Children pretend that they are boarding a plane and greet the flight attendants as they embark. The attendants choose just one language and greet each passenger in turn with a polite "hello." Each passenger also chooses a language and can say "hello" in that language or the same language as the attendant. Make the role-playing realistic with the seats set out in a similar way to an airplane.
Children choose a flashcard from a pile. Each card will have "hello" in a foreign language. If a child selects the card in French, for example, he will go round the class and say "bonjour." If he finds another child who says "bonjour" back, the two children go round the classroom together, find all the other "bonjours" and form a group. Ideally there should be four or five languages being practiced.
Children make a mural for the classroom, depicting children from different countries, all saying "hello" in their own language. The mural could be based on national dress or include some stereotypes. For example, a German boy could be wearing lederhosen and saying "Guten tag" in a speech bubble. An Italian girl could say "buongiorno" while eating a bowl of spaghetti. This activity focuses on the written word. A mural is a constant vocabulary reminder while providing a visual backdrop to lessons about foreign languages and foreign culture.
Have children find out the formal and informal ways of saying "hello" in different languages. For example, Italians might say ciao, rather than buongiorno, to friends and close family. Students could compile a table with these differences. In another task, the children can list the different ways of saying "hello" at different times of the day. For example, in French you move from greeting people with "bonjour" during the day to "bonsoir" in the evening.
Ask a group of children to guess how many languages they can say "hello" in by pooling their knowledge. Have the chldren, one by one, call out a "hello" in a foreign language. The rest of the class repeats it. When the group has exhausted all their "hellos," count up the languages and discover if the initial guess was correct or wrong. At the end of the lesson see if the children can remember all the words for "hello."