LANGUAGES

Hello and welcome to Mooroolbark College if you are in Year 7, and welcome back to Languages if you were here last year! 

2022 looks like its becoming a fantastic year for improving those Chinese and German skills! While we might have lost the expertise of 45 years of teaching with the retirement of Mrs Henderson, we are very proud to have Herr van Keulen rejoin us. He is looking after two Year 8 classes, while I have the remaining German classes. Mrs Jiang and Mrs Tan are sharing the Chinese classes and we are all looking forward to getting to know our new students over the coming weeks. 

A big change for the College has been in the administration of our online learning platform, Education Perfect. It is no longer able to be charged through the book list and payment must be made directly. The charge covers all content on EP including Languages, English and Humanities. If you need help with this process, please see Mr Donald’s Compass post or speak to us directly. 

Chinese News: 

Xin Nian Hao! February 1 marks the beginning of the new Lunar Year of the Tiger. Students in our Chinese classes learnt about Chinese New Year celebrations with a range of in-class activities during the first two weeks, 1st Feb – 15th Feb. In class we learnt about many of the interesting traditional Chinese stories and customs. This included Stories of Monster Nian, the Zodiacs Race, Art and Crafts, students trying to make the traditional Red Packet, and decorating a book cover with self-designed Tigers. This is a wonderful opportunity for our students to get to know about Chinese culture.

Figure 1 – Luke Fancun’s book cover of tiger

Figure 2 – Book covers by Year 7’s.

Figure 3 – Robert Doensen and Bawi Cung with their red packets

German News: 

Our students have been actively engaged in using some practical sentences, which they get to show off on their Title pages – feel free to look over the attached samples! Students get feedback on their organisation and presentation and Merits for outstanding organisation as well as attention to detail. This work prepares students for their first CAT, the Oral task. And remember, all CATs can be found outlined on Compass 🙂 

We hope that 2022 will allow us in Languages to provide a fun learning environment and all the benefits that come from that. We look forward to seeing you either in the next class or at Parent Teacher Interviews. 

Jonas Bahlo
Languages Key Learning Head.