Languages

On the last day in China we visited the pandas at the Beijing Zoo, followed by a tour of the beautiful Summer Palace with its ornamental gardens, lakes and characteristic pavilions. We visited the Imperial Palace, then a local family, and rode around the Hutongs on a tricycle built for two in the evening. We have learnt so much about the language, culture, history and way of life of the Chinese people. This experience of a lifetime has enriched our lives and helped us to have a wider outlook and broader perspective. We recommend this experience to anyone who likes travelling and seeing the world. I would like to thank all participants of the tour, especially Mrs Kathryn Barry, the coordinator of Curriculum, for assisting me in the organisation of the tour, and Mr Jeff Symms, the Head of Preparatory, for his support by being present at the tour.

PREP SCHOOL CHINESE

Mrs Ng-Yap had another wonderful year inspiring Years 5 and 6 classes to learn Mandarin. Celebrations for the Year of The Horse commenced with Chinese New Year, and continued right up to Mid-Autumn Festival, with the Dragon Boat Festival and students trying Zongzi. Year 6 students enjoyed their annual excursion to the Chung Tian Temple, followed by Yum Cha in Sunnybank. All students looked forward to the Descendants of the Dragon, an entertaining performance about Chinese Language and Culture.

YEAR 6 STUDENTS AT CHUNG TIAN TEMPLE

Students entered the Language Perfect World Championships, with Harry Knudsen and Kye Kanamura earning Gold Awards, Spencer Lee achieving Silver, and Victor Wu and Zac Cirocco awarded Bronze Certificates.

From July 20 to 25 we hosted a group of Chinese exchange students. They joined our classes, and visited the Senior School, as well as seeing the sights of the Gold Coast.

Our students also had considerable success in the Modern Languages Teachers Association of Queensland Griffith University Speaking Competition, with Dean TylerBattaglia, Ewan Stanich and Bradyn Palmer all Highly Commended.

SENIOR SCHOOL LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT

FROM LEFT: MR KENN WILLIAMS YEAR 7 CHINESE TEACHER, MS LISA MILLER, HEAD OF LANGUAGES, MR JOHN GUO, CHINESE LANGUAGE ASSISTANT, MS SOPHIE BOISSERY, COORDINATOR OF FRENCH, MR ANTONIN BURAT, FRENCH LANGUAGE ASSISTANT AND MR MIKE HALPIN, YEAR 7 FRENCH TEACHER (ON LEAVE IN TERM 4, REPLACED BY MR THOMAS THACKRAY).

MR GUO OF SHANGHAI WAS A WONDERFUL ADDITION TO THE CHINESE CLASSROOM, SHOWN HERE SHARING SPRING ROLLS WITH CODY MEULEMAN, AND INTRODUCING BOYS TO LIFE IN SHANGHAI

MR BURAT IS FROM LYONS IN FRANCE. HE WAS A GREAT HELP TO MS BOISSERY AT SUBJECT SELECTION EVENING, AND HE ENJOYED HIS TIME AS RESIDENT MASTER IN ROGERS QUEENSLAND COLLEGE OF TEACHERS EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING AWARD

Ms Lisa Miller, Head of Languages

MR DRUERY OAM, MS MILLER, AND THE HONOURABLE JOHN PAUL LANGBROEK

For any teacher, it is a great honour to be nominated for the Queensland College of Teachers Excellence in Teaching Awards. This year, our Dean of Teaching and Learning, Jo Inglis, nominated me for the Alan Druery OAM Prize. We travelled to Brisbane with Living Legend Nominate and Ancient History Teacher Mr John Wallace in late October for the presentation. It was a tremendous surprise to actually win the award, now on display in the Innovation Corridor. Thank you to those who have mentored me on my journey. As a beginning teacher at Marsden State High School in 1995, I was truly blessed to have the advice and support of the late Carmel Gomm-Wright, former Deputy Principal at Benowa State High School, and at the time, the LOTE Coordinator for South Coast District. Carmel enabled me to create opportunities for students to engage with Chinese culture outside the classroom, with music, food, dragon dancing and travel. She always said that Chinese was an easy language to learn, and she insisted that it was going to be an important subject for students to study.

At the Chinese Language Teachers’ Federation of Australia conference in 1996 I met May Kwan, School Languages Officer for Independent Schools Queensland until her retirement last year. May brought together Chinese teachers from all sectors to form the Chinese Language Teachers Association of Queensland, and offered me the opportunity to be founding President. For decades, in her role at ISQ, May facilitated a great deal of federal funding for Asian Languages, generating many of the wonderful programs our boys have enjoyed at TSS. The current, longstanding President of the CLTAQ, Hui Richards, from the Confucius Institute at QUT, continues to provide generous support to teachers and students of Chinese from all over Queensland.

At that time, Mr Malcolm Pritchard was Head of Chinese at Melbourne Grammar School and President of the Chinese Language Teachers Association of Victoria. He had recently been appointed to be Head of the Nanjing Campus developed by Headmaster Stephen Newton of Caulfield Grammar School in Melbourne. Malcolm believed thoroughly in experiential learning, and under his influence the Internationalism in Nanjing program got under way in 1998. Along with my colleagues Gary Tyler, Donna Magann and Will Harper, I worked in Nanjing for two years as an Activity Teacher, leading Year 9 students around China for five-week programs that truly embodied the spirit of globalised study and adventure.

