The Babel Tower test

          Where could you see Spanish, Albanian, English, Portuguese and Japanese language all together? The answer is very simple - in the English test! The students from the last year of high school went through a distinct experience - to complete a test with texts in many different languages, but focused in the abilities that are necessary to achieve comprehension when reading any text that is not written in your mother tongue. These abilities are also involved wish perception, and in this case, attention is an important ally. That is the reason the texts were used as a test and not as an activity. In fact, it could be as simple as an activity, but let's speak the truth: I want to have some fun too!!! But unfortunately, due to a health problem, I couldn't make it, so I missed an important part of the process (and I am not referring to my own fun). I missed the opportunity of observing my students' reaction when they received the test, when they were working on it and their comments at the end of the test. It may sound something quite unimportant (or even silly) not being there during the test, but during all these years, teaching for different grades, I've learned a lot with the messages that come to me by a non-verbal language and when we (my students and I) are talking in a very informal way, without any kind of pressure.          
          I know it is not the same thing, we are not "in the heat of the moment" anymore, but even though I would like to ask the students to write down comments (suggestions, critics, opinion, complaints) about the test.

          I also would like to thank you guys for doing it and to give a huge "thank you" from the bottom of my heart to the Physics teacher Thaís. Her help was crucial and it is exactly because we have friends we can count that life becomes much more interesting and easy to go on.

          And as an example of how the beauty of languages can be combined in a very harmonious way, look at this Multi-language sequence video from Disney's Frozen movie of the Music "Let it Go".

 

Post Question for students: What is your opinion about the test? How did you like it? What was the difficulty level of the test? Write an interesting and uninteresting point of your test. 
Tip: If you got interested and curious about learning another language, there two good suggestions that can help you. On the BBC website we can learn 40 different languages, including Albanian and  there are useful information about teaching yourself foreign languages on the How To Learn Any Language website.