Sister-school Relationship with Tieyi School in Xi’an, China
Exciting news for Mandarin! We have successfully establishing a sister-school relationship with Tieyi School in Xi’an, China. Xi’an is an ancient Chinese city and had been the capital city of various Chinese dynasties and, of course, the home to the famous terra-cotta warriors. The main objective of this relationship is to develop friendship and cooperation between Tieyi School and Merici College and, most importantly, to promote cross-cultural understanding and awareness between Australia and China.
Both Tieyi and Merici will endeavour to engage in the following activities to develop and strengthen the sister-school relationship:
- Exchange of information about curriculum, school policy and school events
- Exchange of teaching resources, course materials and teaching strategies
- Exchange between students to promote mutual understanding, such as E pen pals club.
- Both schools will maintain student, teacher and administrator exchange programs to provide the opportunity to study, work and live in the sister school community
- Exchange of leadership development information between principals.
- Organizing ‘pilot’ classes or groups of students in both countries to collaborate in curriculum areas such as English, art/design etc. through ICT-mediated communication to enable students to post work, display and discuss their work and communicate live with students from their sister school.
- Provide video conferencing opportunities, which should be used for the development of electronically-supported relationships between both schools. This can include class interaction via Skype or other conferencing tools
To begin this exciting journey for a strong relationship, Tieyi students will be visiting Merici in September 2018. During their visit, Tieyi students will be sharing their musical talents with us through some performances and of course interact with our students through various activities. More information about this visit will be sent out once their itinerary is confirmed.
Apart from the above short visit in September 2018, Merici may be hosting 15 – 20 students from Tieyi School in February 2019. We will be requesting for interested families to host these Chinese students. This will be a great opportunity for students learning Mandarin to foster and deepen their understanding of China and its culture. More importantly, Merici and Tieyi students will have an avenue for some authentic language exchange.
