• 01Nov

    Internet Event: Esperanto, the First Foreign Language for Global Citizens

    Events, Everyone, International, Parents, Principals, Teachers, Uncategorized Comments Off

    Come to our conference, Friends!
    Tim Morley and Penny VOs are going to present at 6am on the 17th of November Sydney time, around 8pm on the 16th where Tim is in England. You can check the time for you here
    So, from the comfort of wherever you are, you can join in our global exploration of a truly global theme!
    We really hope you will come, and spread the word among your connections so that we can answer lots of curly questions as well as share our success stories.
    Here’s the link to our presentation for the tweeting and the facebooking http://www.globaleducationconference.com/forum/topics/esperanto-the-first-foreign-language-for-global-citizens#

    Organization:
    Merimbula P.S., Mondeto ( a not for profit social enterprise)
    In: English
    Target Audience: Primary School Teachers and Principals, Curriculum Leaders and Policy Makers
    Short Session Description: The world’s most user-friendly language is also the most multicultural, talk with the world in Esperanto!

     Long Session Description:
    Which foreign language is hardest to master? Your first! So it makes sense to start with the world’s easiest language, Esperanto, to build confidence and make friends in dozens of diverse cultures. Learn as you teach so your students will gain from your example of openness to learning through life. This is a discussion, so the exact content depends on what you are interested to know! Teaching Esperanto as an Apprenticeship Language, and an act of Global Citizenship, is something that an empowered teacher can do even without whole school participation, but it also makes sense as a School-Wide Policy and is scaleable to school districts, states and nations. So, if you have a broader focus than one classroom, we can talk about that too.

    Penny Vos has been teaching Esperanto to children since 1997 and they have loved surprising their parents with real ability to communicate with children all over the world in their shared global language.
    Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:

    www.fluentin3months.com/2-weeks-of-esperanto/

    http://apprenticeshiplanguagelearning.weebly.com/index.html

    www.MontessoriEsperanto.org

    www.lernu.net

    www.mondeto.com

    http://mediasiteex.usc.edu.au/mediasite/SilverlightPlayer/Default.a…

  • 08Oct

    The-He Vietnamese Playgroup, Melbourne

    2. Pre-schoolers, Experiences, Parents, Teachers, Uncategorized, VIC, Vietnamese Comments Off

    There is NEW approach from Vietnamese community here in Australia which was supported by VMC to introduce language learning on early stage in PLAYGROUP for 2 – 3 years old children.
    The THE-HE Vietnamese Language Centre is leading its new way in introducing educational technology in the program. The project is carrying out at St. Joseph Parish Playgroup in Springvale, but what happens here will go ON-AIR to provide more creative activities to parent and playgroup leaders, and to encourage the community to establish similar models.
    As a multicultural playgroup, St. Joseph Parish Playgroup has similar English version for other ethnics.
    Photos on developing stage will appear on THE-HEschool site: www.facebook.com/TheHeVietSchool

    PLEASE NOTE: This is an open project: other Vietnamese schools with interactive lessons want to contribute to the program are welcome. We want to collaborate with any personal having special skill in the area.

     Teachers who have bright ideas, acting skills are invited to join our production line.

     

     

    Tags: ,

  • 27Apr

    Special Notice for Teachers of German: Language Proficiency Scholarships

    German, National, Principals, Resources, Teachers, Uncategorized Comments Off

    Deadline extended till 11 May
    Current and future teachers of German, Goethe-Institut resource centre librarians and principals with a minimum basic knowledge of German have now two extra weeks to submit their application. The 4-week intensive language course in Germany between September 2012 and January 2013 is accompanied by a rich cultural and leisure program and internationally recognised exams are an attractive option at the end.

    http://www.goethe.de/ins/au/lp/lhr/sti/leh/en3385795.htm

     

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  • 24Apr

    German Community Language Schools Festival – Victoria

    9. All ages, Carers, Events, Everyone, German, Parents, Principals, Teachers, VIC, Young People Comments Off

     

     

     

     

    Festival at Anakie Fairy Park

    Sunday 20 May 2012, 11 am – 3 pm

     

    Join us in the celebrations of 200 years of Brothers Grimm fairytales on this very special day:

    • Puppet musical “Schneewittchen” (tri-lingual and interactive)
    • Student performances
    • Schnappi the Crocodile
    • Fairy park languages trail
    • Story reading
    • Dance groups
    • Prizes for best Grimm fairytale costumes
    • Delicious food

    Don’t miss this opportunity to introduce your children and grandchildren to this part of cultural heritage.

