St Joseph's Nudgee College

October 18, 2011

St Joseph’s Nudgee College is among a select group of schools who have won funding to promote Asian languages and culture within classrooms and the school community.

As part of the national Becoming Asia Literate: Grants to Schools (BALGS) initiative, Nudgee College, will receive a $20,000 Federal Government grant. The funding will go towards the Making iMates project.

“Making iMates – Students Engaging Real-Time is essentially designed with the aim of enhancing students’ spontaneity of language, as well as awareness of non-verbal languages, through the use of ‘real-time’ communication with students from our Japanese sister school, Seirinkan High School,” said Head of Japanese Ms Rhonda Neil and Head of Technology Across the Curriculum Mr Shane Weir.

“To achieve this, students from both schools will be able to video-conference each other on a frequent basis through the establishment of technology-aided classrooms and interact with each other through Japanese purpose-built iPad applications.

“The grant application also provides the school with the unique opportunity of allowing two students studying Japanese (in Years 9 and 10 in 2012) to participate in a Japanese immersion program whereby these students will spend two weeks at Seirinkan High School. The students will be ambassadors for Nudgee College as well as represent the Australian Federal Government.

“Their role will entail the development of the iPad applications specific to our program, teach both students and teachers from Seirinkan High School how to use these iPad apps and will help to establish a long-term rapport with students from Seirinkan High School,” they said.

The funding is part of the $62.4 million National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program (NALSSP) to support Asia literacy. Minister for Schools, Early Childhood and Youth, the Hon Peter Garrett MP, announced the new funding, managed by the Asia Education Foundation (AEF) in October 2011.

NALSSP aims to promote understanding among young Australians of the cultures and languages of the target countries: Japan, China, Indonesia and Korea.

Executive Director of the Asia Education Foundation, Kathe Kirby, said all of the schools that had made the effort to apply and who were successful in receiving Round 3 funding should be congratulated for their efforts.

“These schools have outlined innovative programs to support the achievement of the NALSSP objectives. Their enthusiasm in helping to prepare young Australians for the demands of the future is to be highly commended,” Ms Kirby said.

“The importance of promoting global education within our student population is something that is well understood by many educators within this country. As part of this, it is increasingly important that we further promote a greater understanding of the languages and cultures of our Asian neighbours.”