Thursday, 31 July 2008

Alphabet of Nations - another idea for EDL?



Having spent a good while flicking between Youtube and Zamzar over the last couple of days, downloading and converting videos, I've had a chance to look over some of my 'favourited' videos once more, and came across this one.

I remember They Might Be Giants from their song Birdhouse in your soul - classic lyrics including 'blue canary in the outlet by the lightswitch who watches over you' and 'not to put too fine a point on it, say I'm the only bee in your bonnet' - and It's Istanbul not Constantinople - but here they are singing a song about the Alphabet of Nations. They cheat for X but otherwise a country for each letter.

I was thinking of using it as a challenge for European Day of Languages - some ideas:

  • learning the song would be the simplest
  • play the song each day for a week then have a quiz on countries
  • name the languages spoken in the countries
  • name the capital cities
  • challenge pupils to label the countries on a map
  • pupils rewrite the song with countries of their choice
  • write a collaborative Alphabet of Languages - then learn a word in each language
Doesn't have to be for EDL - it would be a good exercise for global awareness and ICU at any point.

There is an Animaniacs video naming countries too, but I prefer this one as it's shorter, less dated (in terms of look and also countries that no longer exist) and also funkier. ;o)

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