Enseñando Español con rugby

Teacher of Modern Foreign Languages, Mrs Carol Harrison, has found a novel way of teaching a variety of useful vocabulary.

Mrs Harrison, who joined Shiplake in 2016, has reinvigorated the teaching of Spanish vocabulary of her Key Stage 3 pupils. The Year 9 class of 13 pupils were asked to prepare presentations on rugby teams. Some were based on real people and sportsmen, while others were purely fantastical.

Fred Cripps, Josh Sommerville and Theo Ezechukwu gave a brilliant presentation on ‘Equipo de Escocia’ (which is the ‘team of Scotland’ to you and I). Not only did the boys describe each of the players, in order of their position on the field, but they were also able to talk about each of the players’ strengths. For example, Josh Sommerville ably stated ‘se llama Hamish Watson, el juega Tercera Línea , su altura es promedio’ while listing the Scottish team. This translates to ‘his name is Hamish Watson, he is a flanker and his height is average’.

Shortly after, Finlay Woods and Nick Rowe presented ‘mi equipo favorito’ – ‘my favourite team’. This was a fantasy team of actual players, and he described why he likes them so much. He said, in a brilliant Spanish accent ‘me gusta Maro Itoje porque jugar para Inglaterra y es bueno en todo’, which means ‘I like Maro Itoje because he plays for England and is good at everything’.

However, Zack Everett and Louis Poundall’s team featured the likes of Shrek, Lightning McQueen and Barry B. Benson, from Bee Movie. While this might seem silly, the boys were able to explain why they would have these characters on their team. Zack explained, ‘en la zaguero esta Lightning McQueen porque el es una unidad y puede correr rápido además es un coche’ which means ‘in the back row is Lightning McQueen because he is a unit and is also really fast, because he’s a car’.

After the presentations, Flynn Wilson and Ollie Roullier were asked if they enjoy Mrs Harrison’s lessons, to which Ollie replied ‘yes, Spanish is my favourite class. Everyone is always engaged and involved because Mrs Harrison comes up with fun games and ways that make it easier to remember the vocab.’ When Flynn was asked if he enjoyed this project, he said, ‘we’ve really enjoyed working in groups. We’re both really interested in Rugby and Spanish, so it’s two good things together – win, win!’