The
Australian Curriculum: English Foundation to Year 10 is comprised of three strands -
language, literature and literacy. These three interrelated areas of
learning form the core of the English curriculum and provide the
foundation for study across all curriculum areas.
Together, the three strands form an integrating framwork of disciplinary knowledge and focus on developing students' knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking and writing from Foundation to Year 10. The three strands are:
-
Language: knowing about the English language -
Literature: understanding, appreciating, responding to, analysing and creating literary texts -
Literacy: expanding the repertoire of English usuage.Through studying English students learn to listen, read and view, speak, write and create increasingly complex and sophisticated texts with accuracy, fluency and purpose. They acquire, use and display their knowledge in and out of school. Students come to an explicit understanding and appreciation of the nature of the English language and how it works to create various kinds of meanings. The study of English helps students to extend and deepen their relationships, to understand their identities and their place in a changing world, and to become citizens and workers who are ethical, thoughtful and informed. It also helps students to engage imaginatively with literature, to understand and value informed appreciation, criticism and literary history. In the senior years of school, studying English helps prepare students to pursue pathways in education, training and work.
The English curriculum aims to ensure that students:
Understand and use Standard Australian English in its spoken and written forms and in combination with other non-linguistic forms of communication.
Develop a sense of the capacity of Standard Australian English to evoke feelings, to organise and convey information and ideas.
Use language to inform, persuade, entertain and argue.
Understand, interpret, reflect on and create an increasingly broad repertoire of spoken, written and multimodal texts across a growing range of settings.
Develop interest and skill in inquiring into the aesthetic aspects of texts, an informed appreciation of literature, and an understanding of literary criticism, heritage and values.
Develop proficiency in the increasingly specialised written and spoken language forms of schooling.
At Waterford West State School, we teach English as a distinct area of study in its own right. However, like other key learning areas, English provides contexts for developing literacy skills and knowledge. Particular aspects of literacy are identified as being most relevant to English and developed through explicit teaching of English.
We then provide students with opportunities to interpret and use the English language correctly, fluently, creatively, critically, confidently and effectively in a range of digital and print settings, and in texts designed for a range of purposes and audiences.