I. The language relay

Divide participants into groups of 4/5. For each group you make a copy of a couple of paragraphs drawn from a story, report or poem in your chosen language. Stick the copy on a wall far enough away from the group that they cannot read it from where they are sitting.

Each participant takes it in turns to run to the copy, study it for 20 seconds, run back and write down as much as they can remember. Gradually, by helping each other, their goal is to reproduce their text exactly.

You can set a time limit or stop when the first group has finished or let it continue until all have finished. Each group can then report their results, how difficult they found the exercise, how they managed to help each other and, of course, what they have understood from the text. This is a good activity for groups with mixed abilities.

[This exercise comes from an idea outlined by Véronique Balthasart and Carla van der Straeten].

J. A DADA POEM!

The Dada movement, which began in Zurich in 1916, produced many wonderful ideas in the arts and Dadaists were particularly playful with language. One of its founder members, Tzara, produced this recipe for writing a Dada poem:

Take a newspaper. Take a pair of scissors. Select an article as long as you want your poem to be. Cut out the article. Then carefully cut out each of the words that form this article and put them in a bag. Shake gently. Then take out each scrap, one after the other. Conscientiously copy them in the order they left the bag. The poem will resemble you. And there you are, an infinitely original writer, with a charming sensibility, beyond the understanding of the vulgar.

Why not try this method with your group using newspapers in your chosen language? Each participant should read out their poems in different styles. What meanings can they find in their poems, what shape have they given to their poems, how do they sound? and, even, would it be possible to make them grammatically correct? And, remember, a true Dadaist was also against Dada!

[Tzara's recipe is quoted by Paul Auster in his Preface to “The Random House Book of Twentieth-Century French Poetry”].

K. THE NOTEBOOK

Give each member of the group a notebook so they can write down any phrases they learn. Again it is not so important for the spellings or grammar to be perfect! (This idea comes from the film "Down By Law" in which the Italian character always does this - it can be amusing and useful to try this out).

CONCLUSION

Try everything you can. Adapt such exercises to your group and the materials you have. Language is obviously not the only way we communicate, but it is important to try to learn a little of the other's language - it shows respect, its useful and once you start its difficult to stop.

N.B.: This paper concentrates on activities to get over some language barriers in international youth activities - it does not go into the more political aspects which we need to be considering: Why are some languages considered to be more important than others? Which languages are offered to be learnt at school and why? Which languages do we use in international youth work? Who is being excluded from participation? Whose voices are not being heard? What are the consequences of our choices?

Philippe Crosnier de Bellaistre [a trainer living in Berlin] and Andi Krauß [from Bonn] started me off on this path of linguistic animation a few years ago - to them and to numerous workshop participants who have suffered with me many thanks! I would be happy to hear of other exercises in a similar vein.

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