Languages at McCarthy

Hello - Bonjour - Buongiorno - Yaama

English, French, Italian are the languages taught at McCarthy. Gamilaraay is used and discussed in Yarn up once a fortnight with Years 7 to 10. There are many more languages spoken by the community. We will acknowledge and celebrate our school and community linguistic and cultural diversity later this year. During Harmony week (week 4 of Term 1), students were asked to respond to a Survey created to find out how many nationalities and languages were represented in our school. Over 12% of the 524 students who took the Survey speak or had a language other than English as their native language. However, for most students, their Stage 4 Language Course is the first time they are exposed to a new language, and get to experience what it is like to learn a new language, encounter a different culture, and discover a different way of thinking and speaking. 

Highlights from this term:

French breakfast - a cultural experience

The French breakfast in weeks 4 & 5 was an agreeable social event where Year 7 and 8 French students from different classes came together to chat and enjoy a taste of a typical French breakfast: croissants and ‘petits pains au chocolat’ straight out of the oven, baguette with butter and jam, and a glass of orange juice. 

Merci to the group of volunteers who came to school early on the day to help set up the room and prepare the tables and platters! And bravo to all the students who made the most of the experience to practice their French in this ‘restaurant’ setting! 

It was a pleasure to have conversations with them in French and see the students appreciate and embrace a different culture. Looking forward to welcoming the last two Year 8 classes in week 9 for their petit déjeuner Français!

Word Wall & Story Wall

A small group of Year 7 and 8 students have gathered on Fridays at lunchtime to create a “French Flag word wall” with words they have learnt - on the blue: pronouns and verbs; on the white: cognates (or transparent words, words that look alike in French and in English); and on the red: adjectives.

The students also created a story wall for the classroom featuring characters from the story told in class. Bravo et merci to the enthusiastic linguists artists - Anita, Charlie, Emma, Elizabeth, Georgia, Lam, Celia and Caitlin - for their wonderful drawings!

Oriane Monet - Language Teacher