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Chiara Bicanic

Hi, how are you? My name is Chiara and last year I studied Italian at school.

Ilha Jung

Hello. My name is Ilha and I studied Japanese at school for 6 years.

Anika Popovik

Hi, I am Anika. I studied French. I really like languages, I hope everyone can continue to learn languages.

Thomas Elibank-Murray

Hello. My name is Tom. I have been studying Japanese for 6 years. Pleased to meet you.

Scarlett Elliott

Hello. My name is Scarlett and I studied German and Japanese for the HSC.

Ilha Jung

All right. Luca. Why did you choose to study a language for your HSC?

Luca Butterworth

Language learning, I found pretty fun. It was a good kind of change from the other subjects, which are quite content heavy, and sometimes a bit dry. And I also wanted to talk to family members as well who spoke that language. So yeah, that's why I learned languages.

Jerry Zhang

Well, for me, in Year 7, I always knew that I wanted to study a language so I can take it beyond high school. And I felt that languages could be beneficial for me in the future. What about you, Lily?

Lily Parsons

Well, I chose to study language because I'd really like to live overseas. And I'd like to travel a lot. And with Spanish being one of the most commonly spoken languages, I just thought it would be really helpful.

Chiara Bicanic

My chosen language was Italian. And I chose to study that because I have family who live over there. And I wanted to be able to communicate with them and just really learn more about the culture, and the language, and the history.

Scarlett Elliott

How did your teacher motivate you? Describe the impact they had on your learning. When I was studying language at high school, I actually had two different methods of learning. So, for Japanese, I was in a class with my teacher. And that was fantastic because the way that the language was taught to us there was very much with like a contextual sort of background. So, all the fundamentals and stuff was taught to us within a contextual sort of like how this would be used in real life.

So that helped a lot. For German, I was doing distance education. So, I was very self-governed in that sphere. So, the motivation was basically entirely from myself.

Luca Butterworth

I think the most motivating thing that my teacher did was that she'd give us feedback all the time. And so, you could kind of see how you're improving.

Lily Parsons

My teacher motivated me really well actually. She was always there for us when we needed. We could email her any questions we had. And having that constant feedback and support, that was really good for motivating.

Anika Popovik

How did you push through when you felt your motivation lagging, or when you found something particularly challenging? I can't say that I had one strategy for that. Again, I found myself, I guess, constantly reminding myself that this is what I wanted to do. This is my passion. Because I have continued on with languages after high school.

Melissa Park

So I think language learning doesn't always have to be difficult and challenging. Even when you want to take a break, doing things like listening to music in that target language. So, I like listening to Japanese music, or even just watching a short YouTube video in that language really helped.

Thomas Elibank-Murray

Being able to talk to someone else in another language being able to open yourself up to a new culture, being able to hear, and see, and understand things that you previously never really could before is, I feel, a huge motivation.

Scarlett Elliott

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I actually had ADHD. So that did come with a fair amount of issues in terms of language learning. But I just had to keep reminding myself of the goal, which was ultimately to just get quite fluent. And I also wanted to continue to study it at university.

Jerry Zhang

How did studying a language impact you as a student?

Lily Parsons

I think as a student, it helped me to be more self-motivated. With all the distance learning, it really helped me take time away from being guided in all my classes. It helped me, yeah, become more self-reliant. But it was also just a really good break in my study routine. I did a lot of guided subjects, English, and math, and religion. So, it was a really good break away from that. I just got to be independent. And I think it actually helped me stay motivated for all of my subjects.

Jerry Zhang

Yeah, right.

Scarlett Elliott

As a student, it helped me a lot with just sort of broadening my horizons in terms of media consumption. Because I was able to sort of delve into different spheres of film, and art, and literature, and whatnot. And it also opened up the possibility of travelling overseas.

