Hands up: tell us one thing we do at school every day.
Uniform, roll call, yard time, going home for dinner: the ordinary bits of our week.
Here is a short account of an ordinary Irish day, written by someone who moved here. Listen for the bits they found odd. Those are often the bits we stopped noticing.
Three odd details (your teacher will add more aloud):
"I thought: this is not a postcard Ireland. This is just Tuesday."
Talk: What sounds strange when you say our week out loud to someone who has never seen an Irish school? Which detail would you have forgotten to mention?
Watch the North America map on the board. Your teacher opens each country.
Beat 1: thumbs up if you think an Irish school week would feel surprising there.
Beat 2: look at the languages on the map. Together, say one language you can see or hear named for that place.
Open your copy. Write one thing about your own week that a visitor would find surprising.
It can be small: the time you eat, a word you use, a game in the yard, a language on a sign. Write it in your own words.
Small details count: if a visitor would blink, it belongs in your copy.
Some of those North American languages, and some we hear often in Ireland, could walk into this room tomorrow.
Your teacher will play short language clips on the board. Listen carefully. Each clip is played twice. After each one, choose which language you heard from the choices shown on the screen.
These are languages a neighbour or a new pupil might bring, not a test to catch you out.
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