English Language Centre

Excursion to Healsville Sancturary

On November 22, our classmates made a trip to Wildlife Healesville Sanctuary together. This zoo is different from other zoos. It is a sanctuary that we all wandered through a stunning bush and it was a special experience. We met the teacher in our HG at 8:45 to travel to Healesville Sanctuary by a hired bus.

At the Sanctuary, we participated in various expert zookeeper talks to learn about the animals in their care and the conservation work for various species. We visited kangaroos, koalas, wombats and other native Australian animals. We were impressed by the Spirits of the Sky show. Fierce Falcons, colourful parrots flew around and showed us funny moves.

In the animal hospital, we watched a vet operating on a yellow honeyeater’s tinny broken leg. The job in the Wildlife Health Centre is protect animals and train the animals how to survive in the wild. The deepest memory is that we went to the Wildlife Health Centre, we could see many different ways to protect baby animals and injured animals. And we heard the stories of the wildlife patients. The staff go on to a journey from rescuing, treating for a recovery to releasing animals to the wild. It was so amazing to learn how much work the staff at the Health Centre have attended to. Unfortunately, we was not able to see any platypuses we were so looking forward to seeing. This Sanctuary let us learn more about Australian native animals, which was important for us to understand what we can do to protect animals.

 After visiting the Wildlife at Healesville, Ms Song all of sudden told us, “we will go back to school now” but it was a joke. Ms Song took us to the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie, which was a pleasant surprise. We breathed a very fresh air and very beautiful scenery when we got off the bus. When we entered the Chocolaterie, we could smell the sweet chocolate scent. We saw many types of chocolate and how chocolate was made. We purchased chocolate to present to our family and friends in our home country.

It was a very exciting excursion to experience Australian wildlife and have a wonderful time with classmates for another memory adding to our life.

Chuxuan (Charles) YU 于楚轩 & Boyi (Katrina) YAO 姚搏怡

Bike Ride

On 3rd of December, our whole class went to a bike ride together. Although the sun was hiding behind the clouds, its heat was still glaring at us. The day was amazing but also painful. Firstly, Ms. Hillebrand and the other staff member, Emily, led us to practice some riding skills at school before we started our fantastic tour.

It was our first time to ride a bike on the road in Australia. It was so exciting. We followed Emily across the road one by one and lined up after her. It was easy and relaxing at first. We were laughing, making a joke and singing. Everyone looked happy like a beautiful sunflower.

 On the side of the road, the teacher told us that if we wanted to turn, we needed to lift our hands to the direction of the turn, and then back to check behind to make sure there was no cars. First of all, we set out from the school passing Knox City and followed Emily toward the end. Until then everything went so smoothly but unexpected things happened. When the trip reached out to a half way, the road became bumpy and had many small rocks.

Suddenly we heard the sound of something falling on to the ground. We stopped and found Shirley fell. She got a really serious injury. Ms. Hillebrand took out the first aid kit to treat the wounds. Everyone was encouraging her. Shirley was so strong that she did not even shed one drop of tears.

Around 12 o'clock, everyone arrived at Jells Park. We had our lunch there and played some games together. Shirley was using tissues and cold water to look after her wound. Even her wound was really serious and bloody, she still looked happy and made a joke with us. Later, Mr. Wang and Ms. Zhang came and picked her up to take her to a hospital.

Finally, we rode on the same way back. To be honest, we felt that the return trip made us very painful and tired. When we sat on the bike seat, we felt very painful. The seat was really hard. On the way back, physical strength became a big problem. Although we felt that we recovered at noon, we still felt very tired when we were riding in the afternoon. We felt like our feet were tied with sandbags. It was very obvious when we rode uphill. However, we still persisted. The mutual encouragements of students were the reason for our resilience.

In the end, under the leadership of the teacher, toward the direction of the school to return to the original road, we were very tired, but everyone was pleased to complete our bike ride journey all together. We all hoped Shirley could get better soon.

Lingwen (Tracy) Cui, Yuji (Vaken) Cao & Dingwen (Emily) Cao

Reflection on our time at the ELC

Surely each of us will have their own unforgettable moments of life. For me, the day of breaking up with old school to enter the new school - a new door of life is truly an unforgettable moment. I came to another country away from friends, familiar environment and family, tried to live independently. Now I am looking back my experience in Australia. I do not believe I came to Australia six months ago. It has been so quick. I never forgot the first time I came to Wantirna College. My heart felt anxious because I was a total stranger to this country. But it was so fascinating that I could not imagine a country, valuing equality and peacefulness.

