Oquenock Elementary School celebrated National Foreign Language Week with a variety of engaging cultural activities in both ENL and mainstream classrooms. The celebration began with the school being beautifully decorated with international banners, flags and cultural greetings in multiple languages. Throughout the week, students participated in morning announcements that featured greetings and messages spoken in different languages.
Teachers also used a choice board that allowed classes to take part in a range of cultural activities such as music, stories, games and videos that highlighted languages and traditions from around the world. Students, staff and faculty proudly wore cultural attire to represent and celebrate their heritage, creating a vibrant display of diversity throughout the school.
As a special highlight, English Language Learners participated in an in-school field trip called Cultural Connect. During this experience, students rotated through different cultural stations where they learned greetings in various languages, explored dances from different parts of the world, matched cultural foods with their countries of origin, created a collaborative cultural quilt square, and identified the locations of their families’ countries on a map while answering cultural questions.
This celebration provided a meaningful opportunity for students to learn about and appreciate the many cultures and languages that make up our school community.