Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Slovenian Australian Social and Sports Club "Jadran" Inc.
35 Duncans Lane, Diggers Rest, VIC 3427, Australia
Ph/Fax 03 9850 1431
President: Stojan Brne
Slovenian Australian Social and Sports Club "Jadran" Inc.
35 Duncans Lane, Diggers Rest, VIC 3427, Australia
Ph/Fax 03 9850 1431
President: Stojan Brne
During the year students were required to submit several written pieces, in different types of writing and a variety of formats. They were required to write in an imaginative or personal or informative or persuasive style, choosing at least two different types.
The topics developed for the Slovenian Course Outlines reflected a strong bias towards culture and cultural activities. They ranged from the personal to a community-based focus. At lower levels focusing on customs and traditions and broadened at higher levels by exploring historical and literary themes, integrating as much as possible the personal and social fields in the suggested activities and the texts selected for study. Literary themes were explored, including the life experience of the poet, the historical context of his literary productions and personal experience of family and friends.
It was a great new approach to the study of languages. Students were given a sense of what it means to communicate and use the language in social interaction. For example the students in 1991 were given as a task in Unit 1 a conversation to be prepared by two or three students working together. The situation was a chance meeting in a chosen setting between the students and a person from Slovenia, who heard them speaking in Slovenian. They expressed amazement, introduced themselves, exchanged some information about where they were from and whom they were visiting.
The teachers were all experienced and developed their own strategies to deal with a range of problems. While they had extensive teaching materials, these needed to be adapted to the capabilities of the students. It was soon discovered that no suitable course book existed, so teachers made use of the available materials, selecting from the texts the most interesting, highlighting some aspect of Slovenian culture, and adapting it to the students standard. In this, they were remarkably successful.
The school proved a successful model, in time adopted by other Australian states in their efforts to provide for all the languages required by a growing, linguistically and ethnically diverse immigrant population. With its flexible structure it was able to provide for the language requirements of the Australian multicultural society. In Victoria it expanded progressively in response to Victoria”s language needs in the city and country areas.
The first attempt that led to a continuous teaching tradition took place in 1960 at the Slovenian Religious and Cultural Centre in Melbourne with the support and encouragement of Fr. Basil Valentin, the Franciscan priest, whose efforts for the Slovenian community became legendary.
The archives of the Institute consist of over 2,000 documents. The archivist is Aleksandra Ceferin who has collated and maintained documents of the activities connected with the teaching of Slovenian language in the school system in the state of Victoria from 1976.
The main aim and purpose of STAV was to maintain the teaching of Slovenian language and culture in the secondary school system of Victoria.
Activities undertaken by STAV during the following years included regular meetings of teachers, seminars and workshops, development of syllabi and test papers, the acquisition and introduction of teaching resources. There were enrolment drives at the beginning of each school year, meetings with parents at various centres around Melbourne, publication of articles in Misli, radio talks and interviews.
Altogether 82 students completed the Victorian Certificate of Education from 1980 to 2005. They were dedicated young Slovenian Australians, who dedicated a great deal of effort to attend classes on Saturdays, often travelling some distance.