Welcome to our tour of the Global schools through languages hub,
where we'll highlight some of the key resources schools can use to support
how they provide the Australian Curriculum: Languages to beginners from Year 5.
Helping our students learn another language and interact across
cultures is one of the best gifts
we can give them for a bright future in our globalised world.
Languages are one of the eight required learning areas in Queensland state schools
with schools providing languages in Years 5 to 8 and where possible,
offering languages from Prep to Year 12.
Teachers of languages at any year level will be providing a program for classes
consisting of students with diverse learning
experiences and language backgrounds, and use a variety of strategies
to help their students achieve from where they are at in their learning.
The span of language experiences of students can be wide,
with beginner learners in Year 5 likely to have quite diverse experiences
with the target language. As with previous curricula for languages,
teachers will use the Australian Curriculum
to cater for a range of different learner backgrounds, making appropriate
adjustments to personalised learning experiences for students.
As we know, the Australian Curriculum in Prep to Year 4
is not age-appropriate for students in Years 5 and 6.
The curriculum was developed to match the maturity and interests of students.
That's why the Years 5 and 6 curriculum of the Foundation
to Year 10 sequence is used with beginners from Year 5.
It has been written to cater for students who are at a Year 5
and Year 6 level of learning development.
The Australian Curriculum: Languages is designed to be used
flexibly by teachers to cater for differences
in proficiency and starting points in the languages being taught.
The Global schools through languages hub is a one-stop shop
for teachers, school leaders and regional curriculum leaders.
It houses supporting resources for systematic curriculum delivery
to meet the requirements for languages set out in the
P-12 Curriculum, assessment and reporting framework.
You can get to the hub in a number of ways from the Learning Place. Either
click on the link on the home page of the Learning Place
or do a search for Global schools through languages hub.
The 'Every student succeeding in languages' page will support you to understand
the Australian Curriculum: Languages and provide curriculum to meet the diverse
learning needs and interests of students in a program that begins in Year 5.
The advice and resources will help you to plan for differentiated teaching
so that students are able to meet the Years 5 and 6 achievement standard
by the end of Year 6 when provided the recommended allocated time.
The Frequently Asked Questions document provides key messages
to support schools to plan for beginners in Year 5.
You may be particularly interested in the responses
to questions such as: Which band level do I teach
if students are beginning to study the language?
And: How do I deliver the Australian Curriculum: Languages
to students starting a language in Year 5?
The FAQs include advice about pedagogy,
assessment and reporting for students starting a language in Year 5.
The Pedagogy section on the 'Teachers' page of the hub
provides principles of language teaching and learning.
The achievement standards in the Australian Curriculum: Languages
assume Years 5 and 6 students have studied the target language from Prep.
So for students beginning to study the target language in Year 5,
the Supportive and differentiated teaching tab contains resources
that will help you to plan for differentiated and explicit teaching
to meet the diverse learning needs of your students.
The 'Differentiated teaching in languages' resource emphasises
the need to know both the students and the curriculum well.
It provides advice on: selecting a unit
focus that reflects the learning needs and interests of students;
considerations for adjusting assessments;
and advice for adjusting the teaching and learning sequence
to cater for learner diversity.
This is a useful resource as teachers can plan adjustments
for summative assessment conventions for Year 5 beginners,
including the conditions of assessment such as providing access
to resources, scaffolding and feedback on the draft responses.
Teachers can also adjust the mode of communication, for example,
focusing more on assessing oral, aural or receptive modes,
especially in Year 5, to support beginning students
to succeed in meeting the achievement standard by the end of Year 6.
The hub contains two 'adjusting' resources that may be of particular
interest to teachers working with beginners in Year 5.
'Adjusting language input' can assist you
to balance challenge and support in language learning.
It shows how you can vary linguistic demand
through scaffolding language input for both spoken and written texts,
according to students' language experience and ability levels.
The 'Adjusting task demand' resource provides
information and strategies to vary the demand of tasks to meet students'
needs for challenge and/or support.
Now let's look at some other resources on the hub to support teachers
to understand and analyse the achievement
standard contained in the 'Curriculum' page on the hub.
Here you will find activities in the Australian Curriculum: Languages
modules that help to analyse the achievement standards
to understand the built-in flexibility
that allows teachers to move beginners to achieve the Year 5 and 6
standards by the end of the band.
The level of support that can be provided for students to demonstrate
the achievement standard is not specified, which allows teachers to decide
on appropriate conditions and modes of assessment
that will support the needs of beginning language learners to succeed.
The Australian Curriculum: Languages modules are an excellent resource
for supporting teachers to analyse curriculum requirements
so they can effectively support
the needs of all students in the languages classroom, including Year 5 beginners.
The supporting resources, particularly in Module 1, provide
practical strategies and activities
teachers might like to consider when planning to implement the
Years 5 and 6 band of years curriculum with students in Year 5.
You may be interested in investigating
the resources that support the analysis of the achievement standards.
The resources on the hub are designed to support the middle layer of the
School Improvement Hierarchy: systematic curriculum delivery;
the development of expert teaching teams;
and the effective use of pedagogical practices.
The hub supports all of us as we work, learn and improve together
to ensure that every student is succeeding in languages.
How are you helping your Year 5 beginner students
to meet the Years 5 and 6 achievement standard by the end of Year 6?
View the resources featured in this segment
and email the Global schools
through languages team with your feedback and ideas about how additional resources
would assist schools to provide the Australian Curriculum
to Year 5 beginner language learners.