Making the Most of National Foreign Language Week

1. Making the Most of National Foreign Language Week FLAVA 2014 Dr. Lisa A. Harris, Specialist for Foreign Languages

2. Objectives Participants will be able to: • Give the dates and theme for National Foreign Language Week 2015 • Identify some activities for students, teachers, and community members to celebrate NFLW • Organize a NFLW program for my class, my school, or my school division

3. "Learn a Foreign Language; Gain a New Perspective" • The Official Theme for the year 2015 is: "Learn a Foreign Language; Gain a New Perspective" • NFLW will be celebrated   March 9 – 15, 2015

4. FOR DEPARTMENTS LONG ON CREATIVITYAND SHORT ON FUNDING FL WEEK FIVE-STEP PLAN

5. FL WEEK FIVE-STEP PLAN Planning a successful and inexpensive foreign language week celebration based around the commands to: • ORGANIZE • ADVERTIZE • INVOLVE • CELEBRATE • SHARE Adapted from ideas and suggestions submitted by Sandy Meidinger, FLAND (Foreign Language Association of North Dakota)

6. Step One: Organize! • Things to do at least four to six weeks in advance: • Contact speakers. • Line up reporters and PR people to help cover the events when they occur. • Order candy for sale and for prizes. • Reserve rooms for special events. • Contact elementary school teachers for special joint projects. • Plan special menus, special cooking days and reserve home economics rooms if possible. • Share all your plans with departmental colleagues.

7. Step One: Organize! • Things to do at least two to three weeks in advance: • Get students started on poster, play writing, cooking or artwork contests. – (Ask the teachers of Granby High School, Norfolk about their annual projects and contests!) • Write news releases. • Give interviews on local radio shows and talk radio stations into making public service announcements out of excerpts of the interviews. • Make time line for media blitz.

8. Hint! • Involve students as much as possible at all planning stages. Let them show how special their talents are and how much they are learning.

9. Step Two: Advertise! • The most inexpensive option is to have students make posters or for computer literate teachers to make posters with a graphics program. Large professional-quality posters for Foreign Language Week with the current theme are available through the Alpha Mu Gammawebsite. • The prices for posters have been $5 each. Shipping and handling for up to 5 posters is an additional $5. A personal check should be included as payment with each order.

10. Step Three: Involve your school and community! • Have students make posters to hang in hallways. • Highlight the theme by putting footsteps in the hallways. The Linton High sports teams put contact paper over construction paper to attach the footsteps to the floor. If the school does not allow footsteps on the floor, try the walls. On the footsteps, write language and country facts, clues to a riddle, steps to success or some other idea -- and have the steps lead to the foreign language classroom(s), of course! • Invite exchange students or people from your community with international experiences to speak in your classes. • Translate the lunch menu into other languages and post them where students will read them while waiting for lunch. Have language students announce the lunch menus on the radio or over the loudspeaker.

11. Step Three: Involve your school and community! • Have a daily trivia question with prizes for correct answers. • Take your students to elementary classes to teach a short lesson, read a story, teach a song or perform a play. • Use school publications to promote foreign language study. • Ask the local paper to feature foreign language week activities.

12. Step Four: Celebrate! • Teach your classes a dance or new songs. • Have a food day. • Hold poster, poetry or artwork contests. • Sell international candy. • Have a language club fun night or cinema night. • Emphasize in all the activities the need for foreign language study and the benefits to individual students.

13. Step Five: Share! • Not only is it energizing to get ideas from other teachers and to share your successes with others, but it helps us all in our mission to promote language study in this country. Please submit successful ideas to the FLAVA webmaster. We will publish a list of events on the web site.

14. OK, I have a plan, now what do we DO? SAMPLE Activities

15. A Few NFLW Activities • Poster Contest • Essays • Teach someone • Research paper • Costume Day • Button Day • Game shows • Parade of Floats • Fiesta • Children’s book • Door decorating contest • Display cases • Tee shirt day • All “Language” Day • Menus • Announcements

16. Contracts • Student and Parent • Criteria • Self-select activities and projects • Extra credit • Rubrics • Project descriptions • Calendars

17. Group idea share Your Turn

18. Self-Assess • Give the dates and theme for National Foreign Language Week 2015 • Identify some activities for students, teachers, and community members to celebrate NFLW • Organize a NFLW program for my class, my school, or my school division

19. Thank You! For information about foreign language initiatives in Virginia please contact: Lisa A. Harris Specialist for Foreign Languages Virginia Department of Education P.O. Box 2120 Richmond, VA 23218-2120 Tel: 804-225-3666 Fax: 804-786-1597 E-mail: lisa.harris@doe.virginia.gov