An excursion in Harmony: Youth Class Hits the Streets!
AMEP Youth Student Sanja shares her experiences of learning English outside the classroom, on an excursion that took place on Harmony Day, March 2024. Learning English outside the classroom supports learners to feel confident communicating in their communities, and is an important aspect of wholistic learning. Here, Sanja, NSF’s official Reporter, shares more of her journey.
Its Harmony Day and my AMEP class is off on an excursion to celebrate and practice our English!
Have you heard about Harmony Day? People in Australia have been celebrating this Day since 1999, every 21st of March. The main idea is that everyone is welcome, everyone belongs, and everyone is respected in this Land Down Under. The focus is on celebrating multiculturalism, diversity, and migrants. Australia is a pure diamond in terms of origin of its inhabitants (almost 50% of total number of Australians or one of their parents were born overseas), spoken languages (there are over 200 First Nations languages and some of the most common languages in Australia, after English, are: Mandarin, Arabic, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Italian, Greek, Filipino, Hindi, Spanish and Punjabi) and traditions practiced. Knowing that, it’s of a high importance that we show respect for each other and the land we live in, too.
This exquisite combination of languages, customs, lifestyles, and traditions certainly enriches us with knowledge about many countries around the globe and teaches us to be tolerant and open-minded. Knowing all the above it doesn’t surprise that one of Harmony Day symbols is orange colour, as it represents positive and meaningful communication and conversations, since these two are essential for ensuring long-term friendly relationships within such a multicultural environment.
One of the activities that Youth Class students love the most is excursions. Eager as always, we decided to take a small trip and celebrate Harmony Day outside the classroom, joining our community in Liverpool Uniting Church. They prepared such a nice event that we all were really delighted to be there and spend time with our fellow citizens.
Before setting foot in this event, we discovered a great tool for making posters, flyers, cards, presentations… It is called Canva, it’s not complicated, and there is an excellent free version, so why don’t you give it a try? You will be able to make outstanding and professional graphic designs on your own. Your employability skills will improve, you can catch the eye of your professors or employers, and this effective solution will help you save the money you would have to pay professionals to create your wedding invitations, birthday cards or something else. This is why we love Youth Class – it always inspires us to work on continuous growth and self-development, every time we widen our knowledge, get to know about some useful tools and advice about improving our skills, we become a better version of ourselves at the end of every class. Using this brilliant tool, we created a bunch of posters and hung them in our classroom. The theme was, of course, Harmony Day. Have a look-see at the gallery, don’t they look amazing?
Earlier that week, Campbelltown students did some great work, too. They made orange ribbons that symbolize Harmony Day, and they were so kind to prepare a couple more for Liverpool students, as well. Attaching them to our clothes conveys a strong message that we support the main ideas of Harmony Day: inclusiveness, zero discrimination, tolerance, successful communication. Such a nice touch, isn’t it?
After finishing our posters and attaching orange ribbons to our clothes, we were ready to hit the road and visit Liverpool Uniting Church. Many organizations attended the event, such as: Service Australia, Service NSW, Mission Australia, Wesley Mission, Anglicare… They all made sure that all the attendees were provided with any necessary information, and to those who need any help and support they explained in detail all available options. Did you know that for only a 12-dollar-contribution you can fill the whole bag with low-cost groceries of your own choice? (look at this link to learn how you can do it: https://www.anglicare.org.au/community/food-assistance/community-pantry/). And that’s just one of the numerous possibilities, check this link to find out more:
Feel free to share this information with people who might need some support with saving money! These organisations offer many options that can facilitate everyday life, all we need to do is visit their premises or website.
But let’s get back to this wonderful event: BBQ, coffee, hot chocolate and some treats were prepared, all the equipment was put in its place, singers were ready to entertain us, so the celebration could begin! The weather was very pleasant – sunny and warm, the music was lively, everyone had a smile on their faces and was happy to be a part of that event, it was pure harmony in every corner! What’s more, it was a real pleasure to spend some time within our community. Many thanks to everyone how made all of that happen!
Going on an excursion as part of the AMEP Youth Class at NSF was a brilliant chance to break the ice and finally use all the small talk phrases we’d been working on for so long, during our classes. Many times we practiced dialogues with each other, we went over the ways of opening the conversation, talking about our days or weekend plans and appropriate closure. It was always easy in the classroom with our friends, but this time we were surrounded by people who we didn’t know. Yet the atmosphere was so friendly that we were automatically encouraged to speak up, approach other people and talk about that splendid happening! Sharing our satisfaction with the organisation, commenting the food and music along with warm eye contact was enough to start small talk and meet new people, and for such a conversation we didn’t even need a high level of English. Practice makes perfect: one of the best ways of learning something is by trying and trying hard, gaining experience and never giving up. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we are close to success and we learn from our mistakes. The main thing is to never be afraid of trying! The same is with language learning: if you don’t try speaking, you will never improve. Speak with your family and friends, but also talk in community setting, just like we did, you’ll discover that you’re better than you thought, and there is no reason to be afraid!
Useful links :
- https://www.anglicare.org.au/community/food-assistance/community-pantry/
- https://www.swslhd.health.nsw.gov.au/populationhealth/PH_Promotion/pdf/Publications
/lcfmd/Liverpool.pdf - https://www.canva.com/