Mythological Expressions across languages

Finnish, Greek, Icelandic, Italian, Latvian, Polish, Spanish and... English

Aim:  Explore language expressions deriving from myths and legends

Age group: All ages

Time: 60 minutes

Participants work in groups. In the case of multinational classes, each group should be made up of different nationalities as much as possible.

Each group gives themselves a name and assign a discussion coordinator and a secretary who will note down the expressions. In the end, each group will choose and present three common expressions and as many non-common expressions as the number of nationalities in each group.

Each participant mentions one mythological expression in his/her language explaining a) its meaning in the language of communication (English in our case), b) the story behind it and c) the way it is used today. Then the other participants say whether this expression exists in their language and provide the equivalent in their language. The secretary notes the expressions down.

When everyone has provided one expression, the process is repeated until participants run out of expressions or of time. The use of reference books or digital media is allowed.

Participants can prepare a list of expressions before the activity – either in class or as homework - so that they save time during the activity.

Alternatively, the activity can be performed online through google docs. A sample chart is shown below:

Here is a video of students working in groups. And here is a video of students saying the expressions they chose to present in their mother tongues.

For our Erasmus+ project, the activity was concluded with the publishing of an ebook of Mythological Expressions. That was based on the work done during the Erasmus+ teaching/learning training activity in Sardegna, Italy and further enhanced through e-cooperation when students and teachers were back in their schools.