Category: Resources

Term 4 Primary Languages Networks meetings

2/11/2022

In Term 4, primary languages teachers are invited to join one of 8 network meetings.

Enrol in a meeting through MyPL using the course code NR36349. You will need to then select the session or meeting that is relevant for you.

South Asian Languages – 14 November 2022 – Girraween PS
Vietnamese – 16 November 2022 – Lansvale PS
Greek – 18 November 2022 – Earlwood PS
Chinese – 23 November 2022 – Hurstville PS
Italian – 24 November 2022 – Five Dock PS
Arabic – 29 November 2022 – Auburn West PS
Community Languages – 30 November 2022 – Curran PS
Korean – 30 November 2022 – Campsie PS

All primary language teachers in department schools are encouraged to join the Primary Languages Network on MS Teams by completing this short entry survey. You will find more information about the meetings in the team. It should take 4 minutes to complete.

If you have any questions about the meetings, please contact the primary languages team at primlang@det.nsw.edu.au

Embedding Aboriginal pedagogies in language teaching – support document

5/9/2022

The Languages and Culture team and the primary languages team have joined forces to develop the new Embedding Aboriginal pedagogies in language teaching document. This resource supports language teachers K-12 to embed Aboriginal perspectives in their teaching practice, while maintaining the focus on core curriculum content.Aboriginal perspectives are found in Aboriginal processes, rather than in Aboriginal content.

This resource was developed with support from the department’s Aboriginal Educational and Wellbeing Officers. It unpacks each of the 8 Aboriginal ways of learning within the context of language learning, including how to align each process with languages pedagogy and suggestions for communicating with students about each process.

You can find the Embedding Aboriginal pedagogies in language teaching document on both the Early Stage 1 to Stage 3 page, and also on the Learning across the curriculum page of the languages website.

Support for Early Stage 1-3 includes:

- sample Stage 3 lesson sequence with Aboriginal pedagogies – eating at a restaurant
- Stage 3 learning map – eating at a restaurant.

Support for Stages 4-5 includes:

- Stage 5 generic unit on food trucks – highlighting where Aboriginal processes are embedded into teaching and learning activities to help identify these connections in your own units of work
- Stage 5 learning map – food trucks.

Latin Continuers – sample unit of work

30/5/2022

Catullus poems 1, 3, 5, 11, 13, 50 and 51

We have just published a sample unit of work for Stage 6 Latin (Preliminary course).

Designed for 10 weeks of learning, it includes a range of activities and strategies to support students to read, understand, analyse literary features and translate the above poems of the first century BCE poet Gaius Valerius Catullus.

The unit accompanies the sample assessment task (with marking guidelines) published last year, which assesses outcomes 1.1, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2 and 2.5.

The sample unit and task are available on our Latin Continuers page.

New Stage 6 Continuers resource – answering listening and reading questions

23/5/2022

We have just published a resource on the Stage 6 section of our website under the heading 'Assessment in Stage 6', that explores question keywords used in Stage 6 Continuers courses, question types that address outcomes 3.1-3.6 and a range of sample answers to demonstrate ways to effectively answer these questions. This resource is also available on the department's HSC hub.

Resources and professional learning for all languages from SICLE

29/7/2021

SICLE is organising a number of language specific PL events, focusing on strategies for online language learning. All events will be advertised on the Open Language Portal under the Resources for All Languages button and all teachers are welcome. Currently on the Portal there is information about free online workshops, for Greek, Arabic, Chinese and Hindi. More will be added in the coming weeks.
You can also explore sample programming resources, as well as generic resources that may be useful for the teaching and learning of all languages.

New support document – visible thinking in the languages classroom

21/7/2021

We have added a new page to our website – Teaching tools – where you can find information on feedback, learning journals and a new support document on visible thinking in languages.

This document supports our recent statewide staffroom, and we’ve had lots of requests from teachers wanting more, so we hope you like what we’ve done. Visible thinking tools and strategies in the languages classroom can lead to increased student engagement and deeper levels of understanding, so we think our support document is a ‘must-read’, as part of Elective PD.

We explore how to create a culture of thinking in your classroom, tools and strategies you can use, and provide explicit links to teaching and learning activities on our website.

Stage 6 Literacy – languages

21/7/2021

New literacy resource pack for Stage 6!

Stage 6 Literacy in context – Writing in languages is now live! This suite of resources is designed to support student writing development in languages based on current research to support student literacy.
These Stage 6 resources have been created to enable teachers to use content they are working with in class to improve the quality of students' written responses in English (to a stimulus text in the target language) and in student responses in the language they are learning. They contain videos and downloadable activities on subject vocabulary, planning for writing and student writing and feedback.
You can use these resources individually, as a faculty, or as part of a whole-school literacy team. By using these resources, you can also register hours for Elective PD.

Stage 6 Latin – support for Continuers and Extension

13/7/2021

We are very, VERY excited to announce that we have just published 3 new resources for Stage 6 Latin:

- a sample assessment task for the Preliminary course on Catullus poem 50
- HSC examination in Latin Continuers – advice for students
- HSC examination in Latin Extension – advice for students.

Please note that we published an earlier version of the sample assessment task, however we had to make some changes to the outcomes and the marking guidelines. Some of these changes were to enable students to access the task as a practice, without providing them with any answers. We also included more background information for teachers. If you had previously downloaded a copy of the task, please discard it and replace it with the new version.

You can access this new support from our Latin Stage 6 page.

Assessment resources for primary language teachers

19/5/2021

We are very happy to share assessment resources to support primary language teachers.

These resources support teachers in implementing evidence-based assessment practices throughout the teaching and learning cycle, in the context of both communicative language tasks and practice activities.

The resources include:
· Stage 1 – chatterbox unit starter
· Stage 3 – restaurant unit
· Stage 3 – restaurant assessment task
· Stage 3 – assessment rubric
· Multi-Stage – intentional observation checklist
· Multi-Stage – rubric for communicative tasks
· Multi-Stage – peer and self-assessment for communicative activities
· Multi-Stage – using a chatterbox in the language classroom video.

New Stage 5 units of work for German, Italian and Spanish from NESA

15/3/2021

New units of work for Stage 5 are now available on the NESA languages website. Each unit has a different focus:
- German – 'How do I get there?' – improve student engagement through collaborative and experiential approaches, including the escape room methodology.
- Italian – 'There was a time ' – present an integrated approach to the teaching of culture through narrative.
- Spanish – 'Will you buy it?' – strategies on how to use authentic advertising materials in the teaching of language.