Introduction
Rationale
Essential English is an applied subject suitable for students interested in pathways beyond Year 12 leading to tertiary studies, vocational education or employment. An Essential English study course promotes openness, imagination, critical awareness, and intellectual flexibility – skills that prepare students for local and global citizenship, and for lifelong learning in a wide range of contexts.
Learning area structure
Course structure
Students should be given the opportunity to experience and respond to these types in Units 1 and 2. For reporting purposes, schools must develop at least one assessment per unit, with a maximum of four assessments in units 1 and 2.
Teaching and learning
- Syllabus objectives
- Underpinning factors
- Aboriginal perspectives and Torres Strait Islander perspectives
- Pedagogical and conceptual framework
- Subject matter
They include the knowledge, skills, abilities, behaviors and attitudes that will help students live and work successfully in the 21st century. Literacy is important in developing the skills and strategies needed to express, interpret and communicate complex information and ideas. These aspects of literacy knowledge and skills are included in the curriculum objectives, unit objectives, subject and instrument-specific standards for Core English.
These aspects of numeracy knowledge and skills are included in the curriculum objectives, unit objectives, subject and instrument-specific standards for Core English. The 21st century skills identified in the table below reflect a common agreement, both in Australia and internationally, on the skills and attributes that students need to prepare for higher education, work and engagement in a complex and changing world with speed. These elements of 21st century skills are embedded in curriculum objectives, unit objectives, subject and instrument-specific standards for Core English.
Where appropriate, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives are embedded in the subject matter. It is specific to each unit in the study and forms the basis for students' learning experiences.
Assessment — general information
Formative assessments — Units 1 and 2
Summative assessments — Units 3 and 4
This syllabus provides instrument-specific standards for the three summative internal assessments in Units 3 and 4. The instrument-specific standards describe the characteristics that are visible in student responses and align with the identified assessment objectives. Assessment objectives are drawn from the unit objectives and are contextualised for the requirements of the assessment tool.
An assessment objective can appear in several criteria or in a single assessment criterion. The instrument-specific standards define the evidence at each level (A–E) for each of the criteria.
Exiting a course of study
Exit folios
Determining an exit result
Reporting standards
The student, in creating texts, demonstrates knowledge of the relationship between text, context, audience, and purpose by: using cultural assumptions, attitudes, values, and beliefs to unevenly shape representations of identities, places, events, and/or concepts in a text. The learner demonstrates the use of textual features for purpose, audience and context through: primarily, language choices according to register and the use of appropriate language features and text structures. The learner, in creating texts, demonstrates some knowledge of the relationships between text, context, audience and purpose by: using some ideas to create close representations of identities, places, events and/or concepts in a text.
The student, in response to texts, demonstrates fragmented knowledge of the relationships between text, context, audience and purpose through: identification and some description of the representations of identities, places, events or concepts in texts; and identification of some language features and/or structures of a text, and fragmented description of how they create meaning. The student, in creating texts, demonstrates fragmented knowledge of the relationship between text, context, audience and purpose by: using ideas to occasionally create narrow representations of identities, places, events and/or concepts in a text . The student occasionally demonstrates organization and development of texts for purpose, audience and context through: uneven use of genres and occasional use of the role of the.
In Unit 1, students investigate how meaning is communicated in contemporary workplace texts and/or popular culture texts about the world of work. They investigate how the relationships between context, purpose and audience create meaning in work-related texts and/or popular culture texts about the world of work.
Unit objectives
Areas of study
Assessment guidance
Students explore how different views, ideas, cultural assumptions, attitudes, values, and/or beliefs are communicated through textual representations of a range of human experiences. They identify audience and purpose and consider how meaning is constructed in reflective/non-business texts to invite the audience to adopt a particular point of view. Students respond to a variety of reflective/non-business texts by creating their own texts for different purposes and audiences.
In response to texts, students identify the different perspectives, ideas, cultural assumptions, attitudes, values and/or beliefs communicated through the purposeful construction of identities, places, events and/or concepts. Students apply their knowledge and understanding of how meaning is communicated in reflective/nonfiction texts when responding to a studied text or texts. Students identify the patterns and conventions of reflective/non-fiction texts and consider how they differ for different purposes, audiences and contexts.
They consider how different perspectives, ideas, attitudes and/or values are communicated in reflective/non-fiction texts through the exploration of human experiences, and apply this knowledge when creating texts that reflect on their own life and experiences. When creating texts, students should be given opportunities to explore the interpretations of others and their own interpretations of human experiences. Students can use narrative techniques, personal voice and a range of language features to invite their audience to take positions.
In Units 1 and 2 there must be a range and balance in the texts that students read, listen to and watch.
Unit objectives
Areas of study
Assessment guidance
To do this, students explore the representation(s) of Australian identities, places, events and/or concepts of others in a text or texts from Australian popular culture and use this understanding to convey their own interpretation through their written response . This review focuses on the interpretation, research and creation of representations of community, local and/or global issues.
