Ogi in Oz

During June and July 2003 Ogi was in Australia. On this page you can read extracts from many of her interviews. Ogi interviewed Australian high school students and their teachers about Education in Australia.

Topic Index for Ogi's Aussie Interviews

These interviews have not been edited so you may find errors in grammar and vocabulary.
This IS NORMAL in spoken language!

Cleaning the Classroom?

Daniel:
OK, what happens is each student responsible for like cleaning their homeroom so like in the afternoon after school you make sure the home room is clean, of course every every classroom has a home room in it. There are about 20 to 30 people in the home room so they'll all get there and clean all the desks and wipe and clean up the white board and everything. and every home room is a sign like a certain section of the classroom to be cleaned once a week so because you've got so many homeroom and … The toilet and everything don't get cleaned by the students. We have like cleaners and janitors at the school, they'll go through and clean everything so…

Subjects Studied?

Alison:
Yeah, photography is real fun because you just takes pictures, yeah and maths is more like serious because you have to work in maths and English, and sometimes we do fun stuff and like games and that but we still learning so not real games and sometimes in English we watch videos and yeah.

Erm, chemistry is difficult because there is a lot of things to remember. But our teacher's really good. We do lots of exercises so we remember and we do lots of fun experiments. So it's easier to learn and to understand what's going on.

Beth:
Hrhm for chemistry we got lots of homework so that we can remember everything. We do it lots of time erh and if we don't do the homework we won't understand and then we'll fall behind from everyone. Hrm biology we get a bit of homework too and math I don't get so much because I just do a low level for math.

How's the teachers marking the score? Is it by A,B, C or by number?

Hrm no, we get a percentage out of a hundred so we might get 90 percent out of a hundred percent or we do that. Sometimes we get a mark out of 20, or sometimes you get A, B, C depends what the teacher wants to do.

Accounting lessons, what are they like? Is it difficult?

Harriet:
I don't find it difficult because it's very logical and there is a formula to follow when you do accounting so I find it easy.

Do you get lot of homework?

Hrm I don't get any homework from accounting because my teacher doesn't believe in homework, yeah

Final exams?

Well, for accounting hrm we didn't have a final exam. We just had a lot of little test during the whole semester. And they each worth 5 percent and yeah we just had the little test of what we have done so.

Excursion Activities

Allison:
Well, in year 10 at the end of first semester they go to Canberra for just 2 weeks.

What did you do in Canberra? What is the purpose of the excursion?

Hrh it wasn't really educational. It was just about because it is the Australian Capital, so hrm so that we can learn more about Australian capital city, yeah. And we went to Parliament House and the museums and many Australian, many Australian sites.

Library

Allison:
Well, the library opens when school starts about 8 o'clock until 4 o'clock in the afternoon. So if you have exam you can just go to the library after school to keep studying. When borrowing books you have to use your ID card, identification card and you can borrow it for two weeks and then (any books) yup, you just borrow the books for two weeks and then give it back. Hrm and if you don't, if you don't give it back they will send you a note which tells you that you have to give your books back to the library.

Tell me about the facilities inside the library?

Oh, they're really good. I like the facilities because hrm you can just use the computers when you want. Hrm you can just go in there whenever you want for study. Hrm yeah.

Are students not allowed to speak to each other during in that room or ......?

Yeah, we can speak but only quietly. You can't be too loud or noisy because everybody else is trying to study.

Behavior problems and how teachers deal with them and types of punishments

Judy:
In Australian classroom particularly in Northern Territory we are not allowed to have any physical contact with the students. We are not allowed to touch them, we are not allowed to hit them. So you can order them out of the classroom, they will sometimes refuse to go so they knew have to get an assistant principal to come and get that students and take them away and they are put on internal suspension. That means they're removed from the class, they're given work but they sit in a room under the assistance principal supervision and do they work there for two or three days. They don't mix with the other students at recess or lunch time so in theory they don't see their friends. If it is an extremely bad case of an unacceptable behavior such as fighting which some of the boys do do er they are then suspended externally. And that means they stay at home, their parents are supposed to care for them for two or three days whatever it is and then they come back to school. And that's the way we deal with it.

