National Newsletter No 18 June 2020
Tēnā koutou! 你好! 안녕하세요 Kia orana! Bonjour! Guten Tag! こんにちは。Salvete! Faka’alofa lahi atu! Talofa lava! Buenos días! Malo e lelei! Malo ni!
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Focus of this newsletter:
- NZALT Webinars
- NZALT Online Inquiry Clusters
- NZSL Cluster information
- 2020 Events Calendar: International Languages Week Competitions final results - NZALT Calendar Competition; Education Perfect and Immerse Me Games
- NZALT Further Study Awards 2020 Recipients
- NZQA Updates: Updated 2020 Secondary Examinations calendar
- National Events: Matariki
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Poster by Rhiannon Thomas, Waitaki Girls' High School
International Languages Week Competition Winners
Congratulations to the following winners of the NZALT International Languages Week Poster competition:
Year 7 and 8
Winner: Ellie Muirhead Craighead Dioscean Timaru
Placings: Keira Shannon Craighead Dioscean Timaru
Isabela Jaide Gray Craighead Dioscean Timaru
Emily Collins Craighead Dioscean Timaru
Briar Depunt Woodford House Havelock North
Year 9 and 10
Winner: Rhiannon Thomas Waitaki Girls' High School
Placings: Jemma Staunton St Mary's College Wellington
Abigail Brooks ACG Strathallan Auckland
Tanvi Kewal ACG Strathallan Auckland
Abby Garrett Tawa College
Thank you to all the students and schools who submitted posters, we were impressed at the standard and number submitted. Sadly some posters could not be placed as the schools were not members of NZALT. We will be using the posters regularly in our newsletters.
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NZALT Webinars 2020
The Webinars are active online workshops where teachers have the opportunity to discuss possible strategies, their merits, their uses, and how they work. The focus of the Webinars will be on strategies supporting the development of language skills.
The last two webinars for term 2 are a repetition of ones from earlier this term:
- Thursday 18 June, 3.45 pm until 5 pm: Developing Listening Skills in a
Learning Languages Classroom
- Thursday 25 June, 3.45pm until 5pm: Developing Writing Skills in a
Learning Languages Classroom
The Zoom meeting link is as follows:
https://zoom.us/j/92937380688?pwd=WjMrQWdSS0U3RjgwK2QxMWxTaDdsZz09
Meeting ID: 929 3738 0688
Password: 812235
The Webinars will continue in term 3 with a focus on developing reading and listening skills for the External Achievement Standards. We would value your ideas for future Webinars in this survey
Teachers of any language, as well as both primary and secondary, are most welcome to join any of these Webinars. It is an excellent opportunity to meet other language teachers, share strategies, and expertise. If you are interested in participating in one of these webinars, please email Madlen Kunath who is our Online PLD Co-ordinator for further details.
If you have attended previous Webinars or were unable to, many of the resources which were shared in these are now available on the following Google site: Integrating e-tools into the language classroom.
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NZALT Inquiry Clusters 2020
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New Zealand Sign Language Teachers' Cluster
Thank you to those NZSL teachers who participated in our first meeting. We have had some feedback on how you would like to progress but would like more before we begin organising regular cluster meetings. We look forward to reading your comments on this document.
We also want to keep in touch with NZSL teachers and to help support you in the best way, please complete this survey so that we can do this.
If you would like further information, please email Jeni Lemberg.
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International Languages Week Competitions
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The EP Languages champs took place in May. This was an incredible event with 182 189 students competing from 2155 schools in over 57 countries. A mindblowing 98052574 questions were answered. What a great celebration of language learning. A big congratulations to Benowa High School for winning the overall top school award and Nimish S from KeriKeri High School for winning the top student award. We would also like to say a special congratulations to Cashmere High School for winning the top NZALT school.
EP Languages also held their inaugural speaking competition in Term 1. This was also a global competition for senior students with 200 entries in the competition. We would like to congratulate all who took part. The winners were as follows:
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Overall winner: Samantha R(Wellington Girls College)
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Winner category 1: Emily F (St. Margaret's School, Victoria), Julia P (Brisbane School of Distance Education)
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Winner category 2: Nicole L (James Hargest College)
It is great to see such great achievements coming from our NZ Languages students.
