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Registrations are now open for the 8th National Conference of Italian Teachers in Australia. The conference will be held on Saturday 21 October in Brisbane. Further information about the conference including the program and registration details is available online.

The Languages and Culture team have shared the recording of their Term 3 statewide staff meeting, which focuses on assessment in the new Modern Languages K-10 Syllabus. The session focused on backward mapping and designing marking guidelines.

The local Language Teacher Networks run by the NSW Department of Education are cross-sectoral - any teacher, regardless of the sector they teach in, is welcome to attend. Check for and enrol in events via MyPL, using the relevant course code and name. Meetings occur in Week 7 or 8 each term. Upcoming meetings: Far North Coast, Wednesday 30 August, 3:30-4:30 pm (course code NR38472 - Far North Coast language teacher network meeting) Illawarra/South Coast, Wednesday 6 September, 8:30 am-3 pm (Course code NR25838 - CNI Languages new syllabus planning day)

Each time the Languages and Culture team at the NSW Department of Education publishes a set of language-specific resources to support the Modern Languages K-10 Syllabus, they're running a launch session, designed to: walk you through the new language-specific resource sets for Stages 4 and 5 explore how the resources align with the Modern Languages K-10 Syllabus, in terms of content and pedagogy discuss how you can use them in implementing the new syllabus answer questions you may have. The French launch was last week - if you missed it, the recording is now available. The team looks forward to your feedback, ideas and hearing about how you adapt these to your context as you transition to the new syllabus.

Last week, the Languages and Culture team at the NSW Department of Education launched their Japanese set of resources to support the Modern Languages K-10 Syllabus. It was great to see so many teachers attend and engage with this support. For those who could not attend, or who would like to recap the information covered, attached is the presentation as a PDF and the recording is also available, if you'd like to catch up. The team looks forward to your feedback, ideas and hearing about how you adapt these to your context as you transition to the new syllabus.

The Languages and Culture team at the NSW Department of Education is currently rolling out support for the new Modern Languages K-10 Syllabus. There's no cost, and it's available to all sectors and preservice teachers. You can find: 1-hour Accredited PD eCourse, Modern Languages K-10 Syllabus - from planning to practice in Years 7-10, which unpacks 3 key aspects of the syllabus: Understand and use the Modern Languages K-10 Syllabus to program units of work Produce language-focused activities and tasks that embed culture Identify the process and benefits of backward mapping from a unit’s summative assessment task statewide staff meeting recordings: Term 1 - Interacting in the Modern Languages K-10 Syllabus Term 2 - An introduction to the syllabus and our support website resources, including: generic scope and sequences programming guidelines language-specific resource sets for Japanese and French, including 3-year scope and sequences and fully-resourced 'pick up and teach' units of work. The team is currently working on more support for Chinese, Spanish, German and Italian, as well as assessment guidelines and programming templates. The Term 3 statewide staff meeting is happening soon, and will unpack assessment and the new syllabus. There are also launches of each language-specifc resource set, which unpack the support in detail, including the pedagaogy which is embedded in the units of work. Keep your eye on the blog for more details. 😊

AoYama Japanese Camp (AYJC) is offering incursion workshops for students to use their Japanese language skills in new and dynamic ways while consolidating knowledge. All workshops are tailored to learners and are designed around the teacher's preferred resources. Current options include: Undokai sports day (Years 5-9) –games that give students a feel for annual sports day activities held in Japan. Escape room (Years 7-11) – brain teasers to get students using script to decode keywords and escape the room. Race around Japan (Years 8-12) – challenges students to use language in new ways to solve clues so they can travel to cities around Japan. Further information including contact details and availability can be found online.

The Spanish Education Office, in collaboration with the STANSW and Languages and Culture, is holding the 16th meeting of Spanish Teachers of NSW. Date: Friday 11 August 2023 Time: 8:30 am-4 pm Venue: 105 Phillip Street, Parramatta, Department of Education's office Cost: $50 - preservice teachers; $120 - teachers. Presentation will include: Enseñar con dinámicas de grupo. Evaluación significativa: una propuesta para trascender el ámbito del aula. Aprender jugando y jugar aprendiendo. Fonética y léxico en la clase de español. Como preparar un Breakout Educativo. Experiencia de Breakout Educativo con los asistentes. A Spanish lunch will be provided. For further information about the event and how to register can be found on the Spanish Embassy's website. For any questions, you can contact Bárbara Bello: asesoriacanberra.au@educacion.gob.es

