Languages

Year 10 Spanish Junior School Visit

On Monday, our Year 10 Spanish group visited a Year 6 Spanish class at the Junior School. It was a remarkable experience where we broke off in pairs to teach small groups about time and subjects, all of which are relevant for when they step into Year 7. The experience of teaching them some Spanish was very interesting. It provided us with an interesting insight into how teaching and learning simultaneously may be mutually beneficial for students like ourselves. Seeing the high proficiency of the Year 6 Spanish learners was both surprising and very impressive regarding their age level of course. This amazing opportunity allowed us to discover how children learn, especially from a teacher’s perspective, which seems quite challenging.

Luis Senftleben and Dían Wichgers (Year 10)

Year 12 Teaching Year 7 Chinese for Charity Event

Eva Osborn

Our Year 12 Chinese class all decided to sign up to teach the Year 7 class as we thought it would be a fun experience and a good way to step into Ms Xue’s shoes. In our lesson, we went over basic family members, teaching them how to say things like mum, dad, younger brother, grandma, etc. However, my favourite part of the lesson was when we were divided into groups and the Year 7 students competed to guess which family member on the slide presentation was related to which Year 12. Everyone became a little competitive, and although my group didn’t win, we certainly had the most spirit! The class was so enthusiastic and full of energy that we all had the best time! Through this experience, I learned not only how far we have come with our Chinese since Year 7, but also the energy and effort it takes to run an engaging and informative lesson. If you are given the opportunity, I would definitely recommend teaching a younger class!

Jack Keogh

When I heard part of the Festival in the Fahl fundraiser included the chance for groups of Year 12s to ‘buy’ younger classes for a period, I was surprised it hadn’t been done before as it is such a good idea to raise money, create links between Year Groups and have fun. Our whole Year 12 Chinese class (all 12 of us) decided to take Ms Xue’s Year 7 Chinese class for a period, a class many of us were in back in 2019. The surprise of the Year 7’s as they walked into a class full of Year 12 students (only Year 12 and teachers knew it was happening) quickly led to fierce (and loud) competition as they showed off their Chinese knowledge of stationery, family and guessing the Year 12’s family member photo for points and lollies. Planning and running just a single period definitely gave us an appreciation of how hard it is for Ms Xue and all teachers to keep learning on track for a whole year but overall the junior and senior students were all laughing together and it was a great Monday Period 1 to start the week.