What about controlling the classroom - if students do not pay attention?

We are not allowed to humiliate or belittle the students. It sounds ridiculous I know. But if the students are talking you can ask them to be quiet and I generally do that four or five times and eventually say, ‘This is your last warning. If you don't get into your work I will send you to the focus room’. Now, what that means is we remove the students from classroom and they go down to an area and they spend their time out of the classroom working by themselves under the supervision of another teacher. And the parents are then notified erh generally rung up I think and told to come up. And if they go to the focus room er three times, three consecutive times, the parents are then called in and there is interview between the parents and the students and staff. And the students are generally put on a contract. They've got to sign an agreement that they will do what they're told and behave themselves. And if they don't they could be asked to leave the school.

Geography subject, how is it taught?

Geography is a difficult subject. It's difficult in Australia and it is difficult to teach in a way that will interest students and that's a big challenge for us here in Australia too. Er we have another challenge as well. There is a new aspect of geography that's because of computerisation and also hrm that lots of people now writing program and maps and we have new mapping program coming into the school and some of them are very difficult to learn indeed.

With that subject, are there many assignments, projects or experiments given to the students?

Yes, erhm you would give them a lot of formative work. They are very small sort of things in class because it is a subject that needs a lot of skills. Er so things like if you want them to do mapping assignment outside then you would start off with the basic, how to do a map, the … you know border orientation, legend, title er scale, source, accuracy that where you would start off with the basic. And there might be a little …… exercise like finding hrm ways something in the in the ball or something in the imagery map you might do it that way, just sort of to get their interest. And then you might take the measure in to get the scale because that's such a hardest part of mapping so how to do the scale properly.

With the new technique, with the computerised system yeah. What do you call it?

It's called Map Info and the other one is Ark's View and they both are basically turn data, database and er a graphic and Excel are all together. So you have a three things you can actually put in new information. You can scan er from you know a photo or from a just map of students just made themselves and scanned it in those program and then the program measures it up for you. It actually does all the scale and everything for you yourself and you can actually will put you know all these extra bits of information if you type them in what basically look likes to me an Excel database.

Is it more difficult for the teachers and students, or more exciting?

It's exciting for the students because many of them aren't very good at drawing maps and they get a map that looks really good. But the teachers we have to learn how to use the program. And it's another things to learn so it can be very hard. There are some very good sites on the web that you can actually have erm just a bit of a practice with. But it's not, they are not very straightforward program I heard.

And how do you score the the students' ability?

Hrm well, there is literary part of it. We do expect them to be writing it in … English. Also their mapping. There must be mapping literacy as well. And there is another part which is what we called a special er enquiry where they should be able to map properly, to do scales, but also to be able to draw diagram so that's legible (illegible) or to write to put them on the computer that's actually make sense you know to show how something works.

Do you have advice for Indonesian students? How to make them like the geography subjects?

Er I have advise I think geography is about how the world works and about it's about how the people hrm work within the world and that's if you give it a chance it actually it's it's very enjoyable that's it's sort of area that you will not see on TV very much, TV very much. You don't actually learn it out of fiction, it's something that comes from text book. Something, it's important that we know how you know er that we lives, it's important that we know the impact that we have on environment and what we do to make the environment work for us. And er that's all I'm saying, just give it a chance.

Teacher's Qualifications

Hi, my name is Ruth. Ruth Rynehart. I teach at Darwin High School. My area of teaching is Indonesian language.

What are the qualifications required to be a teacher in Australia?

In Australia er young people that wish to qualifies teacher usually go to university and study in their chosen field first which might be mathematics, science, languages or any other of our key learning areas. When they have finished their base degree which maybe 3 or 4 years of study they then follow a diploma of education or bachelor of education for one year. Hrh that year of training er gives them the practical and theoretical bases for them to qualify as a teacher. It involves approximately 6 to 8 weeks of practical training in schools as well as lectures and theory on education.

And when they finish that teaching practice can they be a teacher?

That's correct. They must pass their practical er teaching component as well as all of the exams and course work for the theory. Once that's er is achieved, is is completed they then apply for ehrm jobs with various education departments. Hrh there are other checks for example they must pass police checks er and obviously must be people of good character and sound character to be able to be employed as a teacher in government or private schools.

