With over 70 nationalities in our school, the ICS community has incredible linguistic diversity. This year we celebrated our multiculturalism with special activities for International Mother Language Day that encouraged students to be proud of and share their languages.
There are 12 different languages spoken among our Grade 1 students alone! To gear up for International Mother Language Day, students in this grade explored all of the different languages that they speak, and created drawings of themselves that celebrated their backgrounds. In addition, they had a writing exercise in which they shared which languages they use at home, in the classroom and on the playground.
The Primary school had a theme this year which was: More than ever, we appreciate having friends from all language backgrounds. Students engaged in several meaningful activities to build their awareness of the importance of maintaining and valuing home languages as they celebrated their multicultural friendships.
Students in Grade 4 also explored the different languages around them. They engaged in several meaningful activities to build their awareness of the importance of maintaining and valuing home languages as they celebrated their multicultural friendships.
In this joint activity, Grade 7 presented their gymnastic compositions to Grade 1 students. After the performances, they asked the younger learners a variety of questions in their mother tongues. These questions - which fostered growth mindset - included:
This cross-curricular activity was fantastic - congrats to the Grade 7 Students for all of their hard work!
Secondary students shared their languages and cultures by shooting short video reels in their mother tongues, creating language passports and retracing their language timelines. These activities sparked many interesting conversations this week which are certain to continue on throughout the school year.
In Tutor groups, teachers across the Secondary school led students in discussion about topics that touched on multiculturalism. The EAL team also put together a video which featured students and staff speaking in their native language. Many thanks to our EAL department for activities that united us by celebrating our linguistic diversity!
