Want  info about Tamil Educational programs available in Sydney?

I am Vishal Venkatesh aged 8 currently living in Sydney, Australia. My mother tongue is Tamil.  I was born in New Zealand and now settled in Sydney, Australia with my parents and younger brother.

I know Tamil is one of the oldest living languages in the world with about 5,000 years of rich culture and history. I also know that Tamil is spoken in Sri Lanka, South Africa, Fiji, Malaysia and Singapore. I am very proud of being a Tamil and due to my love for Indian and Tamil culture, I have started attending Tamil school when I was 4 years old. I go to community language school (Balar Malar Tamil School (Holsworthy, Sydney)) on every Saturday and my main stream school is New Bridge Heights Public school. I am glad that now I can read, write and speak fluently in Tamil. When I went to India a few years ago, I spoke in Tamil with all my friends and family and they were indeed very surprised.

Learning English hasn't been much of a problem for me. However, knowing how to speak in Tamil helped me to learn a lot about my cultural background. I always believe in learning through experiences that integrate speaking, listening, reading, and writing in both my Mainstream as well as community language school. I recently developed a class poster on “Five Body parts, Five Senses and Mukanigal (Three major fruits as mentioned in Tamil literature)”. This poster has generated discussion around the topic among his peers and built a cognitive and factual knowledge base around the ongoing reading of student workbook. At the same time, peer learning became a cooperative and highly interactive venture. I have participated and showcased my language proficiency in a 60 minute weekly radio program called “Mazhalai Amutham” in Inba Thamizh Oli a premier 24 hours Tamil Radio in Sydney. I have written an article about India in Tamil (Enakku Piditha Nadu) in 2007 Balar Malar Annual Magazine. The poems that I wrote on “Kangaroo” (An icon of Australia) and Balar Malar Tamil School in Tamil yet to be published in one of the leading children’s magazine (Siruval Malar – Dinamalar) in India.

From my parents, I heard that migrant families from India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Fiji, Malaysia and Singapore always concern about their children who will be living out of their homeland for a very long time will loose the knowledge of their mother tongue. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed within our Tamil community. To close this gap, Contact me through my email I will try to help new migrant Tamil children and families settle down in Sydney as they face a lot of barriers - namely language, cultural and environmental. I will be able to speak to the children in Tamil to give them some valuable information about Tamil educational programs available in Sydney, along with other information related to mainstream schools in Australian society.

I am sure that this will help to bridge the Tamil community together and minimise the gap between new families settling into Sydney and families that have been here a while. My aim is to provide a path for integration between the two cultures for Tamil children.

Thank you for visiting my website. You can contact me by sending an email to mahavish98@yahoo.com.au

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