A perennial issue that has faced Australian LOTE teachers over the years is how to provide adequate opportunities for students to practice their language skills with native speakers in a real communicative environment.

Thankfully, the potential offered by the Learning Place to link Queensland students with learning communities around the world provides a very workable means by which this issue can be successfully resolved.

To give an example, for the past year students of Japanese at Townsville State High have been involved in an on-going exchange with peers from Kawabe Junior High, a school in Townsville’s Japanese sister-city of Iwaki, located approximately 300 kilometres north of Tokyo.

Townsville State High School Chloe Munro, exercising her Japanese skills to take part in the weekly chat session with students from Kawabe High. Ava Greenwood, a year 9 student of Japanese, who regularly takes part in the chat.

At the heart of the exchange has been a weekly 90 minute internet chat session, run through the Learning Place, during which students from Townsville and Iwaki exchange information, explore views and perceptions, and overall forge friendships. Needless to say, the exchange has proven to be a wonderful tool for students to consolidate their language skills and cultural knowledge in a low-pressure, enjoyable environment which has certainly been positive in bolstering students’ intrinsic motivation for their LOTE studies. In time collaboration between the two schools has branched out to include integrated work units and learning tasks the completion of which has required cooperative exchange by students in both countries through the use of the chat room and forums.

The number of project rooms listed on the Learning Place sporting an overseas connection certainly suggests that what is being done by Townsville State High and it’s Japanese partner school is by no means novel. Given the relative ease of use the Learning Place, from my own experience the most difficult component of establishing such a partnership is making the person to person connection overseas with someone who is equally enthusiastic about making an internet exchange work.

Kawabe Junior High School Participating students. Iwaki students exchange information via internet chat sessions.