Honoring languages worldwide
For the first time in over 30 years, the foreign language teachers celebrated World Language Culture Week by organizing a week full of fun events for the students. From March 6-10, the teachers held many activities during lunch and their classes.
From playing children’s games to line dancing, the activities held during lunch were engaging to the students.
Each activity was related to the culture of a certain language taught at Diamond Bar High School.
On Monday and Tuesday, games such as jump rope and hacky sack were held.
Along with these games, a baguette eating contest and dance to the Spanish song “Payaso de Rodeo” by Caballo Dorado were also hosted.
“It was fun and was a good way to bring all the world language classes together and be able to learn about other cultures,” junior Suheil Macias said. “Interacting with the other classes and the part where we had to learn a few phrases in different languages was a bit chaotic though.”
On Wednesday, all language classes throughout the day met up in the amphitheater.
They immediately began the day by having students interact with each other and learn new phrases in different languages.
Other games like musical chairs, hot potato, and Eiffel tower building with marshmallows were held.
During classes on another day, most teachers played “Let It Go” in different languages and had students sing it all together in order to promote the Frozen musical production being organized by DBHS theater.
“It was a nice break from class for a day, but it barely taught anything about culture when it’s called World Language Culture Week,” sophomore Sophie Lee said. “We were learning about how to speak languages rather than appreciating cultures.”
According to Spanish teacher Charlotte Sorensen, World Language Culture Week has existed since she started teaching at Diamond Bar High School during the 90s. But due to the high amount of planning, preparations and time would have taken, the idea had been previously shelved until foreign language teachers reproposed it this year.
“The planning process was pretty quick, but all the teachers worked hard,” said Sorenson. “ It was quick but a lot of hours went into it.
She further emphasized the amount of effort that was required to go into the project, and also the main reason she and many other teachers wanted to do it.
“It took a lot of planning and commitment, but it was something fun to do since I started working here,” Sorenson said. “We also want to promote world languages because learning a language makes the world feel that much smaller because you can talk to more people.”
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