On a recent edition of Word of Mouth, the BBC Radio 4 programme about language, they talked about an interesting scheme at a primary school in London where over 40 different languages are spoken by the pupils. Each month one language is chosen as the language of the month, and a pupil who speaks that language teaches the other children and the teachers some words and phrases in their mother tongue both in person and via video and audio recordings. The pupils also tell people about their culture. The recordings are also made available to other schools via the web.

The school sees the multitude of languages spoken by the children as an opportunity and asset rather than a problem. The children can share their own languages and cultures, and learn about the languages and cultures of others, and they become familiar with the sounds of the different languages.

Maybe we could do something similar here. Would any of you like to share some of your native language(s) with the rest of us? This could involve audio and/or video recordings of useful words and phrases, information about your language and culture, and anything else you think would be interesting.