NSJLE 2016 Proceedings: Visible and Valuable

45 Minutes per Week
How the Australian Curriculum is working in a Government Primary School
Kathleen Duquemin
Gardenvale Primary School (Vic)

Introduction
Most government primary schools have limited time for ‘specialist’ classes such as Japanese
Second Language classes, which means that primary Japanese teachers are required to cover aspectsof the Australian Curriculum and meet all Achievement Standards within a very limited time frame.
Based on Implications for teaching, assessment and reporting - Australian Curriculum: Languages,
the curriculum is written for 350 hours from Foundation to Year 6, or 1.25 hours per week.
According to a survey undertaken by the Japanese Language Teachers Association of Victoria(JLTAV) in 2008, the majority of primary schools have between 30 and 60 minutes per week
allocated to Japanese. At Gardenvale Primary School (GPS), the classes are 50 minutes per week.
Effective classroom time is reduced to 40-45 minutes, however, for senior classes (Years 3-6) who
must walk 250 metres from their campus to the Junior Campus where these classes are held. Inaddition to the relatively short class time, many primary language teachers experience significantinterruptions to their programs from extra-curricular activities such as year-level camps, Bike-Ed(Year 5 students undertake one full week of activities focusing on bicycle education), incursions
and school photographs.
To maintain a rigorous program and ensure ongoing student achievement, it is necessary to re-thinkthe ‘normal’ structure of a curriculum and re-imagine the scope and sequence to overcome suchhurdles.

Scope and Sequence
The scope and sequence for a primary school differs from that at a secondary school. Where mostsecondary textbooks align with curriculum outcomes and provide scope and sequence within thestructure of the textbook, primary language programs are generally created by the language teacherand rely more on the school curriculum guidelines (e.g. integrated curriculum focus) and thesequence outlined in each state’s interpretation of the Australian Curriculum. The AustralianCurriculum provides a very sound starting point for primary schools to develop a sequence thatworks for the abilities of their students and the time they have available. At GPS we teach fromPrep through to Year 6, and while the linguistic content is generally consistent, the topic andcontent can be easily changed according to the interests and overall ability of the cohort.
Authentic vs. Synthetic Texts
In the Scope and Sequence, there is a mix of both authentic Japanese texts (such as tongue twisters,songs, cafe menus, 絵本) and synthetic texts (created or modified specifically to suit language levelof the students, such as translations of English Picture Books, weather reports, and instructions for
The Amazing Race). In the earlier years, authentic Japanese texts targeting our students’ linguistic
ability are quite relevant developmentally – that is, they are written for young children and therefore
quite suitable to be used within the Early Years classroom. However, as students move through theschool, the number of authentic texts that suit students both developmentally and linguisticallydiminishes significantly – texts are either too challenging or too babyish. It is for this reason thattexts are often synthesised for higher primary students, either by re-creating a known English text inJapanese or by modifying the language in a Japanese text.

NSJLE 2016 Proceedings: Visible and Valuable2017 Gardenvale Primary School Japanese –Prep to Year 6 Scope and Sequence
Semester 1

Semester 2

PrepGreetings, colours, numbers
Introduction to kanji
Songs and てあそび
Simple origami – classroom instructions
Using adjectives

Read /write kanji 山 川 火 水 木 林 森
Sentence structure ～が好きです～をたべます/ました
Text focus – 尻尾の歌

Year 1

Kanji revision + new kanji
Mini-beasts
Making tables and Venn diagrams
using Japanese
Related origami

Animal focus
こぶた / たぬき / きつね / ねこ
Animal noises – Onomatopoeia
Possessive のわたし/ぼくのぺっとは ～ ですRead / write kanji 竹石犬馬大小上下中Year 2

Songs and tongue twisters (すももももも)
Hiragana in 10 weeks
Hiragana games – reading familiar words –colours and shapes

Text focus – Brown Bear
Reading hiragana words and phrases
Verbs – present and past tense
Particles は and をYear 3

Hiragana revision – introduction of ten ten
Text focus – One fish two fish
Small animal counters
Small つText focus – Where is the Green sheep
い and の adjectives (colours)
Reading focus

Year 4Time
School – subjects and timetable
Writing focus:～ べんきょうします～ が好きです。
Focus on furigana– blended sounds and extended vowels

Family – the river testForms of addressSong – わにのかぞく
Text – 大きなカブ –(create and perform a play)

Year 5

Prepositions – kanji and furigana
House – rooms and household items –cockroach game
Sentence structure:～の～に～います/ありますTransport – particles で and にSentence writing – The amazing race
Fashion unit (short unit) clothing verbs
Adjectives and nouns

Year 6Pet café – menus – food adjectives
Cup Noodles – make a commercial

Weather reports 今日の天気は～でしょう。
Temperature 最高/最低 気温は～でしょう。
End of year celebration – watch Japanese film

One benefit of using known English texts is that students are often already familiar with and havefond memories of the story (for example, well-known texts such as The Diary of a Wombat, or One
Fish Two Fish) creating additional inbuilt supports for reading comprehension. A text does not justhave to be a book in the primary classroom, but is often a song, tongue twister, video clip of aJapanese ad (such as the すしローCMs), a haiku or even a puppet or an image.

