STATE education minister John Gardner spent some time at Sandy Creek Primary School last Wednesday to see first-hand how his government’s $50,000 Innovative Language Grant had been put to good use.
The school was one of five across South Australia to receive the funding, in December last year, and has used it to grow and develop its Japanese language program.
This includes sharing videos of students using the language to its Japanese sister school Minami Aiki, which it has had an exchange partnership with since 1996, via a new multi-media ‘broadcast station’.
Mr Gardner was greeted by students and then spent around 30 minutes answering their questions, which included whether he was able to speak any secondary languages, and why it is important for schools to teach languages as a subject.
He said it was obvious the State Government grant had been well utilised.
“This is a school that is clearly proud of its Japanese project, and is celebrating it,” Mr Gardner said.
“The grants exist so that we can identify best practice and share it around South Australia, and also to celebrate schools that are investing energy, time and resources in languages because that’s something we want to encourage.
“And so from that point of view, what we can see here is both of those at work.”
Sandy Creek principal Dr Robyn Gibbes said it was pleasing to demonstrate the school’s commitment to teaching Japanese to the minister.
“(Our program) is a lot bigger than what we were able to talk about in half an hour,” she said.
“Every staff member is experimenting with how they can use Japanese, and start to use it in their classrooms with children to help that daily use.
“One very interesting piece of data that we’re still trying to break down is our NAPLAN results for the past two years.
“Our grammar and punctuation has been the highest of our results, and we suspect that’s because of the grammar that they’re taught in Japanese.”
Mr Gardner agreed there was a clear link between “strong language programs and seeing great NAPLAN results” in schools.