Melissa Park

Studying Japanese helped me build that confidence with connecting with people. And that's not just with Japanese people, but people in general. So, building that social skill. And I have a background in medicine. So, I have this goal of mine, which is to enable and utilise my Japanese to connect with patients who aren't able to speak the English language, and patients from linguistically diverse countries, and be able to convey what they want to say in the healthcare setting.

Luca Butterworth

Was there a time, Ilha, when you achieved beyond your expectations?

Ilha Jung

For sure. I think when we went to the school trip to Japan, I didn't think that I could have a conversation with Japanese people there. But when I was able to make friends with them, attend their classes, attend their after-school activities such as tennis, soccer, and really engage in their culture in first person, I think that really made me realise that, wow. I'm actually learning something. I'm actually applying what I'm learning.

Melissa Park

A time where I achieved beyond my expectation was when I applied for the position as a health care interpreter. And that was a few years after I graduated from high school. But I think the reason why I was able to achieve that and apply for it was because of the confidence that I had built over through studying languages during high school.

Thomas Elibank-Murray

What did you enjoy the most? And why? There was a lot that I enjoyed about learning Japanese.

Lily Parsons

I really enjoyed learning about new cultures and new ways of life. It really opens up your world view. I also really enjoyed the unique relationship that I got to have with my teacher, because it's just so different than the relationship you have with any of your other subject teachers.

Luca Butterworth

Being part of a small class and kind of helping each other along, it was a lot of fun. You didn't feel like you're doing it all by yourself, which sometimes, other subjects, it feels like.

Anika Popovik

The teacher would bring in Chinese food. We would actually do cooking.

Melissa Park

My teacher would always bring little bits of the Japanese culture into our classroom, and also allowed us to get involved in incursions as well. So, we would have people like sushi chefs come along, and teach us a bit about how to make sushi.

Thomas Elibank-Murray

Me and another person who comes from another background may be different. But there are so many things that make us the same. And being able to talk to them in language and recognise those differences, but also find those common things, is so, so amazing and wonderfully-- wonderful to be able to do.

Chiara Bicanic

What do you think is the biggest factor in succeeding in language learning? Practice.

Jerry Zhang

Practising every day, spending a bit of time revising your vocab.

Lily Parsons

Lots of repetition and getting feedback and support from your teachers.

Anika Popovik

Perseverance and being able to understand where you went wrong, and how you can improve.

Scarlett Elliott

Surrounding yourself with the language in any way that you can.

Melissa Park

As long as you have that determination, and perseverance, and of course that passion for that language learning, then that's how you'll succeed in that language. So next question is looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

Luca Butterworth

I think in a way, maybe stress less, to enjoy it even more. Maybe that's just post-HSC.

Ilha Jung

I kind of wish I went out of my comfort zone a little bit more though. Yeah.

Luca Butterworth

Ok.

Ilha Jung

Just asking questions to my teachers, not being afraid. Because I think that's when most of my learning comes from.

Lily Parsons

I think I definitely would have taken more of an advantage of my teacher to practise my speaking skills.

Chiara Bicanic

I would have managed my time a little bit more in making sure that outside of school hours, I was practising a lot, which I already was, but it was important to make sure.

Scarlett Elliott

Do you see languages in your future? I do.

Ilha Jung

Well, actually, earlier this year, I've been working part-time in a casino as a table games croupier. Every time there is a Japanese guest, I try to engage them through using their language.

Scarlett Elliott

I want to pursue tattoo artistry over in Europe. So, I anticipate languages of many forms will come into play there.

Ilha Jung

So every time they win, I'd say some catch phrases like, ‘oh, amazing, that's amazing isn't it?’

Lily Parsons

At the moment, I'm tutoring my language at my uni. And in the future, I'd love to live abroad.

Thomas Elibank-Murray

In addition to studying Japanese at uni, I'm also studying chemistry. And in particular, I have an interest for green chemistry, and within that, hydrogen. And Japan would potentially be a massive market for the consumption, and possibly even production, of hydrogen. And I see that complementing my study of chemistry and that area of interest very well.

