Sound and letter knowledge Recognise the letters of the alphabet and know there are lower- and upper-case letters (ACELA1440) Capitalisation of words is specific to individual languages. For languages, capitalisation is non-existent, and capitalisation differs among the alphabetic languages (for example, in German all nouns are capitalised, while some languages have no capitals). English letters range in the congruence between the upper case and lower case – from the very similar Ss – to the dissimilar Qq – and this can be particularly confusing for EAL/D students new to experiences with the English alphabet. Explicitly teach the purpose of upper-case letters, and make clear the differences between upper-case and lower-case letters, particularly when they are quite dissimilar (for example, Qq, Rr, Ee, Dd). CONTENT DESCRIPTIONS LANGUAGE/CULTURAL CONSIDERATIONS TEACHING STRATEGIES Literature Responding to literature Respond to identifying favourite stories, authors and illustrators (ACELT1577) Understanding humour usually requires advanced language skills and insider cultural knowledge, and this is very challenging for EAL/D students in the early phases of their EAL/D learning progression. When using ‘funny’ stories to engage the class, take some time to explain jokes to EAL/D students. Responding to literature feelings and thoughts about the events and characters in texts (ACELT1783) EAL/D students in the Beginning and Emerging phases of English language learning have limited vocabulary. Additionally, the vocabulary of feelings and emotions is often abstract it is challenging for EAL/D students in all phases of their EAL/D learning progression. Not all cultures value the sharing of feelings. For some EAL/D students this may be confronting, embarrassing or just unfamiliar. Be aware that some students’ reticence to contribute may be for cultural reasons. Use visual reinforcement to teach the vocabulary of feelings and emotions. Ask parents or bilingual assistants to assist, as the students may know this vocabulary in first language. Use texts from the students’ first language to model and prompt language. Allow EAL/D students time and space to become contributors to classroom discussions. One-on-one interactions and small group work can support this.
Expressing and developing ideas Understand that nouns represent people, places, things and ideas, and can be, for example, common, proper, concrete and abstract, and that noun groups can be expanded using articles and adjectives (ACELA1468) Noun groups are expanded by adding adjectives. In English, we prefer an for adjectives in noun groups (for example, a beautiful red balloon rather than a red beautiful balloon). This preference for opinion adjectives before factual ones is innate for native English speakers because of their sense of the language. In English, the articles a, an, the are particularly challenging for EAL/D students in all phases of English language learning as their usage in English is particularly complex and sometimes arbitrary. For example, the use of the article the to refer to both the specific ‘the cat next door’ and the general ‘the whale is the largest mammal’ and its arbitrary use (for example, the Earth, but not the Mars). In some languages, the article the is used before a person’s name (for example, The Josh). Teach word order to EAL/D students in the context of the sentences they are reading and writing. Ask students to words on sentence strips, then cut and rearrange them in the right order. Pay attention to EAL/D students’ use of articles in writing and explain their errors to them, not simply correct them. Notice unusual use of articles in texts that students are reading and talk about their use in that context. Expressing and developing ideas Identify visual representations of characters’ actions, reactions, speech and thought processes in narratives, and consider how these images add to or contradict or multiply the meaning of accompanying words (ACELA1469) Visuals are not culturally neutral and often require as much explanation as words. When explaining meanings, be of the language used, to ensure that the explanations don’t use vocabulary more complicated than the word or concept under examination.
Expressing and developing ideas Understand the use of vocabulary familiar and new topics, and experiment with and begin to make conscious choices of vocabulary to suit audience and purpose (ACELA1470) EAL/D students will not have had the same extensive exposure to English vocabulary as other students, nor the same prior knowledge to build upon and so special attention must be paid to vocabulary development in the classroom. Introduce new vocabulary in context, using real objects, picture books and websites. Give EAL/D students multiple opportunities to use new vocabulary in guided and independent contexts. Provide word lists and definitions of challenging words prior to tackling new texts. Encourage the use of junior dictionaries, including picture dictionaries. Encourage personal dictionaries EAL/D students can write new words in the context the word appeared in, its meaning in English as well as their first language if they can do this. Expressing and developing ideas Recognise common prefixes and suffixes, and how they change a word’s meaning (ACELA1472) Morphemes are the smallest meaningful parts of words, and play an important role in helping us to comprehend words and spell them. This knowledge is crucial for EAL/D students as it allows them to efficiently expand their vocabulary through building word families, and to increase their comprehension. Pay explicit attention to prefixes and suffixes, explaining how they function to change the word’s meaning. Cut the words into their morphemic chunks. Build word families from the morpheme under study to allow EAL/D students to efficiently expand their vocabulary and increase their comprehension. Sound and letter knowledge Recognise most sound/letter matches including silent letters, vowel/consonant digraphs and many less common sound–letter combinations (ACELA1474) English has 26 letters and 44 phonemes, and each phoneme has an average of 12 different graphic representations. Sounds and letters match only about 12% of the time, compared to almost 100% matches in some other alphabetic languages such as Finnish or Greek. Many other languages are far more transparent, and so decoding is predictable and spelling is not taught. the variability of English matches. Useful strategies include underlining graphemes with the same phoneme (for example, boat, know, no) as they occur in texts being read. Literature
