Creative Arts & Languages

Some highlights of this end of Term for Year 8 in French.

Yarning Circles 

Maddie introduced us with the technique of ‘yarning circle’. This gave us the opportunity to hear more about Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders /Gamilaraaye culture, and experience the sharing and respect of everyone’s thoughts and perspectives on ‘country’, ‘culture’, ‘language’. After the Yarning circle, students did rock painting to reflect on what had been said.

Correspondence

Some Year 8 students have been corresponding with students from a school in Besançon, which is located in the East of France. They started by writing letters that were emailed to them to allow faster communication and responses. They have also made videos to present the school. The French students posted an envelope full of homemade Christmas cards and postcards that we received last week. This was an exciting moment for the McCarthy students. And it will be interesting to see the French students and their school in the videos, hopefully next week!

Languages Club

Three weeks ago was the start of the ‘Languages Club’ which welcomed students from Year 7, 8, 9 and 12. Everyone wanted to learn or know more French and review what they had learnt in past years. They were also keen to get to know each other as it is lovely for them to meet new people with the same interest. We meet weekly and everyone learns something new each week. The idea is also to welcome anyone interested in learning a new language to create connections, and invite students who come from a different culture and are already bilingual to share their knowledge and experience. In our global world, it is so important to be able to speak more than one language and be exposed to / have an insight into different cultures. This prepares us to develop an open mind and, instead of judging what is different as ‘weird’, embrace diversity with respect, curiosity and empathy.

Mrs Oriane Monet - Teacher, Languages