Celebrating Cultural Exchange: St Peter’s Woodlands Welcomes Japanese Students
After a pandemic-induced hiatus, St Peter’s Woodlands was delighted to once again welcome Year 5 Japanese students for a week-long exchange. This much-loved program was eagerly embraced, marking a joyous return to cultural exchange and connection.
Nine Year 5 Japanese children, from our friendship school in Osaka, home stayed with hosting SPW families and joined our Year 5 classes throughout the week, immersing themselves in Australian life and schooling.
A Cultural Exchange
During the week, the students experienced a vibrant, action-packed schedule that included familiarising themselves with the school, exploring Australian culture, and forming lasting friendships with their host families. Activities included Australian themed numeracy and literacy, art, cooking, Japanese lessons, ESL, sport, Chapel, STEM, performing arts and many more aspects of our school life. The Cleland excursion to explore (and feed) Aussie animals was a great treat, too!
The week provided a truly enriching experience, allowing the students to explore cultural differences and similarities of Australia and Japan firsthand. Our students had the opportunity to practice their Japanese, while the Osaka students honed their English speaking skills. It transformed the classroom into a vibrant cultural exchange and deepened their learning whilst forming friendships.
Thank you to our community
A gold medal is awarded to our St Peter’s Woodlands community for the success of this program – judged by one universal measurement – smiles on the faces of our Japanese and SPW children. Not to mention the tears when it was time to say sayonara; a testament to the special bonds and experiences together at SPW.
We thank our community for their unwavering support, making this opportunity amazing for all involved. The Year 5s shone as they rose to the occasion of befriending, respecting and engaging with our new friends from Japan, making them feel warmly welcomed. A huge thank you to our host families for welcoming the Japanese children into your homes for the week. Check out the video below to see all the highlights.
Host sister Isabelle shares her recount on the hosting experience:
I was fortunate to invite Rune into our home for a week of Australian life. I loved having her stay with my family and seeing her amazement and wonder at those things that are a part of my everyday life. Like looking for crabs down at the beach, a fruit platter and playing with my toys. She came with us to before school music lessons and after school sport and to catch up with friends.
She was very good at dancing and she taught us some tap dances and we taught her the chicken dance and Nutbush – we had a lot of fun! She taught us some new origami and we both improved at Mario Kart!
We overcame the challenge of communication by using hand signals and a translating app. We kept checking if the other person was ok and it felt very special to make sure she was feeling ok and I was too.
At breakfast time after a few days of cereal and toast on offer she let us know that she preferred noodles and we all agreed that this could be a good breakfast option for us, too!
She has already written to me on email saying how much she enjoyed her stay and that she would like to stay in touch and visit again one day. We hope she does!
It was a really fun experience and I would recommend it to other families who have the opportunity to host a student. Even though it is only one week, you will find strong bonds that’s will hopefully last for a lifetime.
Article shared by Skye Baldacchino, (Sensei)