Creating texts Reread and edit text for spelling, punctuation and text structure (ACELY1672) In order to edit, students need to have the linguistic resources to identify mistakes. An error is usually indicative of the student’s position on the EAL/D learning progression and reflective of what they have yet to learn. EAL/D students may have limited vocabulary banks from which to draw alternative words when editing text. Provide EAL/D students with alternative word options when editing work. Use personal words books, to record words within the sentence and use a translation in the student’s first language if desired and available. Creating texts legibly and with growing fluency using unjoined lower-case and letters (ACELY1673) Not all languages are alphabetic. Some EAL/D students will have experiences with other languages that are not alphabetic (for example, logographic languages such as Chinese, syllabic languages such as Korean) or with alphabetic languages that have different scripts such as Russian. Students from some alphabetic language backgrounds who arrive with schooling experience will have already commenced using joined script in the first language. Provide explicit instruction in the construction of letters with letter guides and starting points marked. Find out what experiences with print EAL/D students have had. Creating texts Construct texts featuring print, visual and audio elements using software, including word processing programs (ACELY1674) EAL/D students’ knowledge of ICT may be much less or much better developed than their peers. Different languages have different placement of keys on the keyboard, and so EAL/D students’ ability to word process may be compromised. Explicitly teach keyboard skills, including charts that show upper-case and lower-case matches (as keyboards are in the upper case).
Creating texts Use software including word processing programs with growing speed and efficiency to construct and edit texts featuring visual, print and audio elements (ACELY1685) EAL/D students’ knowledge of ICT may be much less or much better developed than their peers. Different languages have different placement of keys on the keyboard, and so EAL/D students’ ability to word process may be compromised. Explicitly teach keyboard skills, including charts that show upper-case and lower-case matches (as keyboards are in the upper case).
Creating texts Reread and edit students’ own and others’ work using agreed criteria for text structures and language features (ACELY1705) In order to edit, students need to have the linguistic resources to identify mistakes. An error is usually indicative of the student’s position on the EAL/D learning progression and is reflective of what they have yet to learn. Provide detailed proofreading checklists that will be helpful to EAL/D students. Identify one or two key items to look for in each editing task. Successful editing requires both breadth and depth of English language knowledge, which comes later in the language learning journey where students develop a sense of ‘what makes sense’ and ‘what sounds right’ in English. Creating texts Use a range of software including word processing programs with fluency and accuracy to construct, edit and publish written text, and select, edit and place visual, print and audio elements (ACELY1707) EAL/D students’ knowledge of ICT may be much less or much better developed than their peers. Different languages have different placement of keys on the keyboard, and so EAL/D students’ ability to word process may be compromised. Explicitly teach keyboard skills, including charts that show upper-case and lower-case matches (as keyboards are in the upper case).
Annotated Content Descriptions | English Year 7 CONTENT DESCRIPTIONS LANGUAGE/CULTURAL CONSIDERATIONS TEACHING STRATEGIES Language Language variation and change Understand the way language evolves to reflect a changing world, particularly in response to the use of new technology for presenting texts and communicating (ACELA1528) EAL/D students may not understand the unwritten cultural ‘boundaries’ around where and when one can use text language (for example, in online forums, or mobile phone messaging). Highlight the contexts in which this kind of language may and may not be used. Language for interaction Understand how accents, styles of speech and idioms express and create personal and social identities (ACELA1529) Accents and their sociocultural implications may be difficult for EAL/D students to distinguish for several years. Some students may never be able to distinguish between more closely linked accents (such as Standard Australian English and New Zealander or American and Canadian). Idioms are expressions particular to cultures and are difficult to understand and remember for those not from that culture. Explicitly the implications of accents, idioms and styles of speech. Support students with revision of idioms and explain their origins. Explain the class structure that can underlie the social identity of different types of speech. Language for interaction Understand how language is used to evaluate texts and how evaluations about a text can be substantiated by reference to the text and other sources and other social criteria (ACELA1782) The use of appraisal is linked to linguistic and cultural understandings around the ‘weight’ of words and what they insinuate. Students in the Beginning and Emerging phases of language learning will still be developing a basic vocabulary and may not understand the nuances between word choices. Employ strategies such as word clines to explicitly demonstrate the strength and inference that words carry. Discuss evaluative language in texts being read and how authors choose these deliberately to convey a point of view. Use classroom strategies that will develop EAL/D students’ evaluative language.