NSJLE 2016 Proceedings: Visible and ValuableKanji – then hiragana
At GPS, students are taught kanji in Prep and Year 1, and hiragana is then introduced from Grade 2.
Our rationale for this is that students in Prep and Year 1 have not yet developed their phonemic
awareness even in English. As a result, the hiragana seem like intangible squiggles to them, notconnected to any sound or meaning that they know or understand. Kanji, on the other hand, seems
tangible, even logical, and our children enjoy it. Many of the kanji are recognisable through theirshape and, as they represent meaning rather than sound, it seems there are more connections for thestudents to make, which reinforces their understanding and memorisation. In addition, it enables us
to introduce students to the concept of a symbol representing meaning—a great introduction to thelearning of character languages.
When students are introduced to hiragana in Year 2, they have good phonemic awareness, and they
have already acquired a significant vocabulary, so the symbols are quickly connected to known
sounds and words and students become confident in their ability to recognise and read them. Oncestudents have begun to learn hiragana, the shift is quickly made to reading whole words. Students
are reminded that learning all the hiragana off by heart can be a challenge and that this is NOT theirgoal. They are required to find the information (using a hiragana chart or table) to be able to read,and they are expected to learn the words that are related to the text they are studying. This makes
hiragana relevant and its acquisition more achievable for our students, and it reduces the likelihoodof them disengaging due to the challenge of remembering 46 characters.

Whole-year breakdown of curriculum
Rather than a standard term-by-term curriculum, at GPS the curriculum is broken into short andlong units within a semester. An example is below:

Semester outline
Term 1
short unit
Revisekanji/hiragana
Cultural focus
Set expectations

Term 2long unit

Major linguistic focus
10-12 week unit – begin with intensive oral/aural introduction
Explicit character study (P-1 漢字, 2-6 ひらがな)
Explicit grammar – particles, counters, verb conjugations
Text study (picture book, song, tongue twister, video clip)
Assessment

short unit
Games (applying newlearning)
Short unit (3-4 weeks)(report writing)This type of planning allows learning to be continuous throughout the semester, anticipates thefrequent interruptions that often occur within the first term, and takes into account the need toassess large numbers of students and write reports often well before the end of term 2. Throughbeginning the year with a short unit, students usually have a fun start to the language classes and arequickly engaged; then, once interruptions have lessened toward the end of term 1, they begin a more
focused unit of learning with a positive attitude. This unit carries over from term 1 and is picked up
quickly at the beginning of term 2, and the students are able to apply themselves fresh from theholidays. Assessment is usually completed by week 5, giving the teacher considerable time to makecorrections and write informed and relevant reports for all students. At GPS there are in excess of650 students, so assessment and reporting require a significant amount of time.

NSJLE 2016 Proceedings: Visible and Valuable

Short Units of Work
The outline above mentions short and long units of work. Short units refers to knowledge that does
not require a full unit of work to teach. This may be because it is a very small piece of knowledge,
or a word/phrase that will be used frequently and therefore will be learned through its use rather
than requiring a formal lesson.
Examples of short units of work that are used in our classroom include:• Colours – these are introduced quickly through a song, which is often repeated each week.
In addition, tongue twisters such as 赤パジャマ、黄パジャマ、茶パジャマ and 赤まきがみ、青まきがみ、黄まきがみ further reinforce this learning, as well as the emphasis on
colours within texts such as Brown Bear by Eric Carle, or One Fish Two Fish by Dr Seuss.
• Big numbers – ‘おくまんせんひゃくじゅういち’ – a great lead in to shopping units and a
lot of fun for older students who like the challenge of figuring out how to read the numbers.
This short unit includes students creating their own ‘rap’ version of a song using the word
‘okumansenhyakujuuichi’.
• Particles – such as the possessive ‘の’. This is introduced prior to the 鬼のパンツ song inGrade 2 through a very simple role play, where two people fight over one toy, stating overand over ‘の, it’s mine’.の！！
It’smineの！！
It’smine•••Tastes – おいしい、あまい、からい and すっぱい are introduced in Prep and then used
to describe the morning snack each week. Introduced through mnemonic stories (e.g. MyGrandma, Oi shi can cook!) and used weekly, these words and phrases become part of ourfunctional language within the classroom.
Furigana is introduced around Year 3 in conjunction with an introduction to counters. The
students are already familiar with kanji and hiragana, and it is a natural progression to show
them how they co-exist within a text to provide both meaning and pronunciation.
います/あります is an important aspect of student understanding but does not require along period of time to understand. Students learn quickly that there is a difference between
the two, and spend a week or two discovering what belongs in each category. This is a fununit of work as students bring in concepts such as bacteria, dust, and other tricky items to beclassified. After this unit, the students can use both います and あります with confidence,clearly understanding the difference.

