Did you know the European Day of Languages which has taken place on the 26th September since 2001 is jointly hosted by the European Union and the Council of Europe? Check out our range of MFL language stickers to start rewarding your language learners.
What’s the point?
The European Day of Languages was created with the aim of increasing the amount of language learning across Europe both in and out of school.
Benefits of learning another language: 
- Learning to speak another language challenges your brain to recognise, negotiate meaning and communicate in different language systems. Languages improve the functionality of your brain which in turn makes you smarter!
- Developed abilities to multi task are a benefit of language learning.
- Foreign languages expand career potentials
- After learning one language its much easier to learn another
- Confidence increases when a new skill is mastered
Eighty one percent of adults say they regret not having learned a different language, therefore its really important to inspire and encourage language learning at an early age.
Classroom ideas
* Display different flags around the classroom and see how many countries can be identified and how many students know how to say “hello” in the countries language. The class activity can be to make a banner of all the different words for “hello” or “welcome” in as many countries as your class can identify.
* Reward your classes progress and motivate continued effort.
* Read a well known story in another language; ask children to identify words that sound like English.
* Play some games- if you have younger children and access to a computer in your class the BBC CBeebies site has some great language games.
* Create comic strips in a chosen language. Give your class different scenarios they could play out.
* Have fun- these are 10 German words that don’t translate into everyday English terms
* Take a quiz like this one. There are a mix of tricky and easier questions so this is a great one for the front of the class.
Products featured (left to right): Flag Stickers, French Marking Stamp, Chinese Merit Stickers
Language trivia
- “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is listed by the Guinness Book of Records as the hardest tongue twister in the world.
- At the time of the French Revolution, 75% of French citizens did not speak French as a mother tongue. Until the 19th century, French was spoken more widely in Holland and Germany than in some parts of France
- German is the only world language that capitalizes all nouns.
- Lithuanian together with Latvian are the only two living languages from the Baltic languages family.
- Bulgarian is the only Slavic language that doesn’t have cases. They are preserved only in the different pronouns. So, it may be the easiest Slavic language to learn.
- If you know Bulgarians, you may have already found it confusing what they mean by shaking or nodding their heads. In Bulgaria people often shake their heads meaning “yes” and nod when they actually mean “no”. Some, of course, do it the other way around, which in the end is even more confusing.
- The Italian alphabet has only 21 letters. The letters (j, k, w, x, y) are excluded, though they appear in loanwords such as “jeans”, “whisky” and “taxi”. The letter (x) has become common in standard Italian with the prefix “extra”
- The name Norway is believed to have come from the Old Norse translation for the words the “north way”, which in Old Norse were “nor veg”.
- The English word alphabet comes to from the names of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta.
- The Irish word order is Verb Subject Object. Sentences have Verb Subject Object order. So “I saw a bird” would be “Saw I a bird.” “I always speak Irish” would be “Speak I Irish always.” This word order is relatively rare—only 9 percent of the world’s languages use it.
Remember you can create your own stickers, badges and even marking stamps with our Sticker Maker. We’ll also be over on Facebook and Twitter @SchoolStickers waiting for you to come join in the fun and start earning your reward points. See you there!