In year 7 Languages, students have the chance to experience all three Languages at Woodville High School: Aboriginal Studies, Indonesian and Vietnamese. In Indonesian, students are learning about Celebrations including:
- Imlek (Lunar New Year)
- Ramadan & Lebaran (Eid-Al-Fitr)
- Hari Kemerdekaan (Independence Day)
- Hari Raya Nyepi (Hindu New Year, Day of Silence)
The Balinese Hari Raya Nyepi is the Hindu New Year, a day of silence, and fell on the 3 rd of March this year. In Bali, the night before, locals hold a loud Ngrupuk Parade where they create giant bamboo monsters to scare away the evil spirits in Bali and parade them loudly through the neighbourhoods. The next day, Hari Raya Nyepi, everyone in Bali is silent to fool the evil spirits into thinking Bali is abandoned! Everyone stays home and does not cook hot food or work. They
instead pray and reflect on themselves and their actions, setting personal goals.
To celebrate the end of term, students in year 7 Indonesian learn about Hari Raya Nyepi and the Ngrupuk Parade. They could create a monster mask and we paraded around the school to scare away the evil spirits! Afterwards, we played traditional Indonesian Independence Day games.
Thank you to Gabby Daniele for providing support.
Student feedback included:
“[My favourite celebration was] Hari Raya Nyepi because I love the monster that shows in the parade, and I like how everyone gets to be loud and everyone is included.”
“My favourite [celebration] was Ramadan because I could see what my friends do during Ramadan and understand.”
“I have really enjoyed Indonesian, and I will definitely do Indonesian again.”
“I have enjoyed many things about Indonesian this term, but one of my favourite things, has been that all of the tasks have been fun to do, and I have also learnt a lot of things in Indonesian, and even though I learnt Indonesian in primary school, I still enjoyed it this term.”
“My favourite thing about Indonesian this term was the invitation and creating the mask. Another favourite thing that about this term was the number song.”
“I like being to learn about Indonesian culture, being able to speak it, and being able to write it, but the thing I like best about being able to learn all of this, is because it is fun to learn about other people’s culture, language, and how they write different things”
“[I like] Independence Day because I think it has a lot of games to play on that day.”
