Celebrating Culture Connections: Sayville students celebrated LOTE (Language Other Than English) Week.

Despite two delayed-openings and a snow day—all in the same blustery week of March—the Sayville LOTE students endured and celebrated LOTE (Languages Other Than English) Week. This annual, national celebration to commemorate all Modern Languages helps broaden the classroom perspective with a variety of cultural activities, outside projects, and feasts.

To launch Language Week, Sayville High School decked its halls with flags and posters that ushered in the international spirit. The LOTE department hosted a festival de cinéma with three representative foreign-language films:  (French) Triplets of Belleville, (Italian) La Vita è bella” and (Spanish) La leyenda de la llorana, which afforded those who attended extra credit. A daily Phrase-of-the-Day contest was held, and while students were encouraged to dress every day with a “foreign flair,” a special French-Fashion show in Mrs. Christine Richter’s room was held for those whose fashion sense was runway-worthy. Rounding off the week was a fabulous fiesta.

In classroom settings, student presentations in Greek, Bengali, and Welch offered diversity. One invited guest speaker demonstrated the practical applications of Language in the workforce.  Ms. Irene Halpin, who is the aunt of ninth-grader Aidan Kolar, practices as an attorney for a renowned multinational banking and financial services holding company. She not only speaks French with overseas clients, she often travels there on business.  Addressing the students, Ms. Halpin was upbeat and personable as she told them—in French—about her experiences and assured them that having language skills opened doors to business opportunities, especially with companies that deal with the global economy. Later in the week, fellow student Abby Good shared her summertime experience at a French Immersion camp.

At the Sayville Middle School, the foreign language hallway and library display cases were decorated with crafts, projects and posters. Morning announcements were recited in French and Spanish. Teachers in the entire middle school were also encouraged to fill out and share with their students a questionnaire regarding the languages they have studied and countries they have visited.

Eighth-grade French students completed a project on French idioms, celebrated with French foods, and viewed the Red Balloon followed by a class discussion, while the Eighth-grade Spanish students watched Book of Life and celebrated with Spanish foods. Both the French and Spanish students spent one day speaking only a foreign language—no English allowed!

Seventh Grade French and Spanish classes created books based on the children's book "Where is Spot?" utilizing classroom objects and prepositions. In addition, Spanish classes had a trivia lesson on Spanish culture and French classes created Mardi Gras masks.

At the Sixth-grade level, the students created friendship bracelets similar to those created in Central and South America, listened to the book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day in English, French, and Spanish, and watched a clip from the movie Frozen in twenty-four languages.  

Weather woes aside, the week-long LOTE event at both the High School and Middle School was magnifique!