Students of Macedonian at Keilor Downs VSL, recently had a very rare opportunity to meet two extraordinary people from their country of origin- Macedonia, Zivko Popovski- Cvetin, Macedonian painter and humanitarian, and Stefce Stojkoski, a maestro of traditional instruments. Mr. Cvetin for over three decades has been painting the “flowers of peace” and been spreading his positive energy around the world. In 2009 he was nominated for the Noble Peace Prize, and his name was mentioned by world news media outlets, alongside Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy. Stefce Stojkoski is a Macedonian folk music legend, whose main aim is development of the traditional songs, presentation of the national traditions all around the world. He specializes in kaval( an end blown flute), gajda( bagpipe), tambura (a four-sting long-necked lute), dvojnik (double block flute), kemane (an upright pear-shaped fiddle), zurla (a double-reed instrument) and many other authentic instruments. On the arrival, they were greeted by the Area Manager Sadik Cagdas, who welcomed and thanked the guests for sparing some of their precious time to visit the school. Mr. Cvetin gave one of his “flower of peace” to Mr. Cagdas as a sign for friendship. The Macedonian teachers organised two workshops, one ran by Mr. Cvetin, who spoke to the students about his life and career while he was painting more of his flowers. Students were able to ask questions from earlier prepared questionnaire. They also had some hands on activities on how to create those lovely flowers. The second workshop was run by the musician Mr. Stojkoski, who presented few of his instruments, he played, and he let the students to have a go as well. At recess time all Macedonian students together with their teachers, special guests and the area manager released balloons in the air with the messages for peace around the world. At the staff room, the guests, teachers of all the faculties at the centre and the administration staff had a chance to taste traditional Macedonian food prepared by the teachers from the Macedonian faculty. These workshops were very important for the students as they had a chance to get closer to their culture and tradition.

A unit of work on ‘Food’, culminated in an exciting cooking session for students of Macedonian at the Point Cook VSL Centre recently. Under the guidance and direction of their class teacher, Snezana Staninova, students learnt how to prepare ‘Kifli’ and ‘Pitulici’, traditional Macedonian buns and pancakes that have been part of the Macedonian cuisine for generations. Students were immersed in the Macedonian language, as the recipes’ cooking ingredients, measurements and methods were discussed. Overall, it was a most engaging activity enjoyed by the Macedonian students, who were absolutely delighted to sample their delicious baked creations!

For students at the small P-12 College in the farming community of Manangatang, an hour’s drive out of Swan Hill in north west Victoria, learning German may sometimes seem a little abstract. While the school is lucky enough to have its own language teachers, resources can be spread pretty thinly in a school of only 80 from Prep to Year 12. This is why they were so eager to join the VSL Primary Languages Program when it was launched in early 2019. Year 5 students participate in a German language program using a range of online tools – including an interactive presentation, video conferencing and self-marking vocabulary learning. Each student connects to the presentation using their own netbook computer, and is able to respond to teacher questions individually to demonstrate their understanding and progress. For each lesson, students receive a hard copy handout, to ensure that they are recording the language content of the lesson, practicing their handwriting and creating a resource they can access for revision at home. The Year 5 students are enjoying the program and are looking forward to continuing their study of German into Year 6 and beyond. And who knows where languages might take them?

The event took place on Thu 18 July 2019 at the University of Melbourne in Parkville and offered students in Year 8-12 the opportunity to get first-hand insight into various career paths and explore where German language skills can take them. The Careers Day was filled with presentations from how you can study in Germany to ways to study German at the University of Melbourne and the importance of German in international affairs (to give some examples). The students got the opportunity to network with experts from a variety of academic fields. The day finished with a very popular German movie.

Last Monday VSL students, teachers, parents and Area Managers attended the annual Premier’s VCE Awards Day at the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre. The Victorian School of Languages did exceptionally well in the individual study awards and a number of principals and teachers from other schools congratulated us on receiving lots of awards. This year the number was 16 (compared to 15 last year), a fantastic effort. It was particularly pleasing to see that awards also went to students from the new languages of Karen and Chin Hakha.