Mandarin Morning and Zooming Japan
Year 7 students had an amazing opportunity to learn drumming, fan dancing and calligraphy in our Mandarin Morning last Friday. Integral parts of Chinese culture, these elements were part of a one hour workshop.
The art of drumming experience took part with founder of the Anglo Chinese Cultural Exchange (ACCE), Lydia Tse, MBE, and was the first time for many of the students using Chinese traditional drums. By the end of the session students were able to play four short choreographed pieces.
We received high praise from Lily, our fan dancing teacher who claimed she had never seen so many enthusiastic Year 7 pupils trying their best to master the skill; fan dancing is usually performed by individuals to celebrate occasions in China such as Chinese New Year.
In the calligraphy workshop, pupils had the opportunity to explore traditional Chinese Calligraphy art. We looked at the history, the four treasures, and each pupil was given the opportunity to practice writing on a special mat (designed to mimic rice paper without creating paper waste). Some brilliant writing was produced, and we have created a ‘wall of characters’ featuring their work.
Meanwhile, the School’s Japanese Club held a live video call with Futaba Mirai School in Japan. Margot, Year 8 reports.
Konichiwa!
On Tuesday the Japanese club had a zoom call with Futaba Mirai School from Japan. Throughout the call we introduced ourselves in both English and Japanese using the words and phrases we had practiced through the term, this included saying your age, your name and birthday, what you liked doing, what year you were in at school, the members you have in your family and activities you do on certain days. It was great fun to share what we had learned.
Once we had introduced ourselves in English the pupils would translate and write down what we said, and then once they had said their phrases in Japanese, we would translate them into English. After we had all said our sentences, Futaba Mirai School sang their school song which was a privilege to hear.
It was very interesting to see the similarities that they have with our uniform for School and shared hobbies, as well as the interests we have and the things we like doing. We also discussed the differences in the layout of our classrooms, because they had their desks in a horseshoe shape whereas we have ours in either blocks of four or in rows.
The pupils were very polite and it was a really great experience.
