September 20th afternoon, BSSC Confucius Classroom welcomed over 30 parents from Camp Hill Primary School, principals and educators from Bendigo Region. Seventeen students from Camp Hill were celebrating their achievements in the seven weeks’ learning of Chinese through role- play presentations, singing and dancing performances and their written works.

Family Tree Poster

The Celebration started with a speech from Linda Lyons, Assistant Principal at BSSC, congratulating on these young kids for their dedication and commitments to Chinese learning. Following that, seventeen students, dressed in Chinese traditional clothes, girls in Qipao and boys in Tanzhuang, performed two songs-Greetings and Numbers. Their confident and lovely singing won lots of applauses from the audience and some parents were also singing along with them. After the performances, students presented role-play conversations asking about personal details. Then, it was the time to showcase their written work-Family Tree Posters. Students also introduced their families to the audience using their creative and artistic posters. It was very obvious that they took great pride and put lots of thoughts and effort in their learning, which was demonstrated through their fluent Chinese speaking and confidence in their presentations.

Lantern Assembly 

The Celebration went on to another highlight with the lantern assembly, followed by delicious Chinese dumplings made by Confucius Classroom teachers. Parents and children worked together in the lantern assembly and children were given Chinese gifts as an award. The whole Confucius Classroom was filled with happiness, enjoyment and laughter. People enjoyed the dumplings so much that many of them asked for the recipe.

Look at My Work

Parents and spectaculars were very impressed with the outcomes of the learning, after knowing that these students had only learned Chinese for seven hours over seven weeks at the Confucius Classroom. Dolly, LOTE (languages other than English) manager from the Department was so touched with their confident performances and great learning outcomes that she had tears in her eyes several times. Some parents were wiping their eyes as they were watching the performances. Parents also said their children often practised Chinese at home and taught them some Chinese as well. Now they were able to speak a little Chinese and sing some Chinese songs. They were grateful that the Confucius Classroom created this great opportunity for their children to access Chinese learning and culture knowledge. They also said they would continue to support their children to study Chinese.

Performing Greeting Song 

Another four local primary schools will join Camp Hill in the learning of Chinese at the Confucius Classroom. A timetable and programs have been in place.

Local newspaper covered this event with a big picture and an article saying “Confucius Say Learning Chinese Just Got Easier”.