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Linguistic Week at Godspell College

Posted: 18 December 2020

Overview

Every year we organize a school wide linguistic integrated unit called Linguistic Week. Our Language Net – a group of teachers from across the school – plans ahead and puts together the goals for this activity both for the whole school and across the sections. This is a Spanish-English bilingual project consisting of different activities that engage our whole community for a week during which we focus on promoting in our students a love for reading  and an appreciation for  literature.

Planning

Collaborative work is present wherever possible at Godspell. That is why every teacher and coordinator belongs to one of our “Nets”. These “Nets” are made up of teachers from across  the different school sections that work together on a specific discipline (Arts, Language, Maths, etc). In this case, it was the Language Net who was in charge of planning the Linguistic Week.  They had a series of meetings during which they decided which would be the common activities for the Linguistic Week, as well as its duration, participants and goals. Once the calendar was set, it was passed along to the different sections so that each team could add their own specific activities within the general structure.

Details

Unlike some other years in which we chose a general  theme (for example: Shakeaspeare), this year we did not specify any other than “Enjoy reading” as a motto. The fact that we were homeschooling at the time that we held this activity faced us with the need to readjust some initiatives and drop others, such as our traditional Book Fair .

The whole week was devoted to promoting literature and linguistic activities and the schedule included diverse initiatives across the school such as:

Challenges:

Of course operating virtuality was the major challenge around this project. Not only did we face the need to adapt a full week’s programme into zoom sessions and collaborative platforms, but we also had to plan and schedule in advance all of the activities that are usually done in person at school. This meant recording and editing videos and making sure they were all shared properly and in time. Luckily we have procedures from previous years and our staff is trained for these kinds of projects, so that made the task easier.

Impact

The lockdown context in which we were delivering our lessons allowed this project to have a very particular impact: it was a boost of energy for our students as it brought about a change in their daily routines. On the other hand, Godspell students have been developing a love for literature and reading. These are two core skills so students showed great enthusiasm and participated actively in the different proposals.

Learning outcomes

During our Linguistic Week 2020 edition we established the following learning outcomes for our students:

  1. a) To promote a love for reading.
  2. b) To enjoy reading.
  3. c) To express feelings through literature.
  4. d) To develop linguistic skills.

Long term outcomes

One of the long term outcomes of this activity is to foster in our students a commitment to become critical and free thinkers, so that they will be willing to live in a creative way. Also to engage students, staff and parents as a community and grow in them a sense of belonging through an activity that is both different and amusing. In our experience, these kinds of whole-school involvement projects are the ones that our former students cherish and remember the most.

Advice

Author: Barbara Maschwitz, Round Square Representative, Godspell College 

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