Structure of English as an Additional Language or Dialect
Units 1–4
Unit 1 focuses on investigating how language and culture are interrelated and expressed in a range of contexts. A variety of oral, written and multimodal texts are used to develop understanding of text structures and language features. The relationship between these structures and features and the context, purpose and audience of texts is explored. The unit will enhance students’ confidence in creating texts for different purposes and across all language modes in both real and imagined contexts. It will broaden their understanding of the sociocultural and sociolinguistic elements of SAE and develop skills for research and further academic study.
Unit 2 focuses on analysing and evaluating perspectives and attitudes presented in texts and creating extended texts for a range of contexts. SAE language skills for effective communication in an expanding range of contexts are consolidated. The use of cohesive text structures and language features is developed. The unit focuses on developing planning and editing skills to create extended oral, written and multimodal texts. Attitudes, values and culturally based assumptions within texts are identified, analysed and compared. Strategies for collecting, analysing, organising and presenting ideas and information are refined.
Unit 3 focuses on analysing how language choices are used to achieve different purposes and effects in a range of contexts. SAE language skills are developed so that they can be used to describe, inform, express a point of view and persuade for different purposes and audiences. The ways in which language choices shape meaning and influence audiences are explored through the study and creation of a range of oral, written and multimodal texts. The representation of ideas, attitudes and values and how these vary across cultures and within different contexts, particularly the Australian context, is analysed and evaluated. Effective and independent research skills are consolidated throughout the unit.
Unit 4 focuses on analysing, evaluating and using language to represent and respond to issues, ideas and attitudes in a range of contexts. By extending and consolidating language and communication skills, critical use of SAE for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences is developed. Independent and collaborative investigation and analysis are used to explore how language and texts achieve specific purposes and effects. Extended oral, written and multimodal texts and presentations are created, adapted and refined for a variety of contexts, purposes and audiences. Effective research strategies and referencing protocols are used to present ideas, information, conclusions, arguments and recommendations.
Bridging Units 1–4
Bridging Unit 1 is designed for students who are at the Emerging phase of the EAL/D Foundation to Year 10 learning progression and focuses on developing communication skills in a range of contexts across the language modes of SAE. There is a particular focus on developing oral communication skills. Age-appropriate texts are used to develop vocabulary, grammar, language learning strategies and understanding. This includes the comprehension and retrieval of key information from familiar texts. The unit will enable students to apply their knowledge and understanding as they create simple texts that express their needs, opinions and ideas.
Bridging Unit 2 is aimed at students in the late Emerging phase of the EAL/D Foundation to Year 10 learning progression and focuses on consolidating communication skills in a range of contexts across the language modes of SAE. Through explicit teaching, the unit focuses on the consolidation of everyday vocabulary and the creation of connected oral, written and multimodal texts. Age-appropriate texts are used as a guide to respond to or reproduce simple texts in informal and rehearsed formal contexts. This unit will enable students to develop strategies for collecting, organising and presenting ideas and information.
Bridging Unit 3 is aimed at students who are in the Developing phase of the EAL/D Foundation to Year 10 learning progression and focuses on responding to and creating extended texts in familiar contexts in SAE. By using the language modes, students engage with familiar and some unfamiliar texts, including literary texts. Language skills for effective communication in SAE in most social, familiar and some community situations are developed. The unit will enable students to create extended oral, written and multimodal texts with a degree of accuracy in structure, language and register. Strategies for collecting, organising and presenting ideas and information continue to be developed.
Bridging Unit 4 is aimed at students who are in the late Developing phase of the EAL/D Foundation to Year 10 learning progression and focuses on responding to and creating connected extended texts in personal, social, community and workplace contexts in SAE. The ability to use SAE language skills to communicate for a range of purposes is evident in the creation of oral, written and multimodal texts required in the workplace and some academic contexts. Some cultural assumptions are explored and explained through the study of a variety of texts, including popular and literary texts. Strategies for collecting, organising and presenting ideas and information are consolidated.
Organisation of content
Content descriptions in each unit in EAL/D are grouped under an organising framework that presents key aspects of learning that underpin each subject. Organisers vary between subjects according to the distinctive focus of each subject. The organising framework in EAL/D is:
- Communication strategies
- Comprehension strategies
- Language and textual analysis
- Creating texts.
Organisation of achievement standards
The achievement standards have been organised under two dimensions that underpin key aspects of responding to or creating texts. This structure applies to all subjects in senior secondary English.
| Dimension 1 | Responding to oral, written and multimodal texts |
|---|---|
| Dimension 2 | Creating oral, written and multimodal texts |
Senior secondary achievement standards have been written for each Australian Curriculum senior secondary subject. The achievement standards provide an indication of typical performance at five different levels (corresponding to grades A to E) following the completion of study of senior secondary Australian Curriculum content for a pair of units. They are broad statements of understanding and skills that are best read and understood in conjunction with the relevant unit content. They are structured to reflect key dimensions of the content of the relevant learning area. They will be eventually accompanied by illustrative and annotated samples of student work/ performance/ responses.
The achievement standards will be refined empirically through an analysis of samples of student work and responses to assessment tasks: they cannot be maintained a priori without reference to actual student performance. Inferences can be drawn about the quality of student learning on the basis of observable differences in the extent, complexity, sophistication and generality of the understanding and skills typically demonstrated by students in response to well-designed assessment activities and tasks.
In the short term, achievement standards will inform assessment processes used by curriculum, assessment and certifying authorities for course offerings based on senior secondary Australian Curriculum content.
ACARA has made reference to a common syntax (as a guide, not a rule) in constructing the achievement standards across the learning areas. The common syntax that has guided development is as follows:
- Given a specified context (as described in the curriculum content)
- With a defined level of consistency/accuracy (the assumption that each level describes what the student does well, competently, independently, consistently)
- Students perform a specified action (described through a verb)
- In relation to what is valued in the curriculum (specified as the object or subject)
- With a defined degree of sophistication, difficulty, complexity (described as an indication of quality)
Terms such as ‘analyse’ and ‘describe’ have been used to specify particular action but these can have everyday meanings that are quite general. ACARA has therefore associated these terms with specific meanings that are defined in the senior secondary achievement standards glossary and used precisely and consistently across subject areas.
The language modes
The processes of listening, speaking, reading, viewing and writing, also known as language modes, are interrelated. Classroom contexts that address particular content descriptions will necessarily draw from more than one of these modes in order to support students’ effective learning. To acknowledge these interrelationships, content descriptions incorporate the processes of listening, speaking, reading, viewing and writing in an integrated and interdependent way.