Ritsumeikan Welcome 

It was very exciting to welcome 10 students from Ritsumeikan High School into our JMSS community midway through Term 1. Arriving early Sunday morning at Tullamarine Airport and then catching the bus the JMSS, they were greeted  and whisked off to settle in for lunch with their JMSS buddies and host families.  It was lovely to see how excited our students were to finally meet in person after several weeks of texting and facetime online. 

The exchange lasted for 10 days all up with all the students taking part in several different activities. Our JMSS took their partners to several classes here at JMSS as well as accompanying them on outside activities at Monash University, Melbourne University, Monash Tech School, Healesville and the State Library. Learning about other people and cultures and ways of doing things together especially when there is a language difference was a challenge that all the students worked their way through.

For the JMSS students studying Japanese, it was a perfect chance to chit chat and practise their language skills at home and at school, which is the perfect way to use Japanese in a non-formal setting.

Saying goodbyes on the final day was a sad affair and all the students were reluctant to let their Japanese friends get on the bus and head off home to the airport.  Yet many of the JMSS will be looking forward to seeing their friends on the return part of the exchange in Japan.

There was a formal element to this exchange, with both our school signing a memorandum of understanding to facilitate study and research. The principals Mr Corkill and Mr Higashitani were very keen to get this started and hope that our two schools, students and staff look forward to collaborating in the future.

Chuo University Senior High School activity

At the end of term, all of the Japanese students across Years 10, 11 and 12 took part in a bilingual session that focussed three main activities with senior high school students from Chuo University High School students from Tokyo. Under the auspices of Monash University, activities were planned by teaching staff from JMSS and Chuo HS in the lead up to the event.   

The main theme of the afternoon was the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.  The first part had all the students working through a vocabulary game around rubbish and pollution.  Both groups had to use all their language skills, flipping between Japanese and English, to succeed.  It was a nice warm up game and broke the ice.  Well done to all our students who really took the lead and worked hard at expressing themselves in Japanese. 

 The second activity was based around sharing more personal, daily, family information before heading into more challenging aspects of individual responsibility in terms of waste management and possible solutions.

The final activity was a feedback session where each small group was challenged to respond in Japanese to the questions practised before.  Overcoming their fears of speaking in publically in front of 80 students was done so well. Congratulations to all. Feedback from the Chuo Uni HS students was so positive;  they were amazed that the JMSS could speak so well and our students' ability inspired many of them to work harder in their own studies.

Many thanks to Mrs Yuri Graham for preparing the activities and leading the session, and to Mrs Kaori Terajima for all her in developing our students' speaking skills. And finally to Monash University for hosting the event.

~  Mr Cussen