Visitors in our class...

Huia 1 reporters, So Yeon and Nikeeta, report on reporters reporting on us and take photos of the photographer taking photos of us!

Kelly is taking a photo of us and Joanna is talking to Mrs Vincent.

Click here to see The Aucklander report about our class.

A couple of weeks ago Joanna, Kelly and Hannah from The Aucklander magazine came to our school because they were working on a feature story about languages and language teaching, and after speaking with the national language teachers' association, they found about our school (The Gardens School) which had a very cool language programme and they wanted to add it to their story.

Kelly, Joanna and Hannah watch what happens in our Spanish lesson. (Note Rosie's latest edition of The Maungakiekie Times Intermediate Newspaper is in the front of the picture, all ready for distribution)

We asked them about other places they had been to and discovered that they have been to a variety of different countries like Europe, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Lithuania, Italy, Israel, USA, Germany, Wales, UK, Welsh, Australia, Greece, South Africa, Zimbabwe, England, Scotland, Ireland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, and Switzerland. We were in a shock when we heard that they had been to so many places.

After a little while it was time for Options and Spanish. Some of the students had a short time to talk to Joanna, Kelly and Hannah. We learned that the message Hannah wanted to pass on was "Learning different languages is great!" She loves to travel and being able to talk to the locals, in their own tongue, and is very interested to learn about different cultures and this is such a big part of learning a new language.


Joanna wanted to pass on that learning different languages is a really important school subject and she personally would like to see learning a second language made compulsory in all schools. In Wales, where she is from, you have to learn both Welsh and English at school until you are 16, and if you want, you can learn another language too. Joanna thinks it's good to keep other languages alive, because more people can learn and see things from a different perspective. If only Joanna could find a Welsh class here, then she could try and remember it all. Kelly wanted to pass on that learning a new language is great, keep up the good work at The Gardens. (Yay us!)

Joanna interviews some of the year 8 students.

Since they are such good news reporters now, we wondered what they personally wanted to grow up and become when they were little. Kelly answered that she didn't want to be a news reporter because she wanted to be a marine biologist and train dolphins. Kelly got interested because she took photography as a subject at school and loved it, and now she is lucky to be working as a photographer.

However Hannah had something different in mind and she actually dreamed of becoming a (famous) author when she was little, because she always liked reading newspapers and magazines. Hannah got interested because she liked the idea of working with many different topics, meeting lots of interesting people every day and to be always 'up to date' with the latest news. And, she also thinks that reporters are doing a very important job informing the public about 'what's going on' in the world.

Joanna wanted to be a writer and decided on becoming a reporter when she was 14 she enjoyed reading magazines and newspapers. She got interested in becoming a news reporter because (like Hannah) she loved meeting lots of different people and doing different things everyday. She likes the challenge of finding stories and trying to write them before a deadline, and she thinks newspapers are important for people to know what's happening in the places they live.

Joanna, Hannah and Kelly talked about what made them interested in visiting The Gardens School. Joanna said that she was working on a feature story about languages and language teaching, and after speaking with the national language teachers' association (NZALT), she found out that The Gardens School had a very cool language programme, and she wanted to add it into her story.

Kelly said that Joanna, (their reporter) heard about our Spanish class, and they thought it would be interesting to come and find out more. Joanna, Kelly and Hannah did go to other schools and wanted to find out what languages the students are learning now days. They went to an international language school, to see what they offered to students.

Often, when you're writing a story to deadline you don't always have time to visit lots of schools. Joanna didn't go to any other primary schools, but she did visit Euroasia, which is a language school that does evening classes for adults.

We learned a lot from Joanna, Hannah and Kelly and probably some of the students in Huia 1 have already got an idea of what they want to do in the future.

By So Yeon & Nikeeta

We compare where we are in New Zealand and where Senora Lee is in Granada... and discover that it is as far as you can go from New Zealand before you start to come back.

Senora Lee sent us an email telling us about what she was doing and the meals she had eaten in Granada. We could work out what most of it meant by starting with what what we already knew, and using Senora Lee's photos and writing from her blog to help work out the rest.