OK, and are there any Teachers' Associations in Australia?

Yes. We have a number of teachers' associations er depending on your field of er expertise. Er we have the modern language teachers association in each states and also an umbrella organisation for the whole of Australia and that goes for each of the other areas too. Math teachers association, science teachers association, and then in each states they will also affiliation with the national body. Er locally at this at say in Northern Territory for example our teachers association will er keep in contact with their teachers members by newsletters, emails, er hold meetings maybe once a month maybe once a term usually involving some kind of professional development for their members. Er or maybe guest speaker in their particular field and so on. Besides the professional teachers association there's also this Australian Teacher Union to which a lot of er government school teachers belong. The Private schools teachers also have their own union. The union takes care of or act on teachers' behalf for issues concerning work place safety, er work place condition including the number of students in classes, er salary and salary levels and any other issues that might be to do with the work place with the school work place or with condition for work for teachers.

Can any teachers be a member of that union or a professional union and is there any fee for the members?

Yes. For both the professional association and for the union there are fees. The fees are not big er I think probably the teachers or pay they pay, they pay like pay a percentage of their salary per year for the teachers union. So if you're on a high salary you pay more than somebody who is only just started teaching. They would just pay a percentage of their teach teaching, of their teacher's wage. Er the professional association their membership is usually not too expensive maybe 40 to 60 dollars a year.

Wali Kelas or ‘Home Group Teacher’

OK, erhm in Australia our home group teachers are are in responsible for taking the roll, marking the roll of students that are present at school every morning. And also usually for distributing any notices er making any announcement to their their home group class concerning the day to day running of the school. This is also a pastoral care role, just keeping our eye on the kids making sure that they're coping well erh that they're managing their studies and they don't seem to be troubled by other things outside school. If you see a student is a bit worried or upset you might have a quiet words with them and if necessary refer them on to ehrm other assistance for example to our school counsellor or the school nurse or perhaps just mention it to the year coordinator that somebody, er one of our student seems to be having a bit of trouble coping and then other people in the school can then pick up on that and maybe follow it through and find out what might be the problem and how that students can be supported. Hrm It's only 10 to 15 minutes every morning but it's an important part of the day being er a home group teacher. At the end of semester the home group teacher is the person who collects all the final reports from all of the students other teachers and make sure each indi, individual student report is ready to be posted home.

The Roll Book (Students Attendance Report)

Okay, yes, teachers in Australia have to keep by law have to keep a very accurate roll book er which is er actually a legal document in case a student ever has to verify that they were actually in attendance at school on a certain day. For example they might be custody issues if hrm parents have been divorce and a parent might say ‘I believe my child was not at school on these days’, and in that case the school roll would be produced in court and that would verify whether that person was actually in school or not during that day. Er so it's a very important document. It has to be filled out every morning. The Rolls are then sent down to our school office and they are cross-checked by er person whois called the Home Liaison Officer. And that person in particular keeps an eye out for absentees, the students who are regularly absent er perhaps for no reason and will then follow through with those students, perhaps there is a reason why they are absent or perhaps the students might be wagging. Just like in Indonesia I suppose.

Ya, and you mention that you do the attendance list and then you also do it the afternoon before the school finishes?

Hrm that would be ideal but in fact we we always do it every morning and mark half-day present. It's just not possible. We don't have enough hours in the day to do it again in the afternoon. Some schools may do it twice a day. At Darwin High School we mark the roll in the morning and then in addition there are the pink scanned sheet, the computer scanned sheet that every teacher has for every lesson. And so in lesson 1 I will again mark the attendance, in lesson 2, lesson 3, lesson 4. At the end of the day all of those pink scanned sheets are taken down and put through the computer system to cross check with the roll. So that's the way we cover the whole day. We can actually tell by 4 o'clock in the afternoon whether a student has been absent from one class but not another. Would they been absent for the whole day and so on.

