LANGUAGES

UPCOMING GERMAN CULTURAL EVENT IN MELBOURNE

IOpera will present a visually enhanced concert performance of Austrian composer Ernst Krenek’s 1926 opera 'Jonny spielt auf!' (Jonny strikes up!) on Friday 4 October 8pm at the Athenaeum Theatre in the city (https://iopera.com.au/news/). It is an opera featuring jazz and even dance music, and has never been performed in Australia before.

Tickets are $70 full price, but by typing “Alma” into the password box on this page,”friends of the AGTV” will get the special price of $40: https://premier.ticketek.com.au/shows/show.aspx?sh=JONNYS19

VCE HOLIDAY COURSES

Alliance Francaise and the Goethe Institut Melbourne offer immersion days for VCE students during the Term holidays. Please visit the websites to book!

2020 TOUR TO SPAIN - INFORMATION EVENING

The Languages Faculty is pleased to announce that our proposal for a tour to Spain in 2020 was approved by School Council. We would like to invite all parents of students who enrolled for a Spanish course in 2020 and all Spanish background speakers who are interested, to an Information evening on Thursday 16 October at 7:00 pm, in the MERC. This is a great opportunity for students to be immersed in Spanish language and culture.

SBS LANGUAGES COMPETITION 2019

SBS is currently inviting to submit to the Languages Competition 2019! Everyone can participate! For further information visit

https://www.sbs.com.au/radio/national-languages-competition-2019  

Andrea Fowler

Head of Languages

2ND IN THE LANGUAGE PERFECT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS!

While we were unable to defend our language perfect world championship, second in the world is a huge effort from our students! Well done to all the students and staff that participated.

There were some changes to the format: the competition lasted only seven days rather than ten and featured late in Term 3, rather than in Term 2. What has not changed is the enthusiasm that our students have for learning languages. 

Our students learned 20 different languages finishing 1st overall in German and Russian; 3rd overall in Latin and Greek; and 4th overall in Chinese and French.

We will celebrate individual achievements at year level and general assemblies next term, but a few special mentions are worth noting. Our new school champion is Luka Magee (Year 8), whose 35,402 points earnt him 7th place in the world. Our best ever result for a student since we joined the competition six years ago. He was motivated by Kevin Zhou (Year 8), who placed 14th in the world. In fact we had six students finish in the Top 100 in the world.

McKinnon believes in providing every student with an opportunity to learn languages and we are really proud of the efforts of our students during the competition. But no doubt we will come back bigger and stronger next year. We will take back our crown.

A huge thank you to the school’s leadership, teaching staff and in particular the languages staff for supporting this annual event. 

Joshua Kamener

German Teacher

YEAR 9 NEW CALEDONIA LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL TOUR - THEY HAVE ARRIVED!

This year's group of 35 delightful students have arrived in Noumea and enjoying their first few days. Arriving at their hotel late on Saturday 14 September, Sunday was the first opportunity to explore Noumea. On Sunday night, they met their homestay families and begun living life as a New Caledonian.

News from the group is that everything has begun very positively. The students are thoroughly enjoying the experience, are learning lots and are behaving in an excellent manner as international ambassadors of our school. 

We can't wait to hear more about the tour.

Kellie Dickson

French Teacher