As Term 3 starts, Stage 6 teachers will be preparing students for their upcoming Trial and HSC speaking exams. Did you know the NSW Department of Education has a range of resources to support teachers to conduct speaking exams and to prepare their students for them? A recording of our statewide staff meeting Stage 6 Beginners and Continuers speaking skills on the Languages NSW YouTube site, including information and tips about how to conduct an HSC-style exam for these courses. Language-specific practice speaking questions for a range of Beginners and Continuers courses which can be found on the Stage 6 section of our website. Reflections and advice form past HSC students, including tips on improving speaking skills. Advice for Beginners language students, Advice for Continuers language students and Advice for Extension language students, including information about the speaking exam for each course. Beginners instructional video - how to approach HSC oral and written exams. Continuers instructional video - how to approach HSC oral and written exams. HSC speaking tasks in Beginners and Continuers modern languages course on MyPL. This course strengthens teacher capability for assessing students’ speaking skills in Stage 6 Beginners and Continuers courses for modern languages. The course models successful strategies for designing and conducting both HSC-style (including instructions and tips about how to conduct exams) and non-HSC style speaking tasks. This course counts for 1-hour Accredited PD. You will find this course in MyPL - Course code AC00380. (Staff only.)

The Languages and Culture team is excited to launch the Japanese set of language-specific resources to support the Modern Languages K-10 Syllabus. In the launch session, the team will: walk you through the new Japanese resource sets for Stages 4 and 5 explore how the resources align with the Modern Languages K-10 Syllabus, in terms of content and pedagogy discuss how you can use them in implementing the new syllabus answer questions you may have. Enrol via MyPL. Date: Thursday 27 July Time: 4-5 pm Course code: NR38472 Session name : Modern Languages K-10 Syllabus – launch of Japanese support For further information contact coreena.allen@det.nsw.edu.au. This session will be recorded for anyone who is unable to attend.

The Languages and Culture team at the department has published its first set of language-specific resources to support the Modern Languages K-10 Syllabus. 🎉 While the team has started with Japanese, we encourage teachers of all modern languages to take a look because the support looks totally different to anything that's been done before. The units are 'pick up and teach' for a full term of teaching in Stage 4 and a full term in Stage 5. This includes all student resources. The units not only provide the teaching, learning and assessment activities, they also guide you through the pedagogy of the new syllabus. The intent of curriculum reform is to strengthen and streamline what is taught in schools, presenting the opportunity to engage and reenergise what we teach and how we teach it. In our context, this means emphasising depth rather than breadth - focusing on practising, reinforcing and building on language structures that facilitate communication, rather than focusing on large amounts of vocabulary. This allows for deep learning. Here are some of the features in each unit, to support you with planning, quality pedagogy and syllabus content: The summative assessment task is the bedrock of the unit. By providing this at the start, you have a clear understanding of what students are expected to understand, know and do by the end of the unit. Explicit teaching and learning activities, aligned to syllabus dot points. You may have noticed that the outcomes are very broad in our context. The true 'richness' of the syllabus lies in the content dot points. By aligning these dot points to activities, it showcases what the syllabus 'looks like' in the classroom, across a broad range of content. The teaching, learning and assessment activities have been 'chunked', each with their own underpinning learning intentions and success criteria, as well as the vocabulary and grammatical structures (and, where relevant, script). 'Mini task - progress checkpoints' are included, which are formative assessment opportunities backward mapped from the end-of-unit summative task. These support students to identify where they are on their learning journey, in relation to meeting the requirements of the summative task. Opportunities for feedback and student self-reflection, to support students to gain ownership of their own learning, build a deeper understanding of how the language can be applied to the summative task, as well as identify which skills they need to strengthen and where to go for help. Differentiation strategies, for students requiring additional support, high potential and gifted students and students with advanced proficiency. Timeframes, formative and summative assessment tasks, teaching and learning activities and reflection and feedback opportunities should be adjusted to suit your context, including the specific strengths and needs of students. The first language to be published is Japanese. The 'set' includes: Stage 4 and Stage 5 scope and sequence documents, with assessment ideas 2 complete units of work - one for Stage 4 (on festivals) and one for Stage 5 (on travel) - from the relevant scope and sequence. These include the final summative task, marking guidelines, all teaching, learning and assessment activities and all student resources. student-friendly infographics of the scope and sequence documents and the units of work, to engage them in the learning. View the Japanese 'set'.

Open to all students in NSW from Kindergarten to Year 10 who study the Greek Community Language (at afternoon/Saturday schools, Secondary College of Languages, NSW School of Languages, mainstream schools, or students of private tuition). There are prizes for the best entries in every category. The 2023 SICLE Greek language student competition is under the auspices of The Secretariat General for Greeks Aboard and Public Diplomacy and The Consulate General of Greece in Sydney. For more information, details on how to enter and prizes, visit the competition website.