The content of the Australian Curriculum: Languages is organised through two interrelated strands, which realise the three aims. The two strands are:
- Communicating: using language for communicative purposes in interpreting, creating and exchanging meaning
-Understanding: analysing language and culture as a resource for interpreting, creating and exchanging meaning.
The strands reflect three important aspects of language learning:
-communication
-analysis of aspects of language and culture
- reflection that involves
- reflection on the experience of communicating
-reflection on comparative dimensions of the languages available in students' repertoires.
The Languages curriculum enables students to engage meaningfully with people of other cultures and languages, and thereby enhance their understanding of their own language and culture. Such intercultural competence is essential in the increasingly diverse and changing contexts in which we live and work.
Languages deepens students’ understanding that each language is an integrated, evolving system for the framing and communication of meanings, which are shaped by its particular culture. Students understand the role of language as an expression of cultural and personal identity and a shaper of perspectives.
The school wide language program contributes to the development of critical thinking and the ability to adapt to change. It equips students with learning strategies and study habits which are the foundation for not only life-long learning but also subsequent language learning.
Providing distinctive real-life and intellectual opportunities
for students both to expand their engagement with the wider world, and
to reflect on the cultural and social assumptions that underpin their
own world view and their language use. Such awareness of different
perspectives is an integral part of effective communication.
Students in Prep to year 6 currently participate in Cultural Studies, a home grown program with a focus on study of Indigenous culture, which incorporates elements of the Humanities and the Australian Curriculum. A whole school Language program with a focus on local Indigenous language is currently being developed, in consultation with Elders in the local Indigenous community. It is envisaged that the Indigenous Language program will become a whole school focus in the near future.