Ep is holding ongoing webinars covering lots of different topics. Click on the following link for more information about the webinar schedule.
Philippa Kruger
Global Head of Languages
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Kia ora NZALT members,
HUGE congratulations to our inaugural ImmerseMe Games Champions from Kerikeri High School:
- Gillian T - 18,033 points, ImmerseMe Games Dux Award - Top Scholar (includes PDF certificate & $100 digital voucher)
- Nimish S - 16,500 points, ImmerseMe Games Proxime Accessit Award - Runner up (includes PDF certificate & $50 digital voucher)
Students get a point for successfully recording a complete sentence (either spoken or written) within the context of a real-life authentic scenario. So to accrue an excess of 15,000 points EACH took dozens of hours interacting with our virtual native speakers over one week - WOW!!! Overall students earned 478,734 points and made 659,252 recordings. Here is some direct feedback from Nimish S (2nd Place Student Overall)...
"I absolutely love using ImmerseMe. It's a fantastic concept and it's the most realistic, fulfilling and useful language-learning platform that I have ever used. The VR concept is brilliant and effective."
For an inside look at the ImmerseMe Games from a student perspective, watch this video. Full school trials are available for the rest of 2020, click here to get in touch.
Kia kaha Aotearoa! Also a massive THANK YOU to NZALT for making the ImmerseMe Games an official part of NZ Languages Week and well done to all the students!
Scott Cardwell
Co-founder, ImmerseMe |
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NZALT Further Study Awards - 2020
NZALT Further Study Awards for 2020 have been awarded to four very worthy applicants this year. They are:
Jo Veen, Karamu High School
Jennie McMillan, John Paul II High School, Greymouth
Susan Johnson, Lincoln High School
Juliet Kennedy, Victoria University of Wellington
These awards will support these teachers to upskill via further study to improve teaching and learning. We look forward to meeting and hearing from these teachers and their studies at next year's NZALT 2021 Conference.
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NZQA Updates
Changes to NCEA and UE for 2020
This link is a clear guide to the changes which have been made to NCEA and UE due to Covid-19.
National Secondary Examinations Timetable
As you are no doubt aware, there has been a change to the timing of the Secondary Examinations timetable. It can be found here. Please note that the dates for the Common Assessment Tasks for lea faka-Tonga, Cook Islands Maori, and Korean are at the bottom of this new timetable.
NCEA Listening External Assessments in 2020
Updated Assessment Specifications are available for the external standards that assess the understanding of a language through listening and responding to recorded passages.
These specifications now state, “This year in the digital format, candidates will listen to recordings in the same way as they would if completing the standard as a paper-based examination. A recording will be played aloud to all candidates at the same time.”
This statement replaces a previous message that audio would be embedded in examination software.
Enquiries
Please refer any enquiries relating to this circular to your School Relationship Manager.
Digital Assessment NCEA 2020
There have been a number of queries about Digital examinations for Languages Standards in 2020. Further information can be found at this link.
Full details about NCEA Online can be found here.
National Moderator's Report
The National Moderator's report from February 2020 gives details around the following for the Internal Achievement Standards:
- Awarding Excellence
- Collecting evidence
- Student wellbeing
- Assessor support
- Observations from the 'Interact' Standard
- Feedback and feed forward
- Communications
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Matariki
Matariki, the Māori New Year, is typically marked by the rise of the Matariki star cluster and the sighting of the next new moon. Some iwi observe the rise of the lone star Puaka as the beginning of the new year.
In 2020, the Matariki cluster will set on 15 May and return from 13–16 July. The Matariki period is 13–20 July.
More information as well as activities can be found here Matariki
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Useful Links
Excellent links to various activities and resources for the specific language weeks and cultural events can be found at National Events. This is regularly updated.
For support with language teaching and learning, resourcing, planning and much more contact the Centre for Languages at Future Learning Solutions www.futurelearningsolutions.nz
Remember to check the NZQA Subjects page for all the information on the Internal and External Achievement Standards for your language at https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/subjects/
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NZALT Networks of Expertise Newsletter, June, Quick Update 18, 2020
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