Mihara Sister School

As part of the Mihara sister-city delegation which includes Palmerston North gaining a budding friendship city in Japan, I was approached to connect via Skype with Sagiura Elementary School on Sakijima Island. We did this in our literacy class to help build up their oral language skills as well as gain a deeper appreciation of another culture and strengthen ties with another school.

As with any aspect which relys on technology we did come accross some hurdles. Firstly we couldn't Skype early on as their security systems were preventing them. On our next attempt their was a Typhoon warning. Our third attempt was cut short as we had issues on our end. However we managed to meet the students and realised that the school only had 12 pupils. My students were amazed at such a small school. They had the privelege to introduce themselves and wave at each other which was a neat experience.

Our next Skype chat included the Mayor of Palmerston North while he and his delegation were visiting Mihara.

Photo Credit: PNCC

We had another session of which our students had prepared questions for the children at Sagiura Elementary School. The questions were emailed before hand which allowed SES students to work on their English as they answered the questions.

The opportunities for our students to take part in this was so valuable. They learnt more about different cultures in a real life context. Even at lunch they were talking about what the children would be eating for their lunch and how they start school so early as well as the time zone. They loved the idea of having a small school with so many teachers per child. We hope to continue this in our final term.