Timetable of the Day at Darwin High School

Hrh at Darwin High we run a six lesson day and that means that we actually started at 7.45 er with the teachers meeting which goes until five to eight. At five to eight home group starts and all the students will come to the school building then go to their home room. Home group runs until 8.10 each morning and then the lesson start. There are two lessons before recess. Two lessons after recess and before lunch and another two lessons after lunch before home time. Each lesson is about 50 to 55 minutes long. We finish school at 2.30 in the afternoon and the students perhaps catch buses, walk home, ride their bikes. Some of the senior students drive their own cars. Nobody here ride motorbike to school only one or two of the teachers but they have those big bikes, yeah. At lunch time. Lunch time is about 40 minutes long and at 12 o'clock the students break for lunch and go out into the play ground and buy their lunches at the canteen or perhaps has brought their lunch from home, they'll find a quiet spot in the play ground to sit and eat and talk to their friends or maybe play sports.

Teacher Meetings Every Morning

OK, hrm it was introduced at Darwin High school about 4 years ago when I first arrived. And I've seen the system operate in other schools very well too. It's an opportunity for all of the teachers in our school and we have a big school with over 65 teachers. All of our teachers to be in the one place for just 5 minutes of the day. Er check their mails through their pigeon hole system and collect the daily notices which are then read out in home room class and any other information that might be important. It's also an opportunity for administration to make any announcement er or just to speak informally on issues that might be arising or events that might happening that day. Hrm sometimes events aren't expected and you can't always put them in the daily notices in time. The daily notices get printed everyday for the following day. The deadline is mid-day. So something occurs in the afternoon erhm then you would have to mention it the next morning. It's a great way for admin to get their messages through hrm and it's also an opportunity for individual teacher who's perhaps organising events, to just remind other staff, doesn't take long and it works really well.

It's also if something has, something very positive has happened for the school for example the sport team has won something or or erhm student has done some particularly good work or perhaps done something in the community that is worthy or notable then would be mentioned too. So that when teacher see those students during the day they'll say, "hey, that's well done. I hear you were successful at such and such". Makes a very big different to individual student to do that.

Yard Duty (Humpty Doo Primary School)

My name is Terry. I teach at transition to 1 – 2 classes here at the school. And the Yard Duty, my role is to walk around the area that I'm patrolling, we use the word patrol, to make sure that the children are safe in the areas they play, to help them keep this yard tidy by asking them to pick up rubbish and if they look like they're going to ehrm have an accident or potential problem to try and get to that before it happens. Just to try to make sure that they have safe environment to play, an environment that they are happy and comfortable. Any disputes yeah any arguments between children to talk them through that and. We have a fence around the school and play very close to the fence, if a ball goes over the fence they have to approach the teacher and ask permission and then you watch to make sure they're safe for them to go out to get the ball and then come back. Basically yeah, it's duty of care (sounds of the bell)

Is the yard duty during recess and lunch time?

Recess and lunch and there is also yard duty in the morning and half an hour before school start and after school because a lot of students catch buses. There is duty down whether they catch the buses to make sure there's an orderly line. People don't get into trouble, don't miss their bus, yeah control down there too.

How many teachers in one day do the yard duty? Just one person?

No, no. We have three areas for recess and lunch. And recess, three teachers would do recess, six would do it at lunch time because it's broken up into two 20 minutes sessions. Ehrm three teachers would do it in the morning and I think two or three would do it in the afternoon. So there's probably about 12 teachers.

Do you have to wear hat during the yard duty?

We must wear a hat for yard duty. It's part of the school sun safe policy. Because here in this area of Australia in particular because we are so close to the equator, the UV rating is very high. And as a protection against sun burn, potential skin cancer damage we must wear hat. The children must wear shoes for safety, they're allowed to take them off in the sand pit because otherwise we'll spend 10 minutes getting the sands out of their shoes and doing the shoes laces up again. And also if we go on excursion we encourage the uses of sunscreen, sunblock and drinking lots of water. As also part of the sun (safe policy).

Curriculum

Hello, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Barbara Dukas. I teach year 3 – 4 class at Humpty Doo Primary School.

We're using the curriculum framework which is a new curriculum documents that we've been using quite comprehensively here at Humpty Doo school for 12 months. The curriculum framework looks at all the subject areas such as science and social education, English, math, indigeneous cultures, arts and crafts, physical education and health.