Chiara Bicanic

I definitely see languages in my future if I was to talk to family again, go overseas, which I would love to do. The more I do it and the more I practise, which I'm now really motivated to do after HSC, the more that I'll be able to use it.

Ilha Jung

Out of everything, if you had to give one piece of advice to the people that are starting in Stage six, what would it be? I would definitely say, don't be afraid to ask questions to your teachers. It is so important that you challenge your own learning. That way, you will get sincere feedback. And your learning would improve so much quicker and so much more efficiently.

Chiara Bicanic

Make sure that you learn vocab and practise speaking in ways that you wouldn't necessarily predict for an exam in the HSC. For example, you might be often asked, what did you do in your spare time? Or what did you do over the weekend? And it's very easy to give formulaic answers about those sorts of topics.

However, a real conversation is more of a back and forth thing, whereas HSC questions are very, ask a question, and then you answer it, and then you move on. So, it's really important to study phrases and vocab that comes from a conversation that might be unpredictable, and unexpected, and practising being able to think on the top of your head.

Melissa Park

Find something about the language that motivates you. And find a study buddy who has a similar study ethic and study pattern as you. Because that's how you sort of grow and learn from each other.

Anika Popovik

Just stick to your teacher. Be friends with your teacher. Because that is what they want from you. They want you to be able to ask them any questions that you have with languages.

Melissa Park

They want to see you excel. So even if you're struggling with something, they're always there for you. So, if you have any questions or concerns, always go to your teacher.

Chiara Bicanic

I'd like to say: ‘Good luck everyone’.

Thomas Elibank-Murray

Good luck!

Luca Butterworth

Lots of luck.

Jerry Zhang

Wishing you success and remember where there is a desire there is a way.

Anika Popovik

I hope you all love languages like me, one day!

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Melissa Park

Pleased to meet you. My name is Melissa. I am studying Medicine at university. Pleased to meet you.

Luca Butterworth

Hello. My name is Luca and I studied German at school.

Lily Parsons

Hello my name is Lily and I studied Spanish in Year 12.

Jerry Zhang

Good afternoon. My name is Jerry and I have studied Indonesian this past year.

Anika Popovik

So what activities work best for you in class time and why?

Melissa Park

I think for me a combination of visual stimuli, so videos, things that the teacher would put on the smartboard, and then a mix of interactive learning.

Ilha Jung

Class discussions, every time the teacher would get us in small groups and small circles and get us to talk in Japanese.

Thomas Elibank-Murray

I'd have to say activities where I was able to receive feedback fairly immediately from my teacher and just be able to gauge what I was doing, particularly when I was writing.

Jerry Zhang

What was the most effective technique you found for learning new vocab or grammar?

Lily Parsons

Definitely just lots of repetition, finding new ways to use it, whether that be speaking, writing, reading, whatever I was doing, just trying to use it, even just when I'm thinking to myself, trying to use the new vocab, just really get familiar with it, get used to it.

Luca Butterworth

For vocab, to learn a lot of vocab quickly is to do flashcards. I mean, they're kind of a classic language learning technique. But you can use online. You don't even need to make physical flashcards.

Chiara Bicanic

I think that reading texts and reading books such as children's books was really helpful for learning new vocab and grammar.

Scarlett Elliott

With grammar, I would obviously annotate the structure, and then I'd try and write a bunch of different sentences using that same grammatical structure so I could just get a really holistic sort of understanding of what contexts that grammatical structure is used in, which helped a lot with speaking and writing, especially being more spontaneous with language use.

Thomas Elibank-Murray

How did you build up skills and speaking? Funnily enough, the way that I developed skills in speaking was by speaking my target language with someone else, someone else who was also capable of speaking my target language. It doesn't have to necessarily be a native speaker. It can be someone from your class that you can talk to in your target language and practice with. It may also be your teacher.

But by trying to find ways in which you can use your target language and speak it as often as possible, you will be able to speak more fluently, to speak better, and think on the fly a bit faster.

