ACARA has released the draft Foundation – Year 10 Australian Curriculum: Languages for Auslan and Framework for Classical Languages (including Years 7-10 Latin and Classical Greek) for public consultation.​

These curricula are open for public consultation between 19 May to 14 July 2016.

The language curricula is available at http://consultation.australiancurriculum.edu.au/.

If you wish to provide more detailed feedback, written submissions can be forwarded to languages@acara.edu.au with the relevant subject heading, for example draft Australian Curriculum: Auslan F-10, and the required cover sheet.

Microsoft is offering free professional learning workshops for Department of Education teachers to build and extend their Office 365 skills. The workshops will be hands on, personalised and adapted to the skills levels of participants.
- Tuesday 24 May Sydney Distance Education High School
- Wednesday 25 May Kings Langley Primary School 
- Thursday 26 May (half day) Bossley Park High School  
Numbers are limited.
For further details and to register go to https://sway.com/9WNKW4D5yDrJ4CkO

Many of you will be familiar with the Curriculum K-12 Languages website. The website will be closing from 1 July 2016 as we move towards the launch of a new Curriculum website for Primary and Secondary Education. Please make sure that you download copies of the resources that you access from this site as not all resources will be accessible on the new website. Please share this news with colleagues.

Dear Colleagues,
 
The Languages and Culture team (Secondary Education) is introducing Adobe Connect sessions to support all NSW language teachers.
 
Adobe Connect is a web conferencing platform which allows users to participate in an interactive, collaborative environment using any computer with an internet connection.
 
Adobe Connect is very user-friendly. Simply, go to the Secondary Languages Adobe Connect Meeting Room, https://connect.schools.nsw.edu.au/secondarylanguages/ and log in using your DoE username followed by @detnsw and your normal password.
 
Please join the Secondary Languages Adobe Connect session taking place in Week 9 on  
Wednesday 22 June at 3.30-4.00pm.  

You do not need to register to join the session, just log in a few minutes before the meeting begins. The sessions will be recorded if you are not available at the meeting time.
 
If you’re new to using Adobe Connect, a detailed how-to-guide is available below and we recommend that you complete the connection tests prior to the event as it may take a few minutes depending on the computer you are using.
 
We look forward to meeting with you in the Secondary Languages meeting room.

The Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards NSW (BOSTES) maintains a register of writers and reviewers to assist with syllabus development processes in NSW. Teachers with expertise in writing and reviewing syllabuses, support documents, work samples or units of work are invited to express their interest in being included on the register. Expression of interest forms can be downloaded from the BOSTES website. For further information, please contact Rhonda Clarke on (02) 9367 8246 or rhonda.clarke@bostes.nsw.edu.au. 

The Languages and Culture team (Secondary Education) welcomes Trish MacDonald to the role of Language Officer 2 days/week (Mondays and Fridays). Trish brings a wealth of experience to the role, including a strong rural and remote lens, a background in supporting students with special needs and a commitment to future-focused technologies. Trish can be contacted via email at trisha.macdonald@det.nsw.edu.au

On Monday, 9 May 2016, the Languages and Culture team invited ten languages teachers and Head Teachers to participate in a ‘Think Tank Day’. The day’s aims were to identify professional learning needs for languages teachers and to unpack our planned model of support to schools.

We would like to thank our participants for their contributions on the day:

• - Anna Brain (Dubbo School of DE)
• - Phillippa Cleaves (Sydney Secondary College, Leichhardt Campus)
• - Ida Harsojo (Open HS)
• - Gaelle Homma (Kogarah HS)
• - Virginia Leghorn (Model Farms HS)
• - Trisha MacDonald (Broken Hill HS)
• - Deborah Moore (Armidale HS)
• - Susan Newman (Southern Cross School)
• - Suzanne Safi (Auburn GHS and Saturday School of Community Languages)
• - Marianna Valeri (Murray HS)

As you can see, we brought in expertise from far and wide, representing comprehensive high schools, distance education schools, the Saturday School of Community Languages and the Open HS.
 
Each teacher was asked to talk about their aspirations, mindset, skill set and most rewarding professional experience. The mindset and skill set of the team were both inspirational.

Participants were:

• - student-focused, setting high expectations and using project-based learning with the authentic use of technology
• - pioneering and optimistic
• - dedicated to collaborating with their peers and to learning from people all around them, including students and school leaders
• - future-focused
• - committed to teacher accreditation and to the delivery of high quality professional learning.

 
Our next step is to form the Languages Advisory Network Group (LANG).
The role of the LANG will include:
- co-developing and co-delivering relevant and registered professional learning modules for teachers of languages through a range of delivery options 
- supporting teachers of languages in working towards and maintaining accreditation at a range of career stages 
- building the capacity of virtual and face-to-face language teacher networks and leaders.

• Keep your eye on the blog over the coming weeks if you would like to be involved.

• Michael Clyne Memorial Lecture: Challenging the monolingual mindset
  Thursday 12 May 4.30-6pm
  Room 351 Education Building 
  University of Sydney
  Speaker: Professor John Hajek
  Languages and Cultures Network for Australian Universities director Professor John Hajek presents the latest Australian research into language teaching in Years K–12.

• John Hajek is Professor of Italian and a linguist in The University of Melbourne School of Languages and Linguistics. He has held research fellowships in the UK and Australia and is currently director of both the Research Unit for Multilingualism and Cross-cultural Communication, and the Languages and Cultures Network for Australian Universities.

• To register and for more information;

http://whatson.sydney.edu.au/events/published/making-more-of-languages-challenging-the-monolingual-mindset

Languages workshop K-12

• Friday 13 May 2016
  9am-3.30pm
  Cleveland St Intensive English High School
  Surry Hills
  
  Hands-on experience for languages teachers and researchers seeking creative ways to teach and organise language teaching in classroom settings from Kindergarten to Year 12.

• For more information and registration details:
  http://whatson.sydney.edu.au/events/published/making-more-of-languages-workshops-for-teachers