We try to integrate as much as we can within our subjects. When we teach English for example we would also integrate some of the social education and the health concept in the curriculum. We try to bring that in our English teaching. So that we are not just teaching English in isolation. It's the same with with teaching a health, health topics, we would always integrate other subjects areas, arts and crafts, social education into that topic so that our teaching is very integrated.

I see that classes here is mixed students from different years and why's that?

OK. At Humpty Doo school we operate on a multi multi age, multi level system where we have children in our classes who are at different levels and different ages. Now, I teach year 3, 4 class but most of the classes at Hympty Doo school would be three grade levels in the one. So you would have a year 2, 3, 4 class for example, and 5, 6, 7 class. And that's because we believe that children need to be taught where they're at, at the level that they're at rather than just the grade level that they're at. So in my class, the year 3, 4 class I would would teach the children and and the levels that they're at regardless of what their age. So year 4 students for example who's only working at a at a low year 1 level I would teach the concept that he needs to learn at this level and I would be not teaching him as the four year students and the things that necessarily as the four year students would need to learn.

Does that apply to other schools?

There are other primary schools in Darwin that are working on multi age system but Humpty Doo school has been operating multi-age classes for quite number of years and it's the way that our school function. It's part of our belief system at Humpty Doo school that children need to be taught at the level that they're at. That children benefit from the interaction of other children from different ages. So younger children benefit enormously from older children. And older children also benefit enormously through peer tutoring and working with younger children. It is the phylosophy or our school.

Is there any homework?

Children do have homeworks. In my class the homework that I give I give out on Monday and I expect the homework back on a Friday so the children have a week to complete it. And I try and device mathematical type tasks, and English type tasks along with research, reading those sort of things that supplement what I'm teaching in in school. So when I send homeworks home with the children, what they do for the homework is consolidating sorts of things they are doing in classroom.

Are there any projects and experiment involved?

As in science experiment? Yes, it's all part of the curriculum. We teach science experiment, investigation for children, I've given a topic where they have to find out the answer to, they use computer to research information, they use the internet to help them with projects and to find information.

Are they allowed to use internet? At this age?

Yes, yes. We have 3 computers in every classroom at least and children have free use of the computer throughout the day.

Excursions?

We have excursions which are outside activities. Children, the children usually catch a bus and go to places outside the school which supplement what they are learning in class. So for example if I've teaching the children about the sea or the beach then. It won't be unusual to organise an excursion to the beach or to Indo Pacific Marine or would go to the museum in Darwin and and have a look at things at the museum that would supplement our program here at school.

The Enrolment System

Pre-school

When children are four years of age they go into our pre-school system. Pre-school is not a compulsory part of education. Parents can choose not to send their children to pre-school if they wish. But most parents in Australia would send their children to pre-school because they would see how beneficial it is as a readiness for getting getting ready for school. So most parents would choose to send their children to pre-school and that happens when children are four. As soon as they turn five they then qualify to go into the primary school system which is in the Northern Territory transition. It depends in the school year as to when they turn five as to when they go into transition. If for example a child is five years in March, turn they turn five in March they would not be able to go into transition until April in second term. So they would have missed out on a quarter of the school year. They would start in second term. If they turn five in September, there is no intake of transition at that time of the year so they then will have to wait until the following year, the start of the following year in order to to start in transition.

Tuition Costs

What about the tuition? Do the students have to pay a certain amount of money? What happen if students don't pay the money?

We have a fee structure that's imposed by our school council. It's very minimal. It's a very small fee and would be easily payable by most parents. Now, any parents who couldn't afford the small fee involved would be allowed to talk to their school teachers and the principal of the school. And if they exempt you out of certain circumstances where parents feel they just simply didn't have the fund to pay the school fees, that could be negotiated with the principal and the principal would be able to waive that if the principal think the need was there. But the fee structure at our school is very small and is not restricted for any parents at all.

And are students are provided with all the materials, the text books, the er writing pads?

Students are provided with exercise books with pencils with erasers with erh text books that they need. All the computers are are funded within the school and through the education department. All the sporting equipment that they use.

Primary School Students Talking to Ogi

My favorite subject is probably arts and sports. Erh I like to draw a lot. Yeah, I just muck, I got a piece of paper and I just muck around. I just draw sort of things. Probably I can say the most favorite subject I hate is spelling.

