CORE: English as an Additional Language

What is the subject about

The study of English as an Additional Language (EAL) is important for all students who have recently come to Australia and or come from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse backgrounds. It focuses on Speaking and Listening, Reading and Viewing, and Writing. All students in the EAL class are given tasks that they can complete. It is important in the EAL program to learn all the necessary skills of English for all other subject areas. 

In EAL, in term 1, students learn about the lives of other new Australians. They focus on Speaking and Listening and prepare an oral presentation exploring their own identity and belonging after studying personal stories from the Refugee Council of Australia. In Term 2, the focus is on Writing about protest, analysing and developing arguments in writing. The students have the chance to explore various issues connected with inequality: gender, age, and ethnic background. During Term 3, students focus on Reading and Viewing and read the novel Black Cockatoo and create personal text-responses to such as living in two different cultures. Exploring the future through dystopian film, short stories and poetry in term 4, leads EAL student to developing creative texts of their own. Climate emergency, the influence of artificial intelligence on our lives, diminishing fossil fuel, climate migration are some of the topics explored. Students have the opportunity to develop their own poetry or, and songs, stories, info-graphics, and other short texts in response to the texts studied.

Units:

1.      Identity and belonging

2.      I protest!   

3.      Clash of cultures

4.      What future?      

Skills you will develop

• Speaking and Listening: practice discussing various topics in small groups, prepare, rehearse and deliver a formal oral presentation, give feedback about the oral presentation delivered by another student.
• Reading and Viewing: read and develop skills in understanding the meaning beyond the literal, relate texts to self, and understand the thinking behind why the author or film director created the novel, an image or a film.
• Writing: develop strategies to write sentences and whole texts based on a model, with the use a text exemplar, a planner, sentence starters, key vocabulary lists and assessment criteria, in small groups and individually, learn to edit and proofread own writing and another student’s writing.

Pathways

Studying English will develop your communication skills to ensure that you are competent in your chosen career. It will broaden your horizons both creatively and logically enabling a structured approach to planning, drafting and delivering communication verbally, in written form and through the appropriate technology.

If you are interested to know more about this subject please speak with Ms Magda