A Mexican Christmas in Southampton
A group of Southampton primary school teachers, along with trainee teachers from the university, gathered at Swaythling Primary School on 1st December to hear all about Christmas in Mexico and learn some Mexican Spanish.
The session was led by Selene Maya, a Mexican student who has been in Southampton studying as part of her degree. She was delighted to share stories about Mexican traditions, explaining to teachers about posadas (or processions) and nacimientos (or nativity scenes), before showing everyone how to make a piñata, which is a papier-mâché object, decorated and filled with sweets for children.
Zena Hilton, Languages South East Regional Manager, says: “This event was a great opportunity to get primary teachers together and provide them with new ideas to take back to their classrooms. They found it really useful to be able to ask Selene lots of questions about Mexico too.”
The Mexican Christmas Traditions workshop was a joint event between the University’s Mexsu Centre for Southampton-Mexico collaboration, and Languages South East, based here at university, which organises professional development and support for primary and secondary language teachers across the South East of England.