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.

​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 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.

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.

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 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. 

​Australian Children's Television Foundation has released a TV series in various languages for use in the language classroom.

They include:
Lockie Leonard – based on the award winning novels by author Tim Winton is available in French, German and Portuguese
Mortified – includes an online teaching resource and is available in French, German and Italian.

These resources are rated PG and are available as digital downloads in the ACTF website.

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.
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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.