New technology has linked a Westmorland primary school with children in Japan.

Year six students at Bolton County Primary School used video-conferencing equipment to link up with the Mishima Elementary and Junior High School in Io-jima, Kagashima in south Japan.

Head teacher Judith Cotter organised the link though Global Leap, an organisation which facilitates video conferencing between schools.

Mrs Cotter said: "We expressed an interest in linking up with a school through Global Leap and received an email from the Mishima school. We were able to check it out on the website, and discovered it was a small school, like ours, with just 18 pupils. The school is just two kilometres from an active volcano."

Mrs Cotter and the Japanese students' form teacher Kaori exchanged several more emails to formulate a lesson plan. Mishima school was keen to link up with an English school to help its students, aged seven to 11, to improve their English.

The time difference between the schools is nine hours and while the Bolton pupils came to class at 9am the students in Japan stayed behind to take part in the international lesson which began at 6pm their time.

The lesson plan involved the children introducing themselves, talking about their school and country, and asking questions.

The young people then played a game of jyanken, o-chinta o-chita, antagata dokosa rock, scissors, and paper - in both the English and Japanese way. The hour-long lesson ended with a song Mary had a little lamb - that the children sang together.

Mrs Cotter said: "It was very interesting for our children to see how similar the lives of children elsewhere in the world are to theirs but also to look at the differences in culture and ways of life.

"The lesson captured the imagination of the children and they now know several words of Japanese. We hope to follow up the joint lesson with the children emailing each other, and to have a video-conference lesson once a term with Mishima school."

Students at Mishima school also enjoyed the lesson. Class teacher Minoru said: "Our children had a great experience. They are excited that their English could tell you something and I hope we can keep in touch."

Mrs Cotter said the potential for the use of video-conferencing was huge. "We recently held a session with the modern foreign language adviser in Carlisle and the children had a lesson in German. Other schools have used the technology to hold concert rehearsals with other schools.

"We can book sessions and lessons with major museums the only limit to the use of the equipment is financing the calls."

April 15, 2003 16:30