East Manjimup Primary School student Natalya Hercock second-best in country at Indonesian language competition

A Lower South West primary school continues to display its dedication to teaching a language other than English after one of its students placed second at a nation-wide Indonesian language competition earlier this month. East Manjimup Primary School student Natalya Hercock placed second in her age group at the National Australia Indonesia Language Awards — an annual speech competition for Indonesian students — which was announced on December 2 at an awards ceremony in Melbourne. The year three student — who is only in her first year of learning the language — had to speak for one to two minutes on this year’s topic, relationships. EMPS Indonesian teacher Francesca Knowles said it was a long time to speak in an individual’s first language, let alone Indonesian. “There’s a lot of learning that goes around it,” she said. “The students are selected for their capacity for the language and capacity to work individually,” she said, “They’re pretty committed.” Natalya also placed first at a WA Modern Language Teachers Association competition in October alongside her fellow student and teammate Kaisho Wills, while Annabel Sewell and Lucas Macfarlane — both in year five — also took out first place in their age category. “It was lots of fun but really hard work,” Annabel said. “I can’t wait to do it again next year.” “The secret is to practise, practise, practise,” Lucas added. Kaisho said it was “harder than walking four kilometres”. Natalya, Kaisho and Madison Horlock also all placed first in their categories at a WA Indonesian Languages Teachers’ Association competition earlier this year. “You have to give it a go and do your best,” Natalya said. Ms Knowles — who was a finalist in WA Education Awards Primary Teacher of the Year in 2018 — said EMPS had a very successful year and had done well for a small independent public school based in a regional country town. “We’ve done extremely well for a little country town school,” she said. “They work really hard and aspire to it,” she said, “They’re starting to realise their success and are thinking, ‘we can do this’.” Ms Knowles said learning Indonesian encouraged deeper communication, respect and understanding of another culture, made more important by Australia’s close proximity to the country. “It’s about being a good neighbour,” she said. “It helps children’s understanding of a different culture and encourages them to acknowledge our differences and look at them as a different way of doing things.” Ms Knowles said she was very grateful to EMPS’ principal Michael Smith for always being supportive of teaching languages and to Indonesian Language Assistant Diana Richmond for her commitment to the school, to the subject and to its students.