Mount Waverley Secondary College VIC
School: Mount Waverley Secondary College
School level: Secondary
Key learning areas and year levels: Languages and Humanities; year 7 and 8
Japanese language teacher Gokce Delioglu of Mount Waverley Secondary College visited Japan in late 2014 and early 2015 through the Victorian Department of Education and Training Languages Teaching Scholarships In-Country Course programme.
The focus of the programme was on improving language skills through in-country immersion, using everyday situations to practice speaking and listening skills.
Gokce commented that being immersed in the culture helped her reading, writing and grammar skills 'developed at an incredibly high rate'. She also found that interacting with people, including foreigners living in Japan, meant she learnt 'so much about the "natural language"'.
She has brought cultural knowledge gained from the experience back to the classroom, expanding on the intercultural development branch of the languages curriculum at her school. In addition, Gokce has shared her experiences with students and colleagues at curriculum meetings and sessions. She said that this 'has helped greatly with planning the curriculum'.
Gokce plans to adopt a Content and Language Integrated Learning approach to her content teaching of Japanese, using a more communicative and visual approach to her teaching to allow students to be more immersed in the language and culture.
By gaining new experience with traditional and modern Japanese culture, I was able to expand the intercultural development branch of the languages curriculum at my school.
– Gokce Delioglu, teacher, Mt Waverley Secondary College, VIC