On Sunday 14 April, at Lakeside Stadium in Albert Park, over 50 VSL students from our Centres and Distance Education had the opportunity to experience a Greek cultural event.

Students studying Greek at Keilor Downs, Glen Waverley, Carwatha, Noble Park, and South Oakleigh Centres as well as VSL Distance came together with teachers and family members to commemorate Greek Independence Day with the traditional “parade”.

This allowed the students to connect with the wider Greek Community. It was wonderful for our students to interact with the community and connect with other students also studying the Greek language.

Irene Kodoudakis Greek & Spanish Teacher - Distance Education

On Monday 1 April, the VSL held an information stand at the Craigieburn Sri Lankan New Year festival.

Despite it being a windy and rainy day, the staff from both our Epping and Roxburgh Park Centres participated, including several parents and students.

We appreciated the help provided by parents in setting up and packing up the stand, organising displays and bringing students on time and ready for the performances.

The students did a great job on the day and contributed to the presence of the VSL Sinhala faculties on the day.

We are sure it expanded the Sri Lankan community’s awareness of the VSL language learning opportunity.

Lilanga Balachandra

On the last Friday of Term One, we had our first-ever Distance Education Year 11 immersion camp at Urban Camp in Parkville, where students from around Victoria came together.

The students studying our six largest languages (German, Japanese, French, Spanish, Indonesian and Italian) had the opportunity to be fully immersed in the language and get to know their classmates and teachers. Our two-day/one-night camp started as a seminar at the Multicultural Hub in the city. After the seminar, the teachers and students took the tram to Urban Camp, where more immersion sessions in the languages and other fun activities took place. The students also got the opportunity to make other connections with students of different languages and to get active.

Playing soccer, volleyball, boules, and Finska were some of the options.

During our wellbeing session, the students enjoyed a short introduction to Pilates as well.

It was great to see the students being so involved in each activity and making new friends.

A highlight for us teachers was the commercials the students created in their languages about a cultural product. Everyone enjoyed watching the various video clips in all the languages and seeing the creativity that went into their work!  

I would like to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate the whole seminar and camp team for putting together such an engaging program and to thank Mike Atkinson, our Acting Area Manager for supporting us in the preparations and making this camp such a success.    

Annette Buchholz, Camp/excursion coordinator and German teacher

The VSL wish to announce that enrolments for new students are open.