LANGUAGES

As we near the mid-point of Term 1 we already have so much to celebrate in our proud little faculty: a successful start to the year; the welcoming of our Year 7s; the College Barbeque as well as the Clubs sign-up.  

We kicked the year off getting our language learners to participate in a few fun activities to get them thinking and speaking in German and Chinese. Every class begins with a short, engaging task that gets them focused on what has been learnt or will be the focus of the day. There are competitive word searches, Q&A style questions, Bingo games, Online vocabulary races and more. It’s all go,go,go in Languages. Having our ‘Smiley Charts’ in class really keeps everyone motivated, as we strive to be our best or fastest or most accurate, whatever the Engage task may be. Five Smileys equal a prize or even a Merit Certificate, you know! And that matters!!

On the 8th of February Mooroolbark College hosted the Year 7 BBQ. Languages had a stall set up for students to sign up for the Languages Club. It runs on Friday lunchtimes where students visit C1 and compete for EP points for Merits and prizes. All are welcome, even if you did not sign up on the day. Come and drop in when you hear the announcement over the PA. The BBQ was a lot of fun – check out the photos from the evening as well as those celebrating Year of the Dragon – Xin Nian Hao! (Happy Chinese New Year!) For this Year 7 Chinese students studied the stories of Chinese New Year and they learnt to make their own Hong Bao (Red Packet), which commonly used during the Chinese New Year as a symbol of good luck and prosperity. Cool fun! 

One official change to the College has been the introduction of Coursework as part of the Assessment policy. Basically, this means that apart from two graded CATs, students also have to complete five pieces of Coursework. These are just marked S or N. They need to be completed to an S standard to pass the course. Please contact us if you have any questions, but all the information you should need can be found in the Learning Task section of Compass. 

Until next time, all the best, stay safe and we look forward to seeing you at Open Night on Monday, the 25th of March – we’ll be there again where you can experience some of those Engage activities as well as the sugary, buttery unhealthiness of hot WAFFLES! 

Jonas Bahlo

LANGUAGES KEY LEARNING HEAD