Specialists
Japanese
Konnichiwa! I hope our HEPS community is settling into the colder weather and staying warm and dry. To brighten these chilly days, I'd love to share some of the amazing work our Level 6 students have been creating in Japanese.
Students learned about the Japanese tradition of ema (絵馬), wooden plaques found at Shinto shrines. The characters 絵( (e) and 馬 (ma) mean "picture" and "horse", reflecting the tradition's origins. Historically, horses were considered sacred messengers of the kami, and wealthy worshippers would donate horses to shrines as offerings. As this was too expensive for most people, pictures of horses were offered instead, eventually developing into the wooden ema plaques seen today. Visitors now write wishes, hopes, goals, or messages of gratitude on the back of the plaque before hanging it at a shrine One example (pictured below) is from a shrine in Karuizawa that I visited a few weeks ago. As 2026 is the Year of the Horse, the ema I purchased and wrote my wish on featured a horse design.
After learning about the cultural significance of ema, students practised writing three different types of wishes in Japanese:
- I want to go somewhere (Place に行きたいです)
- I want something (Something がほしいです)
I want to become a... (Profession になりたいです)
Students then selected their favourite wish, designed their own unique ema on a wooden plaque, and carefully wrote their wish on the reverse side. It was wonderful to see the creativity and thoughtfulness that went into each student's design while connecting language learning with an authentic Japanese cultural tradition. Check out these amazing examples below!
INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC LESSONS @ HEPS
If your child is interested in learning an instrument through private lessons at HEPS, please submit an expression of interest through this website: https://sites.google.com/education.vic.gov.au/hepsinstrumentaleoi/home
To submit your EOI please click on the picture of the instrument that your child is interested in learning, this will lead you to an email address of the teacher for that instrument.