Long Units of WorkLong units of work generally are based on a text and include new character learning (hiragana, useof ten-ten, blends, writing in grids, etc), new grammar (particles, verb conjugation, sentencestructure) and summative assessment. These long units start with an intensive aural/oral focus
during which time students become familiar with the vocabulary and sentence structure that will beNSJLE 2016 Proceedings: Visible and Valuable

introduced, and they often include a song to provide additional pronunciation support. The grammar
is introduced early in the unit through a ‘Grammar Hunt’, where students are challenged to findpatterns within the sentences for themselves and try to work out the rationale for these patterns. Inallowing the students to discover their own grammatical understanding, this learning becomes much
more powerful.
All character knowledge, grammar and particles are then explicitly taught with opportunities forstudents to seek clarification, so that before the text is introduced the students are confident in theirunderstanding of the language. Throughout long units of work, students are constantly exposed tothe words and sentences through flash cards, games such as karuta, word searches and otheractivities, and each lesson begins with a quick revision of the words and/or sounds and their rules.
Longer units that have worked well within our classroom have included:• 鬼のパンツ
Introducing the possessive のCultural focus on 鬼
Describing using adjectives
Oral performance of the song 鬼のパンツ
Substituting words within a sentence structure: だれのパンツですか。～のパンツです。
• Minibeasts
Kanji 大 小Classify insects according to their大小size/speed using a Venn diagram.
Using oral language to describe, e.g. 天
道虫は早いです。カタツムリは大きいです。
• The Amazing Race
Based on the reality TV show, students
learn the use of particles and sentence
structure to obtain meaning from text
and discover the race’s ultimate
destination.
Students use particles に and で with
行きます to re-create their own leg of the Amazing Race.
• The River Test
Based on the IQ test and introducing long vowel sounds,
formal/informal forms of address, counters for people,
using furigana, using とStudents have to solve the puzzle then describe the solution,
first orally then in writing.

Expectations
There are a number of differing opinions about what is the optimal age for language learners, andaround how we define the range of years that represents the Critical Period for language acquisition.
There are few, however, who would doubt that young learners are very competent when it comes toacquiring a second language. This has implications for developing curriculum for primary students.

NSJLE 2016 Proceedings: Visible and Valuable

Rather than ‘dumbing down’ the linguistic goals, we need to recognise that younger students arecapable language learners and this should be reflected in our expectations of the students’ second
language acquisition.

Assessment
We find that one of the most challenging aspects of the primary language classroom is assessment
and reporting. As suggested earlier, the program is structured in such a way that there is sufficient
time to give assessment, complete corrections, and write the often 600+ reports prior to submission
for proof reading, etc. Assessment itself also needs to be re-imagined to ensure ongoing formativeand summative assessment are built into the short/long unit planning being described in this paper.
Formative assessment at GPS is built in to every lesson plan, from the flash cards at the beginningof the class to the games and team activities that form a significant part of the application oflearning. Without ongoing formative assessment throughout each class, it would be very difficult tomaintain expectations and engagement—one of the most motivating factors in our classroom isstudent achievement.
Summative assessment is more formally structured, and often comprises checklists and tick boxes.
While it sounds quite daunting at times, it can really be quite simple. From Prep to Year 6, forexample, students respond to the roll call in Japanese, and the question asked reflects the learning
focus of that year level. Year 1 students (learning about taste and food) might be asked『昨日の夜、何を食べましたか。』 and the student response develops over the course of the semester from 『～を食べました。』 to 『おいしいパスタとサラダと甘いアイスクリームを食べました。』 by theend of the unit of study. In this way, it is very simple and clear to see which students are able tounderstand the sentence structure, the word order, and the concept of substitution of vocabulary inorder to create new sentences. In addition, the language they are using, while at times including
English words where they do not have the Japanese equivalent, is very real and being used in acommunicative way.
The use of pegs on clothes is another easy form of assessment of oral language and works
particularly well in assessing classroom and functional language. Students are challenged to use thetarget phrase in context, and when this is done they are able to place the clothes peg back in the tub.
This also allows students who are less confident to come up and speak quietly directly with theteacher to demonstrate their understanding, without an audience.
がんばって
While the Australian Curriculum is academically rigorous and sets the expectations of student
learning quite high, it is achievable, even in one 45-minute class a week. And not only is itachievable, it can be fun. I encourage all teachers to re-think, re-structure and embrace the challengeof the Australian Curriculum, and be confident that it can be taught – even within the limits of theprimary classroom.