LOTE

LOTE at Winthrop

Our Japanese teacher is Irene Law. Law Sensei has been with us since 2000.

The Japanese language programme at Winthrop Primary School commenced in 1993 and gradually expanded to a full program in 2000 where all Year 3 to Year 7 students now attend a weekly Japanese lesson in the colourfully decorated Japanese Room.

Winthrop students are keen students of the
Japanese language and its culture. This year we have
have been working on various topics and themes including,'About Me', 'Likes and Dislikes', 'Classroom Expressions', 'Family', 'Transport' and 'Sports'.
As our common goal is to have all students learning japanese and recognizing and reading Hiragana as soon as possible, all students are participating in the Hiragana Reading Program where they progress from one reading level to the next at their own reading pace

Besides the active learning of the Japanese language, we have also hosted various visitors from Japan. These visitors have enabled our students to experience the Japanese language and culture first hand through student hosting and sharing sports and art and craft during their short stay. In August 2005, we had our first primary student group visitors from Maimatsubara Elementary School in Fukuoka, Japan. We shared in activities such as buddy class and art and craft . We also cooked Anzac biscuits with one of the Year 3 classes.

In October 2004, we had our first exchange/study trip to Japan, kindly hosted by our sister school, Namazu Elementary School in Gifu Prefecture. Eleven students from Winthrop and 10 other students from Leeming Primary School and St Hilda's Girls School made this inaugural visit. After 6 days with our host school and families, we travelled to Tokyo for 3 days and visited Tokyo Disneyland, the Edo-Tokyo Museum and Asakusa. All students had a wonderful time in Japan and came back even more enthusiastic in their learning of the language, people and culture.

Namazu Elementary School Link

Photos of our visit to Namazu Elementary School

We are also thankful to have various volunteer language assistants in the Japanese classroom. We would like to publicly acknowledge the time and work they have contributed to the Japanese Language Program at Winthrop Primary School. A big thank you to Hitomi sensei, Chie sensei, Yousuke sensei and Yumi sensei who was with us for four weeks recently, Arigatou gozaimashita!

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