What color are you?

In this lesson we did all sort of things. We started by making our own ‘language portrait’. We all got a blank person. For every language you speak, you had to choose a colour that you found was matching to this language. My language portrait looked like this (picture).

The red colour represents Flemish, my mother tongue. I choose red, because it’s a warm colour. I placed it in my heart and all in the body, because this is the language that is running through my veins. I will never forget this language, it’s in my heart.
The iceblue represents German. Although my mother is German, I can’t really speak it, so that is why I put it in my feet. I also think it’s a cold and hard language.
I choose yellow for the English language. It’s a language that brings people closer together, because almost everyone can speak it. I put it in my head, because this is the language we are using the most now.
French is the darkblue color. I think it’s a very romantic language, that’s why I put it around my heart. I colored my legs and arms in darkblue, because I use them a lot when I’m speaking French to make myself more clear.
Last, but not least: purple for the Danish color. I gave it a warm color, because I would like to learn this language. I’ve put it around my heart, because I will always remember this Erasmus experience.
After we talked to each other about our portraits, we had to write an eleven word poem.

Goosebumps
Death, love
In my heart
I think about you
Everlasting

I think it’s a good type of poem to use with children. It always has the same structure. Especially for the children who are not good at writing, this is a great exercise.


The last part of the lesson we talked about colors and what they symbolize. It’s funny how colors can have different meanings in different cultures. For example the color ‘black’. For me, it represents ‘death’, but for Ondrej it represents ‘elegance’.
Because Belgium, and Antwerp in particular, is a multicultural country, this was a very interesting lesson. I will definitely use these exercises, because it can teach children that languages and colors can have totally different meanings for each individual. It can teach them to have respect for other cultures and opinions.
And also for the teacher the result of these exercises can learn him/her a lot about a child and his/her way of thinking.