Those years and mentors were extremely important, and after a few years as an International Education Marketing Manager, I returned to teaching in 2007. It has been a privilege to work with visionary leaders such as former Dean of Studies Michael Turley, Headmaster Greg Wain and Head of Teaching and Learning Jo Inglis, and I wish to take this opportunity to thank them for the opportunity to lead the Languages Department at TSS. With excellent resources, wonderful facilities, fabulous fellow teachers, and our truly interesting and interested cohort of students, it is a pleasure and a challenge to continuously implement a modern, exciting and innovative Languages Program in both Chinese and French. This year our team joined the Teachers as Researchers 21 initiative through ISQ, undertaking Action Research to find ways to improve our programs through the use of eLearning. All our teachers are gaining skills in Moodle

and Mahara, and collaborating to ensure that students in Year 7 develop a love of languages that will enable them to choose a language wisely in Year 8. Together we have created a program that ensures students learn to socialise and order meals in the target language while developing essential language skills. Increasing numbers of students are choosing to continue with French and Chinese through to Senior School, and as our department grows, we love to see this most measurable aspect of our success continue year on year.

LANGUAGE PERFECT

In 2014 for the first time, Senior School students joined the Language Perfect World Championships. Many boys performed outstandingly in the competition, with Cody Corbett in Year 8 French earning a Silver Award. Last year’s Gold Award winner, Taisei Fujii, earnt over 10000 points for an Elite Award. Vlad Nikitin came third in the world for Russian. I’m sure these boys will lead the charge to take us even higher on the ladder next year.

LANGUAGE STUDENTS GETTING INTO LANGUAGE PERFECT FRENCH

Students of French have had a fabulous year. A highlight was the Aladdin and his Magic Lamp Puppet Theatre presentation, with a touring puppet theatre entertaining our students in the Annand Theatre. We liked it so much we’ve booked Puss in Boots for next year.

Students in French undertook the Assessment of Language Competence Test with excellent results. High Distinctions were awarded to Charlie Martin, Hamish Mulcahy and Thibault Varnier in Year 12, Cameron Kroon in Year 11, and Brice Annonier and Cooper Van der Laan in Year 10. In Term Two, the Year 10 French Class hosted two exchange students from Bordeaux in France, Jean and Xavier.

YEAR 10 FRENCH PARTY

YEAR 11 FRENCH PARTY

Parties, excursions to Zaraffa’s and engaging classroom activities have ensured that our French program is looking very strong for 2015. Congratulations to all our Senior students graduating with excellent results, especially Charlie Martin, who achieved a perfect VHA10. During the challenging Year 12 program students have studied social issues, such as diet and health, the environment, racism, and tourism and hospitality. They celebrated with delicious gateaux.

SENIOR CHINESE

Students of Chinese have had many opportunities to learn about our globalised world, including celebrations of Chinese festivals, meals in Surfers Paradise at Good Luck Dumplings, and Taiji and Lion Dancing lessons from our Shifu Matthew Hansen from Mantis Kung.

YEAR 7 CHINESE STUDENTS MADE LANTERNS FOR CHINESE NEW YEAR

YEAR 7 TAIJI AND STICK FIGHTING

OUR LION DANCE TROUPE PERFORMED AT BOND UNIVERSITY. PICTURED ABOVE: TIM YAN, HUGH KNUDSEN, DAN BOWEN AND SAM MCGRATH, WITH TAEHEE MIN, VLAD NIKITIN, LEVI SAMPSON AND TOM EDMUNDS IN THE LION DANCE COSTUMES. OUR LION DANCE TROUPE TRAINING AT THE MANTIS KUNG FU STUDIO IN BURLEIGH HEADS

OUR LION DANCE TROUPE AT TRAINING, VISITED BY DEBBY AND UNCLE TED FROM THE GOLD COAST CHINESE CLUB

The Queensland Manager of the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, Mr Graham Barcleay, has been our Asia Literacy Ambassador this year. His fabulous suggestion to introduce us to his clients at Billabong resulted in some very interesting activities, as boys researched and created marketing materials for Billabong in China.

IN THE BOARDROOM AT BILLABONG HQ IN BURLEIGH HEADS AND HSBC IN MELBOURNE YEAR 10 LUNCH IN SURFERS PARADISE

LEARNING ABOUT CHINA AT THE CONFUCIUS INSTITUTE, GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY, WITH EMINENT PROFESSOR COLIN MACKERRAS

YEAR 9 STUDENTS HARRISON GOODMAN AND ETHAN COLE SHOW US HOW THEY HAVE CREATED AVATARS IN SIMS FOR YEAR 9 CHINESE

FLETCHER WHINTON AND JOHNNY HENWOOD ENJOYING THEIR DUMPLINGS

Thank you Mr Burat, Mr Guo and Mr Chinia for your assistance on excursions. Sometimes even the teachers got to enjoy dumplings! On our annual Chinatown Experience in Melbourne, students visited the Hong Kong Shanghai Chinatown office to meet with their extremely Asia Literate staff. We visited the Asia Education Foundation at Melbourne University, where some students showed us around the campus, and we checked out the Chinese exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. A photo treasure hunt on Instagram resulted in some very artistic efforts, with the prize a meal of dumplings before we headed back to the Gold Coast.

DUMPLINGS IN MELBOURNE

Congratulations to the graduating Senior class, with Arnold Chi and Andrew Robinson coming top with VHA9 scores, almost perfect, and setting a great example to all our excellent students!

YEAR 12 CHINESE GRADUATING CLASS