Approaches to English

Introduction

Standards in each dimension of Reading, Writing and Speaking and listening are presented at each of the six levels in the English domain. The key disciplinary concepts of texts and language are integrated in each standard. Three aspects of language – contextual understanding, linguistic structures and features, and strategies – are also embedded in the standards.

Language

• Contextual understanding: Students need to learn about how situational and cultural contexts influence language choices and interpretations of texts.
• Structures and features of language: ‘Structures’ refers to the overall organisation of texts; ‘features’ refers to the grammar of writing and speech, or the conventions, including knowledge of letters, words, spelling, paragraphs, punctuation, layout and presentation.
• Strategies: Techniques and approaches that help students to become effective speakers, listeners, readers and writers. Students need to develop a repertoire of strategies from which they can select those that will help them to achieve their goals.

Texts

Texts play a central role in English. The standards refer to the wide range of texts in print, electronic, oral and visual forms that students respond to and create. These texts will include literature, everyday texts, and mass media texts. Imaginative, informative and argumentative texts have an important place