Special guest for final Japanese lesson at Loreto

Mr Matsunaga made a special visit to Loreto College on Tuesday ahead of official engagements with City of Ballarat for celebrating a sister city relationship with Inagawa. He arrived early especially to meet with junior and senior Japanese language students to encourage their learning in the hope they will consider the benefits in cultural exchange and immersion.

Mr Matsunaga told year 12 students that passionate young Victorians had plenty to offer Japan in skills and from growing up in multicultural societies and, in exchange, young people could learn a lot from Japanese culture. He encouraged students to pursue their language and cultural studies and to visit Japan.

This was a message he carried from junior to senior classes, starting his visit to the school in a year seven class and taking in morning tea with year 12s on their final day of class.

Year sevens Gemma Phillips and Lily Carnes, who both learnt basic Japanese at primary school, said it was a real buzz for the class to have such an important Japanese dignitary want to take part in their lesson.

“We got to show off our Japanese skills,” Lily said. “All class we were waiting for him to arrive, it was so exciting, we couldn’t wait.”

Loreto hosts exchange students from sister schools in Obayashi and Shibuya each year but the Consul-General was a rare chance to put their learning into action.

Loreto Japanese teacher Louise Moreau-Labregere said for many students, the chance to converse with someone in another language – and be understood – could feel like a superpower.

For Ms Moreau-Labregere’s year seven class, this was a chance to share with the Consul-General new sentences they were creating in describing their town, Ballarat.

Year seven students have also covered real life topics in how to introduce family and friends so they could hold a basic conversation in Japanese.

City of Ballarat and Inagawa are marking a 30-year intercultural relationship. An Inagawa delegation will plant a tree in honour of the partnership on Wednesday.

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