Anika Popovik

Yeah, I think what I liked best when I was in class at Serbian school was class discussion. Because Serbian was a language that we could all discuss freely in. And we all shared, I guess, a similar thought process to each other because we were from the same background of being migrants and just having this idea of togetherness.

So how did you build your skills in listening, Melissa?

Melissa Park

Listening, once again, I think podcasts, movies, music, listening to our high school teachers talk in the language, listening to our peers. Immersion was key for us.

Anika Popovik

But then again, listening to someone have a conversation is very different to listening on the actual recording for the HSC. I feel like that was a big jump for me when I got into Stage 6. So, what I tended to do was I would turn off the video on movies, and I would just listen to them speak because usually, they're speaking a lot faster than a HSC recording, for example. And then the more you speak in the language, the better you get at listening. Because you're not going to have a one-sided conversation with someone. You need to listen to their answer and build upon that.

Melissa Park

And the other thing we mentioned was recording yourself speaking and then playing that back and then listening and thinking about how you could have changed certain phrases, or even giving that to your teacher to say like, oh, was my pronunciation correct on that one?

Lily Parsons

How did you build skills in reading?

Jerry Zhang

Well, reading, I think the most important thing about reading is knowing your vocabulary. But also, being able to use the dictionary really fast. Because for reading, all the words are in front of you. And if you don't know it, you can quickly flick through the dictionary and find it. So, I think reading, of course practicing is important, but also getting familiar with your vocabulary as well as getting familiar with the dictionary.

Chiara Bicanic

Reading was my favourite. So, I tried to read as much as I could. I would read a lot outside of class time, children's books, stories online.

Anika Popovik

Yeah, and you can use your skills from English to understand readings in languages. Because depending at which level you are, sometimes you might be asked to analyse, to evaluate. And that's what you need to do in English. So, use those skills and just translate them into another language. That is really, really helpful.

Ilha Jung

How do you think you improved your writing?

Luca Butterworth

I think, yeah, the main way to improve your writing is just to do it as much as possible, to write as much as possible. And also, to read. Because when you read different things, you can kind of see different phrases, different expressions, different kind of ways of saying things. And that makes your own writing feel much more natural. Yeah, well, how did you improve your writing?

Ilha Jung

For me, yeah. I'd say the same thing. They were like lists of questions, lists of topics that we could choose from and write about. And I did as much writing as I could. Yeah, and definitely get feedback from the teacher. I think that's critical.

Luca Butterworth

I think a big thing in staying motivated with writing is to kind of write about something that you find vaguely interesting. When you write a response to someone, like a letter, you don't have to write it as yourself. You can come up with a character or something.

Ilha Jung

Write in the perspective of a character.

Luca Butterworth

Yeah. Yeah.

Anika Popovik

How often did you seek feedback on your work? Feedback always helps. And whether it's constructive criticism, or just a general comment on how well you wrote a sentence, it gives people motivation. And yeah, just always apply the feedback that you get. Because there's never a time when it won't be useful. They give it to you with the best of intentions. So, do listen to it. I think that's the most important aspect of learning a language. It's feedback that you get from your teacher and from your friends.

Melissa Park

Yeah.

Scarlett Elliott

For German, I definitely needed to seek a lot more feedback, being accelerated. I... the pressure was definitely on with that. But I only had a phone call with my teacher once a week, just because I was doing rural distance ed. So, when I did eventually have that phone call, I'd definitely take the time to touch base on all the things that I wasn't really familiar with, or any questions and concerns that I had with just general language use and whatnot. But for the Japanese, it was a lot better because I obviously had access to class.

Chiara Bicanic

Was speaking or studying a second language for the HSC common in your school? Because I went to a regional school, there were barely any choices for languages, only one. And it wasn't a language that I wanted to do. So, when I had the opportunity to do distance education, I was a little bit concerned at first. But it turned out really great. And I had an excellent teacher.

