Armidale Secondary College hope to continue a long standing partnership of approximately 30 years with schools from Nanto City, Japan. The flights for the Japanese visitors had been delayed due to a typhoon. But they have arrived and are enjoying their visit.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The schools exchange visits and regularly communicate with each other. The Japanese students spent yesterday afternoon, meeting and dancing with the Ezidis students. The students separately showed each other their different forms of celebration. The students and staff then enjoyed a slow dance in a circle together, laughter brought the groups together. Everyone benefited from the cultural exchanges of information as students presented short speeches about their different cultures.
This school exchange while delayed has been continuous for years between Inami Town, Nanto City Toyama Prefecture Japan and Armidale High School. Students from Nanto City visit us every year and we have a reciprocal visit every 2 years, with our most recent trip last September. This year there are 11 students and 4 supervisors visiting us.
The Armidale students who are hosting the Japanese students are excited to have the visitors stay with them and they look forward to visiting Japan next year. The Japanese students are experiencing Australian school life, practicing their English and communicating with Australian students," Deborah Moore the Japanese Teacher, Asia Bridge Coordinator, from Armidale Secondary College said.
"This program is extremely valuable to all our students at Armidale Secondary College. The chance to be able to communicate with teenagers from another country broadens their understanding of other cultures and gives them an opportunity to use the Japanese language in an authentic way.
"This is particularly important for rural students who have limited opportunities to interact with the Japanese culture. We currently have around 170 students studying Japanese in our school so it adds depth to our languages program," Ms Moore said.
Armidale Secondary College hopes to continue to communicate during English lessons in Japan using digital platforms to bring more of our students even closer together.
"This will also give us chances to speak Japanese more and more.
"This year one of the teachers is coming to catch up with a connection he made with someone from here who visited Nanto City many many many years ago," Ms Moore concluded.