Welcome to 2011! The Year 7 students have been learning various greetings and different set phrases. These greetings are known as “aisatsu” and are used in daily conversation in Japan. These “aisatsu” are shown below: Please feel free to comment. We’d love to hear from you . . . . .

During Term 3, the students in Years 3 and 4 were learning vocabulary about clothing. One day, Sensei Blomeley brought some yukatas to school and everyone had lots of fun dressing in traditional Japanese clothing. Please feel free to comment. We’d love to hear from you . . . .

As part of our LOTE Day celebration, students used colorful papers to make their own version of the Emperor and Empress of Japan. This idea came from a display of student work in a shopping arcade in Japan. Please feel free to comment. We’d love to hear from you . . . . . . [...]

This blog, “Beyond The Mount” has been operating for just over one year. In that time, we have had 556 visitors from various places around the world. That means that over 500 people now know where Derrinallum P-12 College is and they have seen the wonderful work done by the students of the college! The [...]

What a wonderful day! The students had lots of fun taking part in the various Japanese activities and trying out new things. you can see some more photos of our Japanese Day below:                     

On Monday, sudents from Derrinallum College and Lismore Primary School joined together for a day of Japanese activities. The day commenced with a demonstration of KENDO by Gary and Pete from the Ballarat Kendo Club. The students then broke into groups and took part in activities including a kendo workshop, making hachi maki (headbands), exploring [...]

Our new LOTE blog called “JUST JAPANESE” is now up and running. This blog will be a teaching tool containing work for the students in LOTE classes. The students in Years 5 and 6 are currently working on the first task, which is to research some of the places visited on my trip to Japan. [...]

Welcome to 2010!  This is the “Year of the Tiger”. During Term 1, I spent three weeks travelling around Japan.  I visited the main island, Honshu, and the islands of Kyushu and Shikoku. It was a wonderful trip. I have created a page titled “Japan 2010″ and if you are interested in seeing more of [...]

 Over the past few weeks, the students in Years 4 – 6 have been using our new iPod Touch to help them learn the Japanese characters. The students can learn about the characters on short videos, listen to hiragana songs and practise the characters by using applications on the ipods. The students have been really interested and seem [...]

During LOTE, the Year 6 students have been using the Flip video cameras to make a short introductory film about Derrinallum College. The following film shows various aspects of the school and is narrated in Japanese. Please feel free to comment. We’d love to hear from you . . . .