Melissa Park

I studied high school in Sydney. And we had lots of options to pick a language. So, our school offered Japanese, Mandarin, German, Latin even, French. So, it was quite common for the majority of our cohort to pick usually one language as a second language to study.

Thomas Elibank-Murray

Was there anything you didn't like? That's a good question. That's a good question.

Chiara Bicanic

I didn't like listening because it was very hard because the recordings that we used in our lessons, the people spoke very, very quickly. And I just found that quite difficult, personally. But then it was also good because it gave a more accurate depiction of what life, speaking another language, would actually be like.

Lily Parsons

The only thing I didn't really like was with the distance learning, I didn't get to experience a lot of the class activities, especially with COVID. We were meant to learn how to salsa, and we never got to do that, which was a disappointment. So, we missed out on a lot of the cultural experiences that come with language learning. But other than that, it was a really enjoyable experience.

Melissa Park

Something that I wished I had more of was practising how to think on the spot, or think in an impromptu manner, in that particular language. Because that helps with sort of the problem-solving skills and then the conversational skills as well.

Thomas Elibank-Murray

I wish the target language was used a little bit more in the classroom. Just by maybe writing questions out in that target language, maybe using that target language a little bit more in explanation, not necessarily giving explanations entirely in that target language, but maybe saying a sentence in that target language, which explains something, and then following that up with the language of normal instruction in the classroom.

Lily Parsons

Did you spend a similar amount of time on language study as you did your other subjects? I think I definitely spent more time on my Spanish study than I did my other subjects, purely because I enjoyed it so much. Also, the way that all my subjects worked out, I actually had, I think, it was 10 free periods a cycle. So, I would just spend all of my free periods doing my Spanish study. And I just [pause] I loved it so much. It didn't even feel like a study.

Jerry Zhang

Yeah, right. And I had a similar experience as well. I spent a lot of time writing in Indonesian and listening to podcasts in Indonesian. But also, I feel like once you get quite familiar with your vocabulary, before exams, you don't really have to spend that much time memorising it. You can just quickly revise it. And you'll have more time to prepare for maybe more content-heavy subjects.

Scarlett Elliott

No. I didn't because I was a little bit cocky back in the day. And I thought that I was kind of good at language. So, I definitely channelled a lot of the effort that I could have put into language into other subjects like maths.

Ilha Jung

For me, I had lots of workload. I was taking some intense mathematics courses. So, I think a lot of my time went to math and physics. But other than that, I definitely did put in effort.

Luca Butterworth

Yeah, I feel like learning languages is much more slow burn. You got to put in consistent effort. And it's exhausting in one way. But then, there's no frantic rush that you can really do like for other subjects to make up for lost time.

Chiara Bicanic

Has learning a language had an impact on your life beyond school? It definitely has. When I went overseas with my dad earlier in the year, we got to speak with the family and use our language skills, which I wouldn't have had if I didn't do Italian in the HSC.

Lily Parsons

I think definitely. It's opened up a lot of opportunities for me. And it's definitely expanded my worldview.

Jerry Zhang

I haven't travelled much. So, I guess learning about different cultures, especially the Indonesian culture, it really opened my eyes.

Scarlett Elliott

Yeah, honestly, it's just sort of allowed me to become a lot more culturally aware and care about issues outside of Australia.

Anika Popovik

Meeting someone who doesn't understand English and being able to confidently say, I can help you out, is something that really helps in daily life. The entire feeling of having that ability after so many years of learning a language, just to have that ability to make someone's life easier is beautiful.

Thomas Elibank-Murray

I've gone on to continue studying my target language at university. And I hope to graduate with that language and be able to take it into my future work.

Melissa Park

I'd just like to say: Good luck with things from now on.

Lily Parsons

Good luck and enjoy.

Ilha Jung

Good luck everyone!

Scarlett Elliott

Good luck and I hope you continue to learn languages beyond the HSC and I also hope that you have fun. Good luck. Bye.

Luca Butterworth

I had fun.

Ilha Jung

Yeah, you were just the perfect model student, right?

[Laughter]

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