And why's that?

I just, I'm not very good at spelling. I try sort of hard but I don't really learn that quick of my spelling so it's pretty hard but I like my sport because I'm a big sporting fan, yeah

How do you go to school?

Well, my mum is a teacher at school and so she drives me to school everyday and takes me home. So sometimes after school I stay home very late sort of 5 o’clock or something. I'll stay at school until my mum decides to go home

And what do you do during that time?

Oh just play around on computer and draw. Yeah, in the library or kick a ball around, something like that.

Have you ever come late to school? And what happened?

Hrm I came late to school for about a week and I got papers, community service and yes

What do you do as punishment?

Yeah, like sometimes we get papers or if it's really bad you get detention, we call it ‘think tank’. Or if it's really really bad you'll get suspension or expelled.

What do you call detention?

Detention we call it ‘think tank’

What do you do?

We go have to go to a room at lunch time, and we have to sit there and we have to think what we did and then we have to write down what did and why we did it. What would be better like if we've done something else, yeah

Students Representative Council

Hrm we also got the school SRC which are Students Representative Council people and you go to meeting every week and it is, is like House Captain but not for sport day. And you just got like, you tell people if they're running on the concrete to stop running and you just bring up certain issues at the meeting about what other kids want in the school. Say we want a pool in the school, you go and bring that up at this meeting but yeah

The meeting is every week and like if someone said like "Oh I really want pool in the school you can go and you can talk to the teachers about it. And you like and the kids and you kind of like a little mini teachers so it's really cool.

Now, can any students come to that meeting?

Hrm No, only only for the representative and there's two representative per class for years 3 up.

Is it year 4?

Yes, years 4 up

Is it mainly for asking for more facilities of any other issues like for example you don't like the homework you are receiving?

No

It's just sort of like things you want to change around the school not like in the classroom or the school work. That's what the teacher like just little things like say like you want goal pad on the goal place and you want just like you want to say … a sit on sunny day or a pool

For example, can you say I don't like the menu of the canteen and we want some changes?

Yeah, we could probably say cause we don't have any chocolate at the canteen, you can or you have like a little bit of chocolate but you could probably say ‘oh most of the kids have brought up the issue that there's no chocolate at the canteen and they would like some'

Students Representative, is there any chairman?

There might be leading sort of teachers

So teachers actually lead the meeting?

Yeah, like sort of like chair person in parliament, yeah.

There's two teachers in the room. They like one in the front row like writing down … And once that teacher finishes all that they'll go to …

Is it likely the teachers and principal listen to what the students suggest?

Yes, it is pretty much likely because it it was likely we would have them.


Who runs the canteen?

Well, some parents of the students do. They put their name down something or other and teachers and something happen and they get sell their food. And year 7, if they want like help out at the canteen, you serve people if you want to. You go to the canteen and you put your name down and every week you got a certain day that you go and you like serve people like in the middle line and you serve them and get what they want.

BIG BOOK (in primary schools)

Hrm My name is Joanna Lindsy. Hrm about the Big Book. I think the big books are good to use with younger children because the children can really join in with the story. Children can see the pictures and see the words and begin to think about words expressing meaning and telling a story. Children using a big book with a class, the teacher can talk to the students about letters and sounds. And children begin to recognise words. And sometimes after you use a big book you can give the children their own small book of the same stories and they can do reading work with the book and it the pictures are bright and big enough for the all the children to see and so they enjoy the story experience even more.

Does that applies to low level primary students?

I think, I think pre-school, transition, grade 1 and 2 would, is the best, the best age for big book. Maybe grade 3 but then the children start to become independent readers and they prefer to read longer books and big book tend to be retained especially for young children. Simple stories, short stories, so yes, younger children.

What we have done, the children make their own book. They write a story and they draw picture and illustration and they they compile it into a book so that they are the author, they are the illustrator and this is a real book which you can put in the school library or you can take it to another class and read your own book to someone. I do that with my children. It makes them feel very proud of their writing. It also encourages them to read to other people and it gives them good motivation because the work that they are doing, the final product is very special.

