Bento Bonanza, immersion and pop culture excitement!

Language students have had an exciting start to 2022. We have welcomed an enthusiastic cohort of Year 7s, have native speaker assistants in most of our Japanese and Italian classes, two of our Year 11s have been accepted into the ANU H Extension courses and we welcome a new and dynamic teacher to our Japanese teaching team, Mr Ben Raven.

On 18 March, Bakonji’s Bento Bonanza, our twice-annual Japanese Obento Picnic incursion, was enjoyed by staff and students alike. With over 160 orders and a beautiful sunny day, the Japanese lunch was enthusiastically devoured in the dappled sunlight under the trees, with dreams of a Japan Tour on the horizon.

To coincide with Harmony Week, the SFX Languages Faculty have officially launched our 2022 Japanese Immersion Program which will run every Thursday at lunchtime in the Resource Centre. Our Japanese students, particularly our Year 7 and 8 cohorts, enjoyed engaging in a variety of language building games and activities with senior students. In addition to one-on-one language immersion with our volunteer seniors, students can elect to practice speaking with their peers, practise character writing with volunteers, seek support or catch up on work with one of our four Japanese teachers and Japanese native speaking assistants. Special mention to Year 10 student Luca and our Year 11 volunteers, who have been instrumental in driving this immersion program.

The Language Faculty are also excited to support the Manga Club on Fridays which is open to all SFX students even if they are not currently studying Japanese.

Happy language learning to all our students in 2022.