Past Events

The JLTASA Year 4/5 Obento Masterchef was held on Friday 10th November 2017 at Westminster School. 72 students from 9 schools across all three sectors participated in making an obento (Japanese lunch box). This year the theme of obento was Family (Kazoku).  Students were paired up and together they planned and designed their obento in line with the theme.  Some included the word “kazoku” in hiragana or kanji using nori sheet in their obento.  They also had a challenge to use as many ingredients as possible to create a visually appealing obento.  There were so many creative obento made by the students and the judge had a hard time.  The fun part was students got to eat their obento at the end! Thank you to all the teachers and parents for transporting and supervising students. Thank you to Sun Kim and Home Economic staff at Westminster who hosted this event again.

Each year for the last three years the JLTASA has held a Year 10 Movie Making Day to give Year 10 students studying Japanese across the state a chance to meet other like-minded students studying Japanese, use social learning, be creative and innovative, use Japanese language in authentic ways, and challenge themselves. The students do some warm up games, and get to know each other to start the day and then watch some for the year’s best Japanese commercials in order to start developing an understanding of the common ideas, themes, messages and music. There are good discussions around analysing culture, comparing Australian and Japanese commercials and thinking about what this teachers us about Japanese people, culture and society. From here in groups of four from different schools, students select one of the Japanese items and create their own commercial for it using Japanese props, and locations around the school such as the Japanese garden and わしつ at St John’s Grammar School. Key vocab and helpful grammar is discussed and teachers support students throughout the day. In this time-frame, students create, write, direct, act and edit their commercial ready to show to the group where they are presented and judged…

The JLTASA Year 6/7 Quiz Day was held on Tuesday 20th June 2017 at the Education Development Centre, Hindmarsh. 182 students from 16 schools across all three sectors participated in Japanese learning. The quiz categories included: numbers, geography, Hiragana, listening, Kanji, modern culture, traditional culture and vocabulary and grammar. Between rounds we played the traditional Japanese games; Jan Ken Pon and Kendama as well as a game of True or False based on questions about the Japanese culture. Students wore happi coats and hachimaki to get into the spirit of the day. It was great to see students smiling and confidently sharing their answers with their team. Overall, participating in the quiz gave students a great opportunity to meet other Year 6/7 students also learning Japanese, share their Japanese learning and most importantly have fun! There were some really cool Japanese prizes on offer with the famous Japanese snack Pocky being the most popular. Thank you to all the teachers and parents for transporting and supervising students. Thank you to committee members Christina Challinger, Alysha Milani and Kate Satomura for all their behind the scenes work in organising the event and making sure the day ran smoothly and thank you…

Our Southern Area Hub Group’s Annual Hiragana Reading Competition was held for the 14th year running. This year saw new schools entering for the first time, providing a great level of competition for all. With 22 teams of 4 entered, we started with 2 groups of 11 teams in a round robin playoff. From here we took the top 4 teams from both groups and had the top 8 play off for a place in the finals. The round robin part involved students reading the single Hiragana characters. The top 8 teams had to read words and then to decided 1st, 2nd and 3rd place students had to make up words using Hiragana characters. The competition was fierce! The top 2 teams played a best of 3 round with the first being a tie, proving it was a tight competition. Woodend took out 1st place followed by Blackwood in 2nd. Hawthorndene and Woodend played of for 3rd, with Woodend just getting over the line. Schools participating this year were Blackwood, Hallett Cove South, Hawthorndene, Reynella East, Sheidow Park, Thiele, Woodcroft and Woodend. Congratulations to all students involved for great sportsmanship and efforts on the day. Congratulations to all teachers for…

Ten contestants participated in the 2017 South Australia Japanese Speech Contest on  Saturday 9th September at the Education Development Centre. This is the second year since the competition opened to not only senior secondary school students but also university students as well as members of the general public who satisfied the category in each division. In 2017 Mr Ray Chang of Norwood Morialta High School won the High School Senior Division (left), Mr Jerry Jiang of The University of Adelaide won the Open Beginner Division (center) and Ms Emma Simmons graduate of The University of Adelaide won the Open Division (right). These three winners will compete in the National Speech Contest on 7th October 2017 in Sydney. The JLTASA would like to advise to teachers that the contents of speech could be an extension of Investigative task or In-Depth study and we are happy to help teachers whose students intend to join the contest, but have a little difficulty to check their speech grammatically. Special thanks to the Japan Foundation Sydney who supported this event financially and the organising committee of the JLTASA.

Nine schools participated in the second Annual Hiragana Competition on Wednesday 13th September, 2017 at Redeemer Lutheran School, Nuriootpa. (One Tree Hill Primary, Hewett Primary, Sandy Creek Primary, Kapunda Primary, Gawler Primary, Tanunda Primary, Swan Reach Primary, Freeling Primary and Redeemer Lutheran) It was a fantastic afternoon filled with passion and enthusiasm for sharing Japanese culture and language. The competition consisted of a range of technologies and resources to encourage sharing of Hiragana knowledge in various ways. The rounds included a Futaba Classroom challenge; a Kahoot Jumble online quiz which required students to order mixed Hiragana according to the Hiragana chart; formal Powerpoint rounds with students saying the Hiragana they see first to gain points. All the points from these scored rounds were then tallied and the top 4 schools then battled it out with two formal Powerpoint rounds recognising basic words in Hiragana. Fun was had by all, with physical activities interspersed into the afternoon. Such events included giant Karuta run challenge; chopstick relays and Jan Ken Pon Trains. All students were awarded with a little prize and a participation certificate to take away with them and trophies for the top 3 schools. The teachers all worked diligently, with many…