in context Analyse and explain the effect of technological innovations in texts, particularly media texts (ACELY1765) Explanation of the effects will require specific language (media terms) and a specific text structure for the explanation. Students in the Consolidating phase may be able to demonstrate an in-depth knowledge of these features from student’s first language learning. Students in the Beginning, Emerging and Developing phases will need intensive support to develop the vocabulary required. Interacting with others Identify and discuss main ideas, concepts and points of view in spoken texts to evaluate qualities; for example, the strength of an argument or the lyrical power of a poetic rendition (ACELY1719) Spoken texts may be difficult to understand for students in the Beginning and Emerging phases of language learning, depending on their level of listening comprehension. Students in the Developing and Consolidating phases will still require support with extended texts and ‘close’ sounds (for example, pin/bin). Interacting with others Use interaction skills when discussing and presenting and information, selecting body language, voice qualities and other elements (for example, music and sound) to add interest and meaning (ACELY1804) Interaction skills are culturally specific. Eye contact, social distance, expected voice qualities and methods of presenting are all taught differently in different countries. Explicit modelling of the requirements is necessary. Provide support in the form of extra rehearsal. Filming a rehearsal of a contribution to discussion and analysing it with the student can be beneficial. Provide an explicit and analytical marking key so that students are aware of how they are being marked.
Interacting with others Plan, rehearse and deliver presentations, selecting and sequencing appropriate content and multimodal elements to promote a point of view or enable a new way of seeing (ACELY1720) These may be particularly daunting for an EAL/D student, especially those in the Beginning and Emerging phases. The student may be particularly conscious of their accent, and other students may find this a source of amusement, thus exacerbating the self-consciousness of the student. Give students a chance to present in smaller groups or take time out to practice their delivery. In all cases, they should be encouraged to provide visual supports for key words and concepts so that all students can follow the gist of their information. Other areas to support are a student’s intonation (rise and fall of speech) and stress of particular words so that they are more easily recognisable to the audience. For example, the word ‘syllable’ is stressed on the first syllable (syllable). An EAL/D student may just as easily say ‘syllable’ or ‘syllable’, thus making the word more difficult to comprehend for native speakers. Interpreting, analysing, evaluating Analyse and explain the ways text structures and language features shape meaning and vary according to audience and purpose (ACELY1721) EAL/D students at the Beginning, Emerging and Developing phases will not understand the nuances of language in many situations. They will not recognise that the particular language choices made in the text can impact on meaning. Explain how these structures and features shape meaning with concrete examples taken from texts being read. Model the variation of language according to audience and purpose through role play that EAL/D students watch or through an in-depth analysis of different language and text structures on a same topic and how these change according to audience and purpose (for example, a text, an email to a friend, a business email, a letter). Interpreting, analysing, evaluating Use knowledge and text processing strategies to interpret a range of types of texts (ACELY1722) The knowledge that EAL/D students possess will vary. Ascertain what knowledge EAL/D students have. Model text processing strategies prior to the task.
Text structure and organisation Understand how cohesion in texts is improved by strengthening the internal structure of paragraphs through the use of examples, quotations and substantiation of claims (ACELA1766) The appropriateness of quoting sources and the use of punctuation differ from culture to culture. Explicitly model the conventions around the use of examples, quotation and substantiation of claims. Text structure and organisation Understand how coherence is created in complex texts through devices such as lexical cohesion, ellipsis, grammatical theme and text connectives (ACELA1809) Cohesive devices such as lexical chains and ellipsis require developed academic language. EAL/D students in the Beginning and Emerging phases of English language learning will be using simple cohesive devices until they have developed sufficient skills to use these. Allow opportunities for oral activities that develop these skills. Enlarge a section of text and highlight cohesive devices different colours). Note that lexical cohesion also works on subtle cultural levels. For example, some may find a clear relationship between ‘popcorn’ and ‘movie’, while others may not. Give students in the Beginning and Emerging phases of English language learning the opportunity to practice simple cohesive devices before requiring them to engage in more advanced activities. Text structure and organisation Understand the use of punctuation conventions, including colons and semicolons, dashes and brackets in formal and informal texts (ACELA1544) Punctuation varies in different languages. In some languages it does not and in other languages the symbols used are different. For example, in German all nouns are capitalised, while some languages have no capitals. Colons, semicolons and brackets may not be features of an EAL/D student’s first language. Explicitly teach punctuation, ensuring that EAL/D students understand both the symbol and the function of punctuation. Expressing and developing ideas Analyse and examine how effective authors control and use a variety of clause structures, including embedded clauses (ACELA1545) Students in the Beginning and Emerging phases of English language learning still trying to master simple clause structures will find this task difficult. Punctuation differs from language to language, and some languages have no punctuation. Ensure that students have a firm understanding of simple clauses and sentences before attempting to explain complex sentences that contain embedded clauses. Explicitly the punctuation required for an embedded clause, and explain that this is an easy way for students to identify such clauses.