OK. My name's Allison Hobson and I'm the senior teacher of the Secondary Intensive English Unit at Darwin High School.

What is SEIU?

Hrh The Secondary Intensive English Unit is for students who just arrive in Australia, from other countries who are learning English. So they stay with us until they get enough English to cope in the mainstream high school.

And how long does student have to do it?

Depend on the students. Depends on how long it takes them to develop a certain level of English.

And the period is depend on each student?

Definitely. We have some students who come from background where they have no education, have no experience with schooling, and it takes them a lot longer than somebody who is confident in learning and is able to relate English to their first language.

Methods used in teaching English

Hrm, well, we have variety of methods I probably would say. We try to teach what we call the generic approach. So the genre where we look at the different genre er different types of writing, different types of English. So for example, you would say … you're my intermediate teacher. So in this class we would do, we'll look at report writing, narrative writing, recount procedures basically. Now, when they get to the next level they would do different types of writing. Hrm it's… So the students are working in English all day. OK. But they, we, in my classroom they never use their languages because there are just too many students from many different backgrounds I can't use their language. If the student is confused, if they are lucky they can get help from a friend who might speak their language, you might translate for them but on the whole I have to teach in a way that they can visualise what I'm trying to say and they can slowly pick up the skills. So everything has to be structured so that their skills is building up for the next skills so that by the end of the lessons they understood what I tried to do.

Some Advice on the best way to learn English

Use it as much as possible. If you want to learn English you need to be, it needs to be an active process. You cannot just learn from the classroom. It has to be something you are using outside of the classroom as well. And the more you can practice, the more you can mix with people who speak English as their first language, the more vocabulary you develop. Hrh and really concentrates more on speaking and listening before you worry about the reading and writing. That would come a lot easier. The more practice you have the more understanding and the more you can hear and listen to.

Teacher Student Relationships in Australia

Hrh that varies to where you're at. Hrm where I work at Intensive English Unit, the teachers students relationship is very close to being a friend. It isn't. There has to be respect. There has to be the teacher is you know in control, the teacher has to be the organiser but it is important that the students want to participate, they don't feel intimidated by us because if they're intimidated they won't talk, they won't learn because they're scared to make mistake. If they're scared to make mistake then they're never going to try and if you don't try your English you never learn it. So it's important in the unit we keep the relationship relax.

In a high school situation it's a little bit different but fundamentally in Australia the teachers are really, they they're the organiser. They they're not, no longer the whole role of knowledge. The teacher job is not just to give information but to organise the students to help them to get information themselves. So it's to teach the students how to research. It's to teach the students how to to learn a subject but not just to give them information. So I think it's the biggest difference I've found overseas is that a teacher is seen as a (the only resource) yes, and they're seen above the students whereas in Australia they're not. Sometimes it causes problem especially with teenagers when they're going through puberty and their hormones are a bit active. You often found in the high school classes there's conflict between students and teachers because the teacher feels that they have no control, because they can't enforce things on the students, and the students being a usual teenager not wanting to be cooperative. So it can be have problems. In the unit I don't think we have many problems at all because the students want to learn.

Is there punishment if students have bad attitude?

Yes, but it's not a physical punishment. The the students or the teachers use a variety of methods. They might use things like lunch time detention, er they might have er sometimes there might be not a punishment, other time they might try to reinforce the good behaviour by giving awards to good students. So that the other students want to get the positive reinforcement as well. So that changes some students. If some, if a student is very naughty then the teacher would use a variety of method that verbally asking them to erhm behave themselves whether that's removing them from the classroom and to what we call a focus room where the students have to go to another room and they have to write out what they have done wrong and they have to talk to the teacher later and work out how they're going to come back into the classroom. There's also we use the parents a lot, we do talk to parents and explain what is happening and you try to ask the parents to help the situation at school as well and if the students are very bad, they'll either be suspended from school or expelled from school which means they are stop, they are not allowed to attend school for certain amount of time and if they're expelled they can't come back to that school which is on their record. So if they ever want to get a job, it's on their record that they have a behaviour problem. So most students don't like that and lots of parents would not like that happen to students.

