Languages Week
Languages Week took place during Week 4 this term. The week concluded with a ‘Festa’ celebrating Italian culture, as well as acknowledging various languages and cultures amongst the Mazenod community.
A festa is not complete without food, music, dancing and tradition! Mr Accordion Man entertained both students and staff with his traditional Italian folk songs, while Mr Graham (Head of Music) surprised us with yet another of his musical talents. Mr Graham joined Mr Accordion man with his own piano accordion playing skills and some singing! What a great duo. The sound of tapping percussion instruments by staff and students added to the atmosphere of traditional music and dance. Students eagerly lined up for their Hot Choc (aka un caffe’) with a complimentary ‘Biscotto’ served by the talented students working at the Ubean Coffee Cart. Students and staff took a trip to “Venezia”, posing for photos along the ‘Gran Canale’ (The Grand Canal). They gave the traditional Italian card game of briscola’ a go, a game involving trick- taking, memory and skill. This game is often played at family gatherings amongst Italians.
This “Festa” event finished off a week of Languages Championships using the Education Perfect platform. This is a new mode of learning and mastering a second language being explored at Mazenod this year. Students studying Italian, were also given the opportunity to explore other languages during this time, either applying second language skills they already have, or trying another language. The students were competing for the “top class” award, while Prof. Raschella was on a mission to finish in the top 5 schools in the state. Well done Mazenod on finishing 4th overall for all Languages and 2nd in Italian. It was a close finish, trailing Aquinas all the way! Fantastico! The competition revealed talents amongst the students in Italian, Russian, Latin, German, Spanish, French, Indonesian and Samoan!
Sebastian M (Year 12) conducted staff interviews as part of a project underway to capture the journey of language learning amongst staff. Some hidden talents have emerged amongst staff with many sharing their inspirational journey of becoming second language speakers. Look out for the podcast episodes to be revealed soon!
During the “Festa’ students enjoyed a choice of ice-cream flavours from the “Il Gelato” company, some locally made Cannoli, Chinotto tasting, a LEGO raffle to win “The Globe”, a collector’s piece which the winner will be proud to display! Congratulations Arya (Year 8).
Students used their maths skills to calculate how many pizza lollies filled the pizza box, with the winner taking home the entire box for guessing the correct number! Well done to Brody W (Year 7).
Many students demonstrated their expertise in recognising flags of the world with Samuel K (Year10) winning the prize after his name was drawn with all correct answers. Auguri! With so many language skills emerging amongst the students, the winner of the ‘Greetings in various Language’s quiz was Binath S (Year 8) Well done!
A big thank you to the staff and students who supported this event. It is much appreciated to have so many staff and students jump in to help at various stages of the planning, set up, running of the event and clean up! Thank you to all who helped, visited and participated.
The enthusiasm amongst all who participated was inspiring!
A heartfelt thankyou to all!! Grazie mille!
Prof. Raschella, Prof. Cream and the English Department