Language & Cultural Day: Connecting London school pupils with diverse cultures of the world

UCL is also known as London’s Global University, but what makes UCL so global? Undoubtedly, the answer is us: the students. Every single one of us carries a unique cultural background that enhances the diversity of our student community.

The Students’ Union organized an International Festival, a ‘week-long programme of activities and events, delivered for and by our students, to showcase and celebrate our internationalism and global outlook.’  

This celebration was not limited to the UCL students and staff, but to our local community too. As a part of this festival, the Students’ Union UCL’s Volunteering Service found the perfect opportunity to invite local school children to our campus, and organised the Language & Cultural Day. 

27 Year 3 pupils from Edith Neville Primary School visited UCL, full of curiosity and eagerness, to learn more about different languages and cultures from all around the world through engaging and interactive activities. 

First stop: UCL Art Museum 

The UCL Art Museum is showcasing an exhibition called ‘Not Just Words: Learning language through art and objects’ and its primary target is to produce an ‘innovative approach to language learning.’ What better opportunity to interactively engage the little pupils with the world of language and culture? 

Here, pupils talked with the museum staff, and they learned a lot about art curation and creative professions. They also participated in numerous games: They matched words with items from the exhibition, tried to guess the meanings of phrases from different languages, and even brought out their inner detective by playing treasure hunt! 

Second stop: Glimpse into different countries 

Next, the pupils joined volunteers to discover the culture and language of 3 different countries: China, Germany, and Sweden 

While visiting the desk station of China, pupils found the opportunity to learn more about the Chinese New Year, greeting each other in Chinese, and how to make calligraphy. They were quite eager to take home the calligraphy they made as a souvenir to memorialise the day.  

“I loved everything but my favourite thing is doing Chinese writing. I really want to have more time and I want Haribo…” 

On the German desk, pupils engaged in activities ranging from guessing the German meanings of colors to designing their own Bavarian hats and decorating traditional German cookies. Pupils left the desk wearing personalised hats, speaking an unexpectedly proficient level of German, and with stomachs full from all the cookies.   

“Germany [was my favourite] because it was fun and we made hats and hearts and ate pretzels.”

The Swedish station was also filled with surprises. Here, pupils explored Sweden’s unique traditions such as Midsommar, discovered well-known people and companies that are actually Swedish, (even I didn’t know that Spotify had its headquarters in Stockholm!), danced and sang along to famous Swedish songs. 

It was very fun singing and making decorations.”

I like Sweden because I liked the dancing and nothing can be improved.”

Insights from volunteers 

Numerous UCL students volunteered to organise this impactful day of activities and spark curiosity in little minds. Volunteer Katie Lauren Ward reflects on the day by saying: “it was touching to get children excited about different cultures and seeing them talk about their own experiences.”  

Volunteers expressed that it was particularly sweet to see that the activities prompted children to share their own cultures with their friends. They were also surprised by the extent of the little pupils’ interest and eagerness to learn new languages.  

How can you get involved? 

Would you like to make an impact within your community and become a part of similar projects? Then the Volunteering Service is definitely the right place for you! 

If you are interested in creating and leading your own project, visit the Student-led Volunteering webpages to discover the opportunities available.

If you are hoping to join an existing project and collaborate with an enthusiastic team of volunteers, find yourself a perfect match using the Volunteering Opportunity Finder. 

Images credit: Students' Union UCL.