English Domain

Term four has been a busy term for Sandringham students in the English Domain. 

Senior English

Year 11 and 12 Students have been working hard on studying the genre of Greek Tragedy in term four and getting ready for exams. 

Recently the Year 12s have attended English Revision Lectures to help them prepare for exams. They were lucky to have two experienced presenters.

English Language:

With over 20 years of teaching VCE English and English Language across a range of schools, Natalie Gleeson draws on her experience and expertise as a curriculum and exam writer, assessor and presenter. Natalie holds a Master of Education from the Australian Catholic University and is a well-known and respected member of the English Language teaching community.

English

Jason Jewell

Jason Jewell [BA (Hons.), Dip. Ed., MA (Appl. Ling)] taught for 20 years at McKinnon Secondary College, where he was the Manager of English. He still teaches, and has written textbooks and study materials for, VCE Units 1-4 English, EAL and Literature, and regularly lectures for students, as well as at universities and conferences. 

Year 12 Student, Xavier Zanon, has reflected on his learning in Year 12 English below:

Year 12 English has been an exciting culmination of 13 years’ worth of learning. To start our last ever semester at school we presented our oral presentations, a unique assessment and one that I enjoyed thoroughly being a practical skill that will no doubt be revisited throughout our future endeavours. Analysing Argument is a skill that we've been working on since year 7 and although we did repeat the Sac, it worked out as a useful experience in the long run for exam preparation. Finally, we studied Sophocles Greek tragedy ‘Oedipus The King’, a complex story about fate and hubris, a valuable text which provides us the opportunity to extend on our comprehension. We were fortunate enough to have the highly experienced Jason Jewell come in to lecture the cohort on our English exam technique and help us fine tune our skills for the eyes of VCAA assessors, I personally got a lot out of the day and believe it has put us all in good stead for the tasks ahead.

Junior English

In Junior English, students have been analysing how speakers and writers persuade this term as well as a focus on persuasive speaking and grammar. Year 9 have studied the Australian film text ‘Red Dog.’

Exams

At Sandringham College, students from Years 7-12 sit an English examination. 

English is a skill- based subject and therefore requires practice. When studying for the approaching English exam, students could complete some of revision tasks from below.

• Re reading/ Re watching and highlighting texts
• Rewriting sections of completed essays based on feedback
• Making quotation sheets and remembering quotes
• Deconstructing/brainstorming and planning a broad range of essay topics
• Timed practice writing
• Reading model essays, revising the structure and language 
• Highlighting and annotating your notes and revision material
• Making word and phrase banks that include sentence starters and synonyms

Students should bring a dictionary to all English exams to assist them with any words they do not know.