The Riverina Language Teachers Network is holding its Term 4 meeting on 28 October. The meeting will focus on:
- teaching games for the classroom
- teacher input (participants can share their ideas and success stories)
- planning for implementation.

An RSVP is appreciated but not essential.
Date: Wednesday 28 October
Time: 4:00-4:30pm
Venue: Zoom

​Join Zoom Meeting
https://nsweducation.zoom.us/j/61227987678?pwd=clovY0pOM3RURjZTaVFtNjQ4TVFTUT09
Meeting ID: 612 2798 7678
Passcode: 132435

For further information contact the network leader Marianna Valeri or on 0429 202 115.

This registered course builds teachers’ capacity to understand and apply mandatory Stage 6 school-based assessment. It unpacks NESA’s current school-based assessment requirements, gives guidance in developing interrelated and interdependent tasks and supports teachers in developing their own non-HSC style assessment tasks.

​This course enables participants to:
- understand the requirements of school-based assessment in Stage 6
- implement a range of assessment strategies in Stage 6
- design an effective assessment task for Stage 6.
 
The course can be completed at your own pace and support is available if needed.
The course is available in MyPL via code RG10281 – Stage 6 school-based assessment in languages.
 
For further support or information please contact Coreena Allen or Marcela Ayas.

In Term 4, the Languages and Culture team is delivering Assessment and reporting in 7-10 – new languages syllabuses workshops.
 
The workshops are for language teachers of Stages 4 and 5 from NSW public schools, and are NESA registered for 5 hours. They will be delivered through Microsoft Teams.
 
This course leads you through the changes you'll need to make to assessment and reporting in order to align with the new K-10 syllabuses.
 
There are 4 workshops planned for Term 4:

• Monday 26 October
• Friday 6 November
• Thursday 12 November
• Tuesday 24 November.

More events, both through Teams and face-to-face workshops, will be available in 2021.

The learning intentions of the course are:
- understand the difference between assessment as, for and of learning, and a task-based approach to assessment of learning
- understand the Common Grade Scale and the newly released Course Performance Descriptors for languages and understand their application in determining student achievement of course outcomes
- explore sample marking guidelines and draft marking guidelines differentiated across 5 grades (A-E) for one task
- write quality assessment tasks and design marking criteria that clearly describe student achievement
- understand how to report on student achievement in line with the new syllabus and tailored for the school context.
 
Enrol via MyPL, course code RG09900. Places are limited.

Welcome to Term 4. We hope everyone had a relaxing break – most likely the first genuine break many of you have had all year! We’ve been busy taking the holiday period to add more content to our website, and even though we’ve been updating the blog and our virtual statewide staffroom in Yammer, we’re actually hoping you weren’t reading anything because you were so busy relaxing! So here it is again – all in one place, just in case you missed it.

Class party unit – Stage 4
Just in time for Term 4, we have developed a generic 10-week Stage 4 party unit. The unit has been especially designed to support you in differentiating and adjusting teaching, learning and assessment activities to support a range of students. You can find the unit on the Stages 4 and 5 section of our website, or we also added it to each of the language-specific Stages 4 and 5 pages.

Stage 4 Indonesian – Dining with Indonesian friends!
We have just published a unit starter (unit of work) and matching assessment task on "Dining out with Indonesian friends!", and updated the Stage 4 scope and sequence to align with these new resources.
The unit starter is fully resourced with everything you need to pick up and teach!
Access our support via the Stages 4 and 5 Indonesian page.

Stage 5 – new sample scope and sequences
New Stage 5 sample scope and sequences for Arabic, Chinese, Indonesian, Modern Greek and Spanish are now live. The Arabic sample is for students with prior learning and/or experience, so is a good example to view if you have this learner group in Stage 5.

Online collaboration – professional learning module (TIPD)
This TIPD module has been developed by teachers, for teachers. Set aside approximately 45 minutes to read the content and complete the reflection questions.
The module supports you to:

• - select relevant online collaboration tools to support syllabus outcomes in the languages classroom
• - connect students to other language learners
• - connect with teaching colleagues to enhance language learning opportunities and outcomes through collaboration.

It can be accessed from our professional learning page.
​
We're on YouTube!
Languages NSW has set up a new YouTube channel, with recordings of our past statewide staff meetings, including:

• - our top 10 favourite assessment tasks
• - language learning games
• - blended learning
• - assessment for learning.

Please subscribe – we will add more recordings each year.

We're on YouTube!
Languages NSW has set up a new YouTube channel, with recordings of our past statewide staff meetings, including:

• - our top 10 favourite assessment tasks
• - language learning games
• - blended learning
• - assessment for learning.
• Please subscribe – we will add more recordings each year.

New TIPD module

• We have just released a new TIPD module on Languages and online collaboration, developed by teachers, for teachers, as part of our Languages Advisory Network Group (LANG). Set aside approximately 45 minutes to read the content and complete the reflection questions.

The module supports you to:

• - select relevant online collaboration tools to support syllabus outcomes in the languages classroom
• - connect students to other language learners
• - connect with teaching colleagues to enhance language learning opportunities and outcomes through collaboration.

You can access the module from our professional learning page.

We hope you're enjoying a relaxing break – we promise to re-post all this information at the start of Term 4, because even though we're posting in the holidays, it doesn't mean we expect you do to any work in the holidays!

In Term 4, the Languages and Culture team is delivering Assessment and reporting in 7-10 – new languages syllabuses workshops.
 
The workshops are for language teachers of Stages 4 and 5 in NSW public schools, and are NESA registered for 5 hours. 
 
This workshop leads language teachers through the changes they will need to make to assessment and reporting in order to align with the new K-10 syllabuses.
 
There are 4 workshops planned for Term 4:

• Monday 26 October
• Friday 6 November
• Thursday 12 November
• Tuesday 24 November.

Full details, including enrolment details will be published Week 1, Term 4.​

Just in time for Term 4, we have developed a generic 10-week Stage 4 party unit.

The unit has been developed to support you in differentiating and adjusting teaching, learning and assessment activities to support a range of students.

Our aim was to provide you with key information, in a practical and user-friendly way.

Differentiation and adjustments depend on the individual students in your class, so we have included a comprehensive range of examples – you will need to modify these, or include your own, to support individual student needs.

​You can find the unit on the Stages 4 and 5 section of our website, under the heading Programming in Stages 4 and 5. Alternatively, it's on each of the language-specific Stages 4 and 5 pages.

A message from the AFMLTA...

We are pleased to inform you of the significant project being conducted by the AFMLTA for the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment, which involves developing recommendations that will inform future policy design for languages education in Australia.

Part of this project involves data collection through a series of 3 teacher surveys to be implemented across 2020. Teacher Survey 1 is NOW OPEN.

Teachers of all languages in schools or community language centres are encouraged to participate in a survey about their experiences of the teaching of languages in their school site. Survey 1, relating to program provision and student participation, should take no more than 10 minutes to complete.

Your participation in this study is completely voluntary and all information provided will remain anonymous (the names of individual school sites and participating teachers are not collected).

The survey data will be used to inform the development of a national picture of the current situation of languages education across Australia, including the teaching of community languages and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages.

CLICK HERE to find out more and to access the survey.

For more details go to the project website, nlps.afmlta.asn.au