to communicate and learn about other cultures. Acquiring new knowledge and looking at things from a different perspective. Knowing multiple languages can also make you more employable.

    Elin Mecaj, 10LPV

    Bexley Grammar School Parent Portal - Newsletter 18th October 2023

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  • 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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  • The Sakura Project Tree Planting Ceremony

    Published 14/03/22

    Some of you may have noticed the new addition to the school grounds.  Some of you may even have witnessed the planting ceremony from your form or office window on the chilly (but thankfully dry!) morning of 26th January. But, thanks to the Japan Society and in recognition of the school’s ongoing efforts to promote learning and understanding of Japanese language and culture, Bexley Grammar is the proud recipient of a beautiful young Somei-Yoshino cherry tree sapling. 

    The cherry tree and its blossoms are one of the most immediate and  enduring symbols of Japan.  You can find it on their currency and displayed proudly on the chests of the country’s national rugby teams. And pretty much every tourist montage of Japan includes masses of the pink and white trees in full bloom.  In Japan hanami - cherry blossom viewing - is one of the most eagerly awaited events of the year, with tens of millions of Japanese heading to sit beneath their nearest cherry trees and gaze up at their beauty.  With some tasty snacks, too, of course!

    The gifting of the tree is part of The Sakura Project, which was launched in the autumn of 2017 during a meeting between the Japanese and British Prime Ministers of the time as a symbol of and means to deepen ties between the two countries.  Mr Elphick and Mrs Meyer were guests at the ceremony alongside students from Year 8 – Year 13. 

    Mrs Meyer, who has been involved with the project from the outset four years ago remarked how neatly this mirrored our students’ journey through KS3 and KS4 up to GCSE.  Mr Elphick remarked that he hoped that the event would also mark a return to the normal running of our exchange programme with Keio Shonan Fujisawa School.

    Ashna Adhikari, a Year 8 student of Japanese said of the event,The tree planting ceremony was a very special event to me. I love how through it, I was able to expose myself to Japanese culture by experiencing this event.  Sometimes, we have culture lessons in our Japanese classes, which help to show me the importance of the Sakura tree to the country.  I think culture plays a crucial part in Japan, so I'm glad I was able to learn more about Japan with this.”

    The blooming of cherry blossoms is very much determined by climate and weather and the Somei-Yoshino tree that we now have can be expected to put forth its white blossoms in late March or early April, allowing us to do our own hanami here at Bexley Grammar School.

    Mr Adams, MFL Department

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  • ¡El cubismo!

    Published 11/11/21

    Our Year 8 Spanish beginners have been studying Picasso and Cubism this term. They have come up with some tremendous Cubist pictures of their own!  Well done Sienna and Alice for your amazing creative and linguistic skills in Spanish!

    Ms Adlington, Year 8 Spanish Teacher

     

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