Gruyere school in the limelight

By Kath Gannaway
GRUYERE Primary School was thrust into the limelight last week thanks to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
The school was singled out as a great example of Australia-Japan relations by the PM during a visit to a Japanese elementary school.
Gruyere, which has just 47 students, has taught Japanese for the past 12 years.
Part of that is keeping in touch with their “cyber buddies” in Japan by regular emails.
The students use a special language software program developed by an Australian inventor which Mr Rudd said helped improve vocabulary and grammar.
He said the program could be developed to assist teaching of Asian languages across the board in Australian schools.
Gruyere’s teacher of Japanese, Olga Hogan, said students started learning the language in prep and honed their skills right through to grade six.
“The preps know how to write their name in Japanese before they know how to write it in English,” she said.
It seems Yarra Valley schools are well on track to see Mr Rudd’s desire to increase the number of Japanese-speaking Australians.
The Wollombi group of smaller schools of which Gruyere is a member has a dedicated Japanese language assistant, Kumi Clayton.
Ms Clayton divides her time between Silvan, Christmas Hills, Yering, Toolangi, Chum Creek and Gruyere to help with Japanese language and culture.
She said while reading and writing Japanese was challenging, the children took easily to the spoken language, which is phonetic.
Ms Hogan said students have the opportunity to continue with their Japanese with Healesville High School, Upper Yarra Secondary College, Mount Lilydale College and Lilydale Heights Secondary College all offering Japanese.
Other students have continued through distance education, she said.