 From the scene of the school and the people: new school, new friends, new teachers, new ways of learning and the whole new environment, but all kept me excited. I thought that I would adapt soon and get acquainted gradually because three years here would almost decide my life. This might be a really difficult journey.

Day by day I have studied in this school not in my mother tongue, but in English, I felt my English has improved a lot. That was two months since I came to Australia and I realized that I was improving my English everyday. I could communicate with other people that were living in a different country not just Australia like my friends and teachers in my old ELC school. For me, this had profound meaning because I realized I could do anything when I tried my best and did not give up. However, there were some difficult things among my classmates. The different languages and culture was very hard for me to understand them. But now when my friend and I studied together, they became my brother and sister. If one person in this class has a problem, we are all always ready to help them.

Now it has been six months and I think that it has been very successful time in my life. I am a grateful child because I have more people to support me. I am grateful to my teachers. They teach me lots of knowledge that I have never known before, teach me how to become a good person. Teachers make me feel this place is like home. For example, Ms Song takes care of us very carefully and it even makes me feel mother’s love just like she is my second mother.

Here I can meet lovely classmates, they always help me when I have a problem, give me lots of advice for me to become better and better. I think the memories of ELC class which everything my teacher and my friend do for me are very important and I want to keep them in my heart. But next year we cannot study together, which makes me feel sad but we are friends forever. I love this class because my class makes me feel safe and comfortable. Thank you to the whole ELC classmates and teachers who have done for me and sorry if I make you sad. Love you my ELC class

Sicong (Tom) LIN & Hoang Gia Han (Hannah) NGUYEN

Reflection on our time at the ELC class

Time flies as a rocket into the sky. We just have 2 weeks left studying at ELC and we are happy. This valuable experience has changed and improved our abilities. We have been grieved as well. Looking back, we realised those first times we had had became the past already.

Each of us has our own experience at the ELC class. However, we always support each other to overcome all the difficulties.  Vimmer, the tallest boy in our class, still remembered the first day he came to the ELC class. He was so confident at that time because his parents commented that Australian education would be much easier than Chinese education. But he did not know there was a big challenge waiting for him. Vimmer did not comprehend he was working so hard but why he could not get a great mark. But from studying, he knew how to be persistent. Changing was not only from study but we changed our thinking. Our ELC class was a big family. We were able to help each other, studied together and were happy with each other. We will miss everything, everyone, every place and moment we studied at the ELC. We met at a cold season and will separate at a warm season. It was like our relationship turning out, from strangers to best friends.

Carol joined in our ELC class in term 4 but she quickly has got accustomed to the new environment and her efforts made everybody love her. These two months of life have affected her a lot. With the help and encouragement from all the teachers, she began to dare to communicate with others and has become confident in learning English. With the help from the classmates she can have a better understanding of the class learning content, and she always tries her best to do her homework accurately, especially her desk mate, Vimmer. His patience on teaching and encouraging Carol helped her a lot. From Vimmer, she has learnt a lot of things that can help her improve herself such as persistence, hard work, earnestness, active communications with teachers, looking for suitable learning methods, having a heart to win and having a kind heart.

6 months ago, Lisa felt that she was really strange to be in this country. At that time, Lisa was very optimistic, she believed that she could soon get used to this environment. Day by day, her English was improving and she was able to communicate with everyone. Now, it has passed 6 months and she thought it could be the hardest time in her life when she left her parents, came over to a foreign country that she had never been to, tried to blend in a completely different environment, faced with the language problem. Lisa feels grateful to her teachers, the people guided her carefully and always willing to help her when she has problems. She feels happy because she has met her classmates, who have the same situations with her. They always gave her advice from what they knew and experienced during these memorable 6 months with her.

From city excursions to Athletics Carnival, from making muffins to Chemistry experiment, from Healesville Sanctuary to bike riding, we have learnt a great deal of knowledge from different class. We all have had unforgettable memories at ELC class. We are sad because we cannot be in a same class next year, but we know that everybody needs to grow and change to a new environment is necessary. No matter how far we can go, the ELC class has brought us the feeling of home that has helped us a lot in our first 6 months in Australia, and we can never forget it.

Haoyang (Vimmer) LIU, Jingyu (Carol) LIU and Nguyen Phuong Linh (Lisa) DO