LANGUAGES

UNESCO INTERNATIONAL MOTHER LANGUAGE DAY - 21 FEBRUARY

This day celebrates the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity for peaceful and sustainable societies. It is within its mandate for peace that it works to preserve the differences in cultures and languages that foster tolerance and respect for others.

Every two weeks a language disappears taking with it an entire cultural and intellectual heritage.

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL

Support your French learners and enjoy a film with your family at the French Film Festival 2019.

https://www.affrenchfilmfestival.org/

Watching movies is an enjoyable way to learn the language. It connects students also with issues of French speaking societies and teaches them about cultural differences.

The festival is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and will run from Wednesday 6 March – Wednesday 10 April. Our Year 9 and 10 French classes are going to profit from the occasion and see a film.

The Year 9s are off to see ‘Dilili in Paris’. The synopsis reads:

As a series of kidnappings casts a dark shadow across Paris, Dilili takes it upon herself to get to the bottom of the disappearances. The pint-sized detective follows a trail of clues, with local delivery boy, Orel, acting as the Watson to her Holmes. Orel knows every major figure from the artistic heyday of the Belle Époque – Marie Curie, Picasso, Renoir, Louis Pasteur, Gustave Eiffel and Colette, just to name a few. They all play a part in Dilili’s investigation, as do the many glorious landmarks of Paris that are still present today.

The Year 10s will watch ‘In your hands/Au bout des doigts’:

Mathieu (Jules Benchetrit) lives with his mother and siblings in a housing project where peer group pressures have led him into petty theft. When the director of a prestigious music conservatory, Pierre (Lambert Wilson, opening night film of AF FFF2017, The Odyssey; and Raising Colours in this year’s Festival), hears Mathieu playing piano at a railway station (#pianoengare), he is blown away. Pierre decides to use his influence to secure private lessons for Mathieu at the conservatory with the imposing Countess (Kristin Scott Thomas), although with a secret agenda: to enter Mathieu in an international competition.   

“You play because you can’t not play,” says Pierre of his prodigy but social pressures, and the both exciting and daunting prospect of performing piano professionally, causes Mathieu to question himself. Will he play at the international competition or not? Not even Mathieu knows the answer.

GERMAN EXCHANGE DEPARTURE MEETING

The compulsory ´German Exchange´ pre-departure meeting will be held on Wednesday 6 March 2019 at 7.00pm in the Lecture Theatre, for all students and parents.

If you are interested in reading more about languages in Australia today, please go to

https://this.deakin.edu.au/self-improvement/why-learn-a-language-in-australia-today

VET IN APPLIED LANGUAGE IN YEAR 10

An information session for parents will be held on Monday 4 March starting at 6:15pm, before the Year 10 Information Night at 7pm.

WELCOME

Welcome to Felix Scharl and Emil Pullen, two German exchange students, who will be with us until the end of April. We wish them an enjoyable experience at McKinnon.

Andrea Fowler

Head of Languages