Year Book

Every year, schools, in high schools around Perth produce a Year Book which consists of a lot of summaries of the year, for example a break down of each year group. The year coordinator er will write a summary of the achievements and highlights and the events of the year. It's also full of photos from all year group. But at the back of the year book there is always a single photograph of each graduating student or student that was in year 12.

Er the reason for the year book is possibly for students to reflect back on the year.

At Melville Senior High School students have a lot of input into the production of the year book. So students would spend the year taking digital photos around the school and quite often they will, the task of producing the year book might be integrated with one of their tasks, for one of their learning areas. So hrm they get a lot of experience that hrm organising things, working in a team and developing those editing, editing skills.

And the students will get that book?

Hrm each student will get a book and it's also for sale and anybody else who would like to have a copy of that book.

The School Council

The role of the School Council. The School Council is the body that's made up of elected people from the community, parents, students and staff. And there's a membership. The government insists that every school has a School Council. Total membership on a school council is 15 people and the majority must be parents and members of the community. And that school council role is to advise the principal as to the direction that they wish that the school to be running in. It's an Advisory role only. They can't force the principal but it would be hrm very strange principal who didn't take the advice of the school, school council. So that that's talk about education direction, school philosophy and general school direction. The Parents and Citizen Association is also, works below the school council and it's role is to support the school. So and that tends to be fund raising, hrm providing hrm additional resources school that are not generally provided by the government. So for example in our cases, the school council is contributed very much to the air conditioning of the school and we have a major project which we launch next term which will be the complete re reconfiguration, rebuilding, rejuvenation of our two court …… where students can meet and learn. Hrm the P & C has the membership on the school council. So a member, the president of the P & C is on the school council as well. So that everyone is got a voice within the school and we've got a very active both school council and and Parents & Citizen Association. We have at our general meeting we have 50, 55 people turn up and in secondary school that's very good. And the school council has been in operation now for for many years.

Students Council

Students Council is representative body elected from the students members whose erh role is to assisting the public representation of the school. So for example we have ceremonies, events, celebrations where the school needs to be represented they're there. They also have the role of being the voice for the students. The Students Council has representation on School Council. So two members of the Students Council usually the senior, two senior students also sit on the School Council. So they help shape the direction of the school. So that the voice of the students is heard in all the way through. Hrm we have er our students council is er exist, created from an election in each year group. And ours is at the moment we are in the middle of changing our constitution to reflect hrm our house system, a competition system that we have running in the school. So our school is divided into four sub-houses. And erh so that's that work extremely well. There's one teacher who coordinate it. Coordinate the students council and hrhm they also do fund raising for charities. And er I know that on Monday we will have our red nose appeal. I think it's Monday? Yes, coming up. And the students council respond for that er National Cancer Day, SID - sudden infant death Syndrome which is the red nose appeal day. Hrm there's lots of charity that they will fund raise for. So it's it's a benevolence, a really good sort of hrm things to get students connected with their own immediate community within the school and the community beyond the school.

The students make the election?

In our constitution it's purely from the students body. Hrm I do have the ultimate veto if there is somebody who I believe may not hrm (uphold?) the position well then I have the right for veto. Hasn't happened so far. So that's good.

About Vocational Enterprise Program

Vocational Enterprise Program. It's actually called Educational and Vocational Enterprise. That's that vocational education. Hrm It provides students with an opportunity to make connection to the work place. And also they are program that link students to TAFE, tertiary and further education as opposed to university. It's technical school, technical. They're not school, they're post, post school yup. Hrm the program are not in place hrm throughout all secondary high school in western Australia. So a student chooses which course they're going to do it. Will they do a tertiary entrance course or do they do a VET course. They choose. And part of the VET course this days is is that they also will have access to structured work place learning which is where they go out and they spend a week or a day a week or a block of two weeks, four weeks in a work place and they're actually assessed in that work place. So so you're interested in coming er working on radio, you go and working on radio station for a month. The people who you are working with will train and assess you. You have teachers who would come and visit you while you're there to make sure that everything is okay, things going well. And at the end of it you're actually get a mark, recorded whether you pass it or not pass. That's going to be developed more and more so in Western Australian schools whether you're tertiary entrance bound or not. Okay.