Languages - French & Japanese

French Department News

Our students learning French this year have been working hard to improve their language skills despite the challenges of the year.

Junior French classes have enjoyed eating croissants and madeleines, making crêpes and joining with Shirley Boys’ classes to practise their French speaking skills.

The Senior French classes have been taught in collaboration with Shirley Boys’ High School this year. The Year 12 and 13 class enjoyed a week of French style lunches thanks to Madame Lallement. The Year 11 class have improved their speaking skills with lots of interaction and language games.

Our senior students took part in the French day at the University of Canterbury where they interacted with students from other Christchurch schools and learnt about French speaking counties. They took part in a treasure hunt, ate brioche and had fun doing the collaborative dance at the end of the day.

We are excited that we have established a link with a school in Angers, France with a view to an exchange in the very near future.

Japanese Department News

The year began with exciting news about a recent past student.

Danielle Turner (Year 13 in 2021) is studying Japanese at University of Canterbury this year. She has been awarded the Louisa Roper Scholarship. She will receive $5000 a year for each of the 3 years of study towards her BA in Japanese. ($15000 in total). Congratulations Danielle!

Unfortunately the Covid epidemic continued to interrupt our usual out of the classroom activities this year. Despite this we persevered wearing masks inside and learning from home as interruptions to our in-school teaching and learning programme continued.

Language highlights of 2022 include:

Food and Culture

Food is always a popular theme! Unfortunately, the Covid settings prevented our usual trip out to a Japanese restaurant for the senior classes. We look forward to this continuing in 2023!

The Year 9 students enjoyed making role plays set in a café/restaurant and were able to try eating a variety of Japanese sweet breads and buns.

As we go to print the Year 10 classes are planning to learn about food culture and enjoy some Japanese food later this term.

NCEA Immersion Day at the University of Canterbury.

On June 9 students from senior Japanese classes went to the University of Canterbury for a Japanese Language Immersion Day.

This day was organised by the Japanese teachers of Christchurch and the University staff. The aim was to provide workshops focussed on NCEA objectives while giving our students an opportunity to meet each other and learn together. Everyone was divided into groups and took part in three language workshops which were facilitated by Christchurch Japanese teachers.

The keynote speaker was Ms Krystal Boland who is a recent graduate of Japanese from Canterbury University. She gave an interesting and entertaining talk about her journey studying Japanese so far.

The Japanese drum group, ‘Takumi’, (including our very own Sarasa Suzuki) entertained us with a captivating performance and the day culminated with the 350 students joining together to enjoy singing and dancing as a whole group to the popular song ‘Smile Together’ by Little Glee Monster.

While our Avonside dance project didn't manage to win the coveted 'cup', I’d like to give a big shout out to the Year 10 and 9 students led by Tamara Percival (Year 13) who created an awesome submission for us.

It was an educational and fun day and we are looking forward to going again next year!　

らいねん

また来年

Exchange Students

It has been wonderful to have Japanese exchange students return to Avonside in Term 3. After these recent years of covid interrupting travel and exchange opportunities it was uplifting to see this tradition begin again. The Japanese students have been a welcome addition to our classes and have offered us a rich insight into their lives and cultures. We look forward to this developing further next year!

As we go to print, we have learnt that Trinity Akurangi (Year 10) has gained an exchange opportunity. At the end of 2023 she will go to Japan for 2 months, attend school there and stay with a Japanese family. This is a fabulous opportunity and we wish her all the best.

New Zealand Association of Languages Teachers’ Excellence Awards

New Zealand Association of Languages Teachers’ Excellence awards were awarded to the following students for gaining14 NCEA excellence credits including 3 credits from external assessments in 2021:

Level 1 French: Ashlin Banks, Chloe Gittens, Tia Lawson, Kiera Webley

Level 2 French: Stella Cook, Neeve Edwards-Brown, Jenny Kim, Andie Scheiwe

Level 1 Japanese: Mai Kosaka, Nicole Kim, Kiera Webley