The week of March 5 to 11 is the National Foreign Language Week in the United States.
The idea came from a foreign language society in Los Angeles, called Alpha Mu Gamma in 1957 to dedicate one week in Spring to raise awareness of how important it is to speak foreign languages. The first National Foreign Language Week was celebrated during the week of February 17 to 23 in 1957. Each year since then, schools, universities, libraries organise many projects along with students to make people aware of the need for and importance of speaking foreign languages. Typical projects are making cartoons, posters, writing newspaper articles, producing radio and television programs, playing foreign language films, organising festivals of foreign music and plays, singing foreign songs.
Every year they choose a theme. The Official Theme for the year 2012 is
“You’re Connected … Now Communicate!“
Click to watch a typical National Foreign Language Week project.
We can communicate with the world in many ways using English:
- by reading newspapers, books, comics, blogs in English,
- by writing letters to pen friends, posts to an English blog,
- by listening to songs in English, watching movies in English,
- by talking to friends, to our English teacher, to tourists in English.
So, to celebrate, listen to a song by Avril Lavigne, called “Things I’ll Never Say” and download the Songsheet that goes with it.
Songsheet Things I’ll Never Say (Songsheet adapted from www.vanda51pro.com)
Video Things I\’ll Never Say