Japanese Immersion Excursions

It's been a busy term for the immersion Japanese classes!

To commemorate the end of their three-year immersion journey, 9E visited Melbourne Aquarium to see everything from jellyfish to penguins, sharks to frogs, followed by a treasure hunt at Daiso and lunch in Melbourne Central. Congratulations to all of 9E on graduating from the Japanese immersion program - your passion for Japanese has been a pleasure to see grow over the years! It's pleasing to see so many students continue onto year 10 and year 11 Japanese next year.

8E enjoyed their own excursion to Melbourne Museum to supplement their studies of rocks. We explored a variety of interactive exhibitions showcasing the natural world around us and Earth's geological history. We ended the day making our own 'rockumentaries' to explain various concepts within the rock cycle - with lots of Japanese of course! Thank you to all students for your enthusiasm and excellent conduct throughout the day!

Thank you to Muramatsu sensei and Kurashige sensei for organising these fantastic excursions!

Karen Muramatsu

Japanese and Science Teacher

Ambassadeurs/Ambassadrices en Herbe

We are very pleased to announce that our school is participating in the Ambassadeurs/Ambassadrices en herbe public speaking competition.

This international event brings together students from French schools across the Asia-Pacific region for a week of debates, cultural exchanges, and linguistic challenges — all in French!

The 2026 theme is: “AI: a revolution for the benefit of humankind?” Students will explore this topic by examining both the opportunities and challenges of artificial intelligence, while further developing their reasoning, critical thinking, and persuasive speaking skills.

The competition is open to students currently or previously enrolled in the French First Language (CNED) program, as well as students in the 2025 Year 8C French Immersion class.

Glen Eira College in collaboration with Caulfield Junior College are sending two teams to the competition taking place in March in Canberra. On Friday 12th December, Glen Eira College hosted the school final, in which students from both GEC and CJC competed for a place in the team going to Canberra. The students had to prepare a speech on the topic of Artificial Intelligence based on texts they read, thus demonstrating their critical and oral skills in front of a jury. The first team selected is made of students in the CNED/first language program, the second team consists of Immersion/second language learners. We would like to thank all participants from both schools and the members of the two juries (Mr Bouchet-Hibbert, Mrs Lepetit-Tremolière, Ms Deslauriers and Mr Bussu).

The students selected for the first language team were:

Amir Egre

Titouan Vaillant

Isabelle Saturnin

The students selected for the French second language team were:

Kaela Burch

Kiara Makhijani

Violet Petrie

Good luck to all involved in preparing for the Asia Pacific zone final, which will be held in March in Canberra!

French Immersion Excursions

A very busy end of year for our French Immersion classes!

Year 7C Excursion to the city

Our 7C students visited the Immigration Museum and the First Peoples exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. They learned about the diversity of Australian society, the many cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and reflected on what it means to be Australian today. These visits complemented their current classwork on cultural diversity in Australia.

Year 9C Excursion — Friday, 28 November

Students from 9C were joined by students from the French First Language (CNED) and Hebrew classes for an excursion to the Holocaust Museum. They took part in an object-enquiry workshop, examining replicas from the museum collection and discussing the values and themes they represent. They then received a guided tour of the permanent exhibition and watched a video testimony by Abram Goldberg, a Holocaust survivor who passed away very recently. Students were deeply moved by his story of survival, resistance, and hope.

To celebrate the end of their language program, the students enjoyed a shared lunch at Roule Galette, a French restaurant in Carnegie. They were delighted to celebrate their achievements together and to enjoy some delicious crêpes!

La Gloire de Mon Père (French Theatre incursion)

On Thursday 4 December, students enrolled in the French First Language programs along with students from Auburn High School, Caulfield Junior College and Albert Park College witnessed a superb rendition of the enduring Marcel Pagnol classic autobiographical novel ‘La Gloire de Mon Père’. The novel was adapted as a one-man play and performed by Antoine Seguin. This special event was organised by the Association of French Teachers of Victoria for students in francophone settings and was received very positively by our students.

Languages Assembly

To finish up the year, we celebrated the achievements of our students in languages in a special assembly. Congratulations to all the award recipients with a special recognition to the year 9 French and Japanese Immersion students as well as the French First Language students who completed their language program. They have worked very hard over the past 3 years and should be very proud of their achievement. Special mentions to the students who performed a song: 7C, 8C and 8E, our special guest Anatole Dutrieux (class of 2021) and Zach Servadei (2025 school captain) as well as Karen Maramatsu and Daniel Bouchet-Hibbert who truly deserve an oscar for entertaining the crowd! Well done everyone! Bravo à tous ! おめでとう!

Celine Fompudie

Languages Learning Area Leader

Year 11 Japanese

Hello and Konnichiwa, GEC community.

Did you know that there is a special festival (o-matsuri) in Japan almost every month?

Recently I had the pleasure of attending Year 11 Japanese oral SAC presentations. The topic for the oral was Japanese festivals and special events, and each student was given a different festival to research and present on. The research and script drafting process took several lessons of conscientious planning and work from students. It culminated in each student giving a 3–4-minute speech about their festival, as if they had experienced it themselves with a host family in Japan.

As someone who has lived in Japan for ten years and been to many festivals there, I was extremely moved by each student's research and creative speech in Japanese. In an hour, I was transported back under the cherry blossom trees (o-hanami); to throwing beans at an ogre (setsubun) dancing in a Summer kimono with my host family (bon-odori). Their teachers and classmates also cheered them on and were genuinely interested to hear one another's speeches. I hope that someday they can experience these festivals in person, and also visit my beloved second hometown, KASHIMA in Ibaraki prefecture.

Helen Ikeda

Learning Support Officer

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