The strong sister school link that dates back 8 years ago has been honoured once again as Taiwan’s Min De Junior High School visited Melrose High School in Canberra.
16 Min De Junior High School students from Tainan, Southern Taiwan, led by English teacher Jimmy Chen, helped build on the long lasting friendship and immersed themselves in the Australian lifestyle for 10 days.
The exchange group stayed with their Australian host families, attended school with their homestay buddies at Melrose and visited attractions in Canberra. Min De students tasted vegemite and kangaroo burgers, climbed the Melrose rock wall, saw Kangaroos, koalas and even held snakes!
Many of them encountered snow for the first time of their lives and mustered sheep at sheep station. Students joined in with Melrose classes, enhanced their English speaking and participated in a social dance.
The highlight of Min De’s visit was concluded with a farewell party performance on 8 August attended by Melrose students and families to affirm their friendship with the sister school. Dr Aaron Chen, Executive Director of Education Division at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Australia, was invited to jointly witness this continuing exchange and friendship growth.
Melrose High School has a long standing sister school partnership with Min De Junior High School in Taiwan since 2010. Melrose and Min De both acknowledge that their strong focus on language learning is enhanced by the biennial exchange programs that offer students of both schools the opportunities to travel overseas and experience authentic learning.
Ms Erica Yu-Hsuan Yeh, Mandarin teaching assistant from Taiwan (left 1); three staff members of Melrose High School, Canberra: Ms Yuan Ma, Mandarin teacher at Melrose and coordinator of exchange, Mr Rob Hamburger and deputy principal Ms Shannon Carnovale (left 2, 3, 4); Mr Simon Vaughan, the Principal of Melrose (left 5); Dr Aaron Chen, Executive Director of Education Division at Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Australia (left 6); Mr Jimmy Chen (left 7), English teacher at Min De Junior High School.
