Children from the Northside Neighborhood House summer program will taste French crepes, make origami paper cranes and sing tunes in German at their multicultural celebration next Tuesday from 1-4 p.m. Led by the Chattanooga School of Language, the celebration is the finale of an eight-week language and culture camp made possible by a Community Cultural Connections grant from ArtsBuild Chattanooga.
The purpose of the camp is to promote awareness and appreciation of other cultures and languages, to create a cultural immersion-like experience and to provide foreign language teaching to kids at an early age.
Since June, CSL teachers have exposed the 40 children, in grades kindergarten through middle school, to the French, German, Spanish and Japanese languages and cultures.
With a heavy emphasis on culture, the CSL teachers use various teaching methods to bring the language alive for the students, including music, cooking and art. Students receive a holistic understanding of a language through integrative teaching methods.
“The language and culture camp has introduced our kids to a lot of other cultures that they probably wouldn’t have experienced otherwise,” said Amanda Whitaker, education director of NNH. “Outside of the language itself, the camp also allowed the kids to try different foods, talk about various artists and be creative. We definitely hope to offer this again next year.”
CSL language camps seek to give children the opportunity to experience different languages from around the world and to teach them the value of other cultures.
On Tuesday, the teachers will create a multicultural celebration for the kids that will include food and activities from each language that was taught throughout the eight weeks. There will also be a slideshow of the whole camp.
For more information on the celebration, call 423.802.2040 or email laurie@chattanoogalanguage.com.