Japanese

Welcome to Week 9 Japanese! (Yokoso!)

Students have continued to learn well in our Japanese class. We have been maintaining a positive and happy atmosphere throughout Term 1!

In the past few weeks, Senior students have been learning about “Days of the week, dates and months” and “Numbers up to 10,000” to learn to read Japanese money.

Junior students have been learning about “Days of the week”, “Colours”, “Fruits” and "Self-introduction". 

Listening and speaking

Students practice listening and speaking in many ways. For example, we have been singing some Japanese songs, repeating sentences and having question and answer time in Japanese.

How to say their birthday in Japanese

Reading 

Students practice reading Hiragana (Japanese alphabet) in various ways -using songs, flash cards, looking at handwriting on the board and on the screen.

Writing

After students focus on some topics during the lesson, they practice writing various words and sentences to reinforce their vocabulary. 

Junior students wrote days of the week, the names of some fruits and related sentences.

Culture

All students learnt about Hinamatsuri (Girls’ Festival Day) and Senior students have been learning about Japanese money. We made an Origami bear, shy fox and the most traditional Origami, YAKKOSAN (Person in Kimono).

Foundation

Foundation students are already greeting well in Japanese at the beginning of our Japanese classes! We have been singing “Ohayo song” (greetings), “Kobuta song” (animals) and “Hiragana song” (Japanese alphabet) every week. Students have been practicing how to indicate likes and dislikes using animals. We have learnt the names of some animals such as little pig, monkey, horse and snake in Japanese.

ELLA Program in Foundation to Year 2 class

ELLA (Early Learning Languages Australia) is a valuable program to learn Japanese language and culture using interactive games on the student’s iPads. Year 1/ 2 students have commenced using this popular program again this year, by practicing colours and body parts. Foundation students have been introduced to this program and have been practicing how to introduce themselves, indicating likes and dislikes and some greetings.

Thank you (arigato).

Ayako Mizushima (Mizu Sensei)