SOCIAL STUDIES/SPELLING
Inventing Our Own Class Language!

Submitted by: I Love That Teaching Idea! Staff
From: Nibley, Utah
Date Submitted: April 12, 2001

One day as I was teaching a unit on inventions, I thought I'd put a little twist in things to keep my students alert and attentive! I decided it would be fun to invent our own class language! As the class started coming in from recess, I started giving directions in a funny language I made up myself. Boy, did that get their attention fast!

This is how it went: You spell out each word you say. For each consonant, you add "ONG" to it. For each vowel, you say it as it is.(with the exception of the letter "Y") For example, if you wanted to say, "Bradley", it would be said like this:
"Bong Rong A Dong Long E Yong"

Once you get the hang of it, you can go really fast! Pretty soon, they will want you to say ALL of their names in your new language!

Now, let your class decide what "class language" they want to have. Write all ideas up on the board. Some of the ideas may include adding "ang", "ing", "song" "oo" or "echo" to their letters. The possibilities are endless.

Model for your students what each one of their ideas would sound like when put to words and letters. Have the class vote on which ending they like best.

My class ended up using "ecko" for ending letters. Then they came up with a new name for their language. They called it, "Ecko Gecko" with their class language symbol being the gecko lizard! It worked really well! Using this language can be a fun spelling activity as well with the spelling words of the week!
I also make sure that each student gets with a partner and practices with one another. Then they got into groups of five students and they had to come up with a sentence of 5 words so that each student was in charge of a word. Then each group came to the front of the class and performed their sentence in "Ecko Gecko". The rest of the class had to guess what sentence they were saying. For example:

I like to play soccer.
I Lecko I Kecko E Tecko O Pecko Lecko A Yecko
Secko O Cecko Cecko E Recko!