Online Live Video Exchange with Shodon Junior High School, Amami Japan

On Thursday 7 March, the Year 9 Japanese language students were fortunate enough to have an online live exchange with the 1st Year Junior High School students (Year 7) from Shodon Junior High School. It was quite special as the school is located on Amami Islands and the whole population of the school from Grade 1 to Grade 9 is just 19 students! 

Sacred Heart students started the conversation with saying their name and age in Japanese, and then in English, and then the Shodon students reciprocated. Our students had been studying the past tense and what they did on the weekends and/or holidays. Students talked about going to the beach and other various activities, as well as describing what it was like. 

Shodon students then asked in English about our favourite foods, anime and the like. Both the Japanese students and Australian students were quite nervous speaking in their native language, let alone the language they were learning. However, they soon became confident at just having a go. The activity was supposed to take about 15 minutes but ended up taking 45 minutes as the students were having such a ball just laughing and communicating and being able to put the language they learned in the classroom into real-life situations. 

We hope to continue this online exchange this year and beyond. We are also looking forward to the students from our sister school, Ibaraki Nishi High School visiting Sacred Heart College, in August. We can then again engage in enriched conversations in both Japanese and English, and make life-long friendships.