Thursday 20 July 2017

Chinese Assembly 2017

Children had a great time performing in the Chinese Assembly in late Term 2. Items included songs and sharing about their Mandarin learning. It was impressive that children spoke Mandarin confidently on the stage. The highlight of the event was the Chinese handkerchief dance. It is a popular dance in the rural areas of China with a history of thousands of years. The original purpose is to celebrate harvest. 

Chinese Dance Group 2017


Asian Language Learning in Schools (ALLiS)

The Remuera and Epsom ALLiS cluster had a number of very successful cluster meetings in the previous two terms. The cluster is composed of eight schools, which included Meadowbank School, Epsom Girls Grammar School, Remuera Primary, Newmarket Primary, Cornwall Park School, Remuera Intermediate School, Parnell District School and Victoria Avenue School. All of these schools offer Mandarin and two of them offer Japanese as well. Each term the language teachers or cluster representatives get together to discuss about language teaching, learn about new teaching methodologies and enjoy various cultural activities. 

In Term one, we made dumplings and used chopsticks to eat. It was the first time to make jiǎozi for some of us.  It was a great team building activity! 



In Term two, we were pleased to have Dr Julie Zhu (ALLiS Adviser, ILEP) to teach our group about Chinese calligraphy. We learned about the history of Chinese calligraphy and different types of scripts. It was fascinating to appreciate the beautiful handcrafted calligraphy tools. We had an attempt to write the characters on the special rice paper. 




In relation to the calligraphy activity, Dr Jiwei Fu (Chinese National Adviser) has delivered two teaching pedagogy sessions about Chinese character learning. Teachers have gained a deeper understanding about the formation of Chinese characters, radicals and the development of characters throughout the past five thousand years. 

Our knowledgeable teachers in the cluster have shared their expertise in Chinese and Japanese Tea Culture. We sampled different kinds of tea and learned about the benefits of drinking tea.  




By Amy Ko (Meadowbank School)