Nord Anglia Education
WRITTEN BY
ICS Communications
11 February, 2021

Illuminating Our Multiculturalism: International Mother Language Day at ICS

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Illuminating Our Multiculturalism: International Mother Language Day at ICS With over 70 nationalities in our school, the ICS community has incredible linguistic diversity. We love to celebrate our multiculturalism with special activities that encourage students to be proud of and share their languages.

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.

Exploring Our 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. 

Appreciating Our Friendships

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.

Discussing Our Diversity

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.

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Sharing Choreography across Grades - and Languages!

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:

  • Did you prepare this quickly or did you need time and effort to prepare it?
  • What did you find difficult about the activity?
  • When things got challenging, did you want to give up?
  • Are you proud of what you’ve achieve?

This cross-curricular activity was fantastic - congrats to the Grade 7 Students for all of their hard work!

Creating Language Passports and Timelines

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.

Illuminating our Multiculturalism

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!