My guest blogger this week is Joanne Fenton, Languages Faculty Head at Macarthur Anglican School, where Indonesian is taught from Kindergarten through to Year 12. She writes:
“Where are you from?” “Wow, you are so good at Indonesian!” “Where are you studying?” Anyone who has visited Indonesia will know the friendliness of the Indonesian people. People love to ask questions of tourists, showing great interest in the Australian way of life and in us as individuals. As Christians, we are called to love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind and to love our neighbour as ourselves. What if we could give our students a simple but practical way to show love and care for others through teaching them conversational skills?
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“What if my students could learn from a person of another culture and language, not merely about them?”
This was the question Anna Kowalik from Broughton Anglican College considered as she prepared a language and culture unit on Barcelona for her Spanish classes. The focus of the unit was to be examples of the work of the famous architect Antonio Gaudí, popularly known as 'God's Architect'. Let's be realistic. Time for reflective planning is a luxury we don't always have. But let's not give up! Sometimes the best ideas come in a flash of inspiration. Even in those last moments as we prepare for a lesson, we can be open to seeing a new way to engage young minds. To ask: "What if...?"
What if that we could take our students, and maybe ourselves, to new and meaningful places of discovery and learning? Sometimes all that is required is a simple, yet effective, pedagogical shift. “We are already seeing growth in self-development, in terms of taking risks with expressing opinion, reflecting on learning & questioning current global issues.”
Imma Buono, Primary Languages teacher, Northern Beaches Christian School Imma has been a Languages teacher for 14 years. She brings to this role many years of experience as a Primary and Early Childhood educator and, with her personal love of creative arts, she has always enriched her language program by integrating culture and the Arts. Over a coffee at the end of last year we discussed how she was thinking through a radically different approach. As she recalls: “I truly wanted it to be more than just language acquisition. I've now embarked on a journey with the students on what it means to be a global citizen.” In a recent mini survey of 17 language teachers from 10 Anglican schools, I asked them to list 3 qualities they hoped a graduating student from their school would demonstrate. The responses, visualised in the above Word Cloud, were not surprisingly similar; the most commonly nominated qualities sitting under the broader concept of 'hospitality'.
But could there be a gap between what we aspire to develop in our students and what our current framework of mandatory outcomes and assessment criteria actually promote? Can we make a difference by being more intentional in our pedagogical approaches, while still respecting course requirements? "I'm going to teach my parrot the good stuff!”
And with that remark the little Year One student joyfully proceeded to ‘teach’ her parrot to repeat the repertoire of kind words we had decided as a class we wanted to use with each other in our language lessons. In every corner of the classroom, parrot puppets were undergoing serious instruction from their young owners and squawking back their replies. The parrots were being prepared to go home to ‘teach’ a family member how to say kind words in Italian. It was a delightfully noisy way to begin cultivating the culture of hospitality I was hoping to develop over the course of our year together. “ È la mia ancora” (She’s my anchor)
What a pleasant surprise! How many adolescent girls are in the habit of describing their mothers in such endearing terms? I remarked as much to the student whose class I was visiting for conversation practice. She laughed it off: "That’s just what our teacher taught us to say – you’ll probably hear it a few more times today.” And I did, often in the same breath as describing eye colour and length of hair. I felt rather disillusioned. I was sure their teacher had higher aspirations for this heart-warming Italian phrase but, for these students it seemed, they were just words. The Italian town of Amatrice had been devastated by an earthquake. Rescuers searching for survivors trapped in the rubble were constantly hampered by the risk of further collapse from aftershocks. The morning newspaper had dedicated a double spread to photos and stories of heartache and hope; news videos were being re-posted all over social media. It was early days: the death toll was still rising.
"Can I mention the earthquake?" I was booked for a morning tutoring students preparing for their HSC Italian conversation exam. "No, no. They haven't prepared to say anything about that. Just stick to the topics. I've got some excellent students who should do really well." |
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