Hiragana

Lau Chi Stevenson, Japanese Teacher

As part of our Montessori approach in education, the LOTE* program enhances and enables our 6-12 students to enjoy learning, to be self-motivated, reflective, competent learners who promote a fair and just society that values diversity.

Japanese has been identified as one of the priority languages in the Asia-Pacific region to be taught in Australian schools. Through experience of the Japanese language system and cultural history, students at FMS gain understanding to become more accepting of diversity, more respectful of others and more aware of their place in the world-wide community.

The program enable students to develop communication skills, focus on languages as systems and gain insights into the relationship between language and cultures, leading to lifelong personal and educational benefits is our aim.

Our framework provides a set of outcomes that build on ‘precepts upon precepts’ principle. These outcomes indicate that students will:

• understand vocabulary in 18 categories
• understand and communicate information in ‘Romaji’ (English form)
• understand and communicate information in ‘Hiragana’ (Japanese form)
• understand and appreciate social, cultural, geographical and historical contexts, and participate as accepting and informed individual
• develop a system of personal values based on their understanding of moral, ethical and spiritual matters

In line with Montessori concepts, students are not assessed through standardised testing, but instead are encouraged to acquire basic skills to become self-directed learners which is an ongoing process all individuals as they grow in age.

*LOTE = Language Other Than English

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