Lawley Alumni

As part of our "where are they now" series, here is an entry from Ivana, a former MLSHS student who visited our GATE students to discuss the value and opportunities language learning brings. We thank Ivana and invite our former students to make contact with MLSHS, a school they can be proud of long after they've finished their high school years.

Hi I'm Ivana and I graduated from Mount Lawley Senior High School in 2005.  Currently I am a student at Tafe and at Curtin university. At Tafe I am doing a diploma course in Chinese Mandarin. I'm only 21 but I have been studying Chinese for the last eight years.

Ever since I was small I knew I liked learning many different languages. My parents told me if I am serious about this then I should learn Japanese or Chinese as those languages are rather important in today's world. I didn't think much of that until I finished primary school. My parents wanted me to go to a high school with a good reputation so I applied to go to Mount Lawley Senior High School. The condition was I had to learn 2 languages with one being Chinese.

Chinese is a pretty hard language but I like challenges. Another reason why I study Chinese is that I think it would give me good career opportunities around the world. So after studying it for 5 years in high school I thought I have already come so far if I quit now I will surely regret it.

In order to keep myself challenged and improving I entered several Chinese speaking competitions and also enrolled into Tafe.

In September of 2008 I was given a scholarship to study in China for a year. That was the experience of a lifetime. Not only did I learn about the country, the culture and the language; I learnt so much more. I was around students from all over the world and I learnt many things from these people; about their customs, geography, history etc. I even picked up on some Russian and Spanish whilst over there.

My parents have always said to me that if something was easy everybody would do it. It takes determination to master anything and if you put your mind to it you truly can achieve what you want. I never thought that learning languages could open so many doors and I truly am happy with the choices I have made.

Thank you

Chinese Lion Dance

Thanks to Mrs Chong who organised the Lion Dance that thoroughly entertained our school body last Friday 12th February. It was great to have such a vital part of Chinese culture demonstrated to our students on our front lawn ! The performance was incredible and we were enthralled by the amazing acrobatics. May we all have a wonderful Year of The Tiger ! Happy Chinese New Year to all.

International Students - Hola !

Thais, our international student from Brazil was a pleasure to have at our school and I thank her for her willingness to share her thoughts with us. I will seek to publish her post in her native language soon. Her comments illustrate the impact studying overseas can have on a student's life. I'd like to thank our students and staff for embracing our international students and their cultures and languages, that is something MLSHS can be proud of fostering, a wonderful tradition that continues.

Hi, my name is Thais, I am 16 years old, my birth day is 28 July 1993, I am Brazilian and I live in Sao Paulo, I came to Australia in 30 January and without know much about Perth and not a good English just the basics that we learn at school in my country, I tried, and study a lot during all this years, to learn and be fluent in this language, was quiet hard the communication in the begin but now if help of all the teachers, today I can ask and answer question in English, a fantastic result for me, I am here living with my uncle, aunt and cousin, I really miss my family, and I am going but in 21 December, before Christmas, I really enjoyed Perth, Au, I hope one day I have I a other opportunity to come here again, now I’ve got other plains to my future, in this school I learned as well a other language, quiet hard but that really give interesting for me, my the help of my friends and teachers, Chinese is one of the languages that soon I will be able to speak fluently, now I have I love about this country China and the culture, when I back to Brazil I will be continuos my study in this language,  my dream now is go to visit china, for my carrier I want to be a language translator or maybe I language teacher, simple but a thing that I really like and I am have with it, I would like to thanks all the teachers in MLSHS, because without then I wasn’t what I am today, I learned a lot, now I am backing to Brazil with a happy heart and smart brain, a complete journey. I meet some students from my country, was really nice, one Girl from year 8, and two boys from year 11 and 12.