    Further details www.goethe.de/australien

     

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  • 13Sep

    Languages education: stuck on a feedback loop.

    9. All ages, All, Everyone, National, Opinion, Principals, Teachers Comments Off

    Phillip Mahnken, University of the Sunshine Coast

     Andrew Bolt is right (Herald 28 May). Most Australians in general do not want to learn languages. Greg Sheridan points to the same ‘disturbing truth’ (A nation adrift in Asia literacy. The Australian 27 May 2010).

     A “language graveyard” for 222 years, indigenous languages eradicated, migrant languages met with hostility, fear and obstruction, Australia risks intellectual and cultural narrowness, even cerebral inferiority. Yes, learning languages expands your brain capacities, at any age! Seeing Europeans and Asians routinely speak three or four languages, the average Australian traveller feels dumb in his monolingualism.

     Our society, culture and education systems fail languages, even as we acknowledge that we need language skills for aid and trade, security, personal enlightenment and to be credible global citizens.

     There is top-level bipartisan agreement on this (Hamish McDonald, SMH, 29 May). Now we need bipartisan commitment at state and federal levels to a sustained PR campaign for languages, and unstinting pursuit of excellent teaching and quality learning!

     Money alone may produce – in our over-bureaucratised society – more talkfests, policy, planning, budgets and accountability reports. No, money would best be devoted to direct Year 11 and 12 and university languages scholarships, especially for vetted in-country studies. We cannot afford to wait and hope that targets for today’s Grade 4 pupils (in our “ludicrously uncoordinated” languages matrix, as Bolt charges) will result in a new Asia literate generation twelve years hence.

     The predictable calls for ”more resources” (Hamish McDonald, SMH, 29 May) could almost be dispensed with, if only motivation and attitudes …. but attitudes are on a feedback loop.

    School and university students won’t work hard at things their parents, other educators, principals, community leaders and the media obviously do not care about or deride. Young people will apply themselves at years of football or swimming training, even the mental demands of English, maths, chess, music – languages, too – if their parents, older peers, role models and employers visibly and actively endorse them.  Don’t care and your kids won’t try. “Too much effort and too high-risk for too little likely reward”,  McDonald cites Tony Abbott. If students want to drop out, principals and parents blame languages teachers for being ineffective, irrelevant or asking too much. Round and round it loops.

    Millions of ‘blind Freddies’, like Andrew Bolt, do not see the obvious cognitive and “cultural payoff” of language learning: better spelling and grammar because you reflect on where your own language comes from and how it works, better thinking skills, patience and persistence, better communication skills and intercultural understanding. Languages mediate more and deeper insider information about everyone else, whether you are a vigilant realist, soft diplomat or backpacker sans frontieres.

     The only war languages teachers are interested in is the culture war needed to change Australian culture from “fear is good” and gullible consumerism to a healthy, positive, other-interested society with everyone learning other languages. It costs money to counter all that apathy and negativity. It demands willingness and willpower to work on our own children who may prefer (encouraged every dollar of the way by advertisers) to fritter away their mental lifetimes on computer shoot-em-ups, junk TV, the latest pop songs and mags.

     Pardon my Spanish, but does Australia have the cojones to do the right thing by its children?

    Or is this society and education so commodified that school principals, university decision makers and community opinion shapers will not do a damned thing without putting their hand out for “what’s in it for me?” You wanted a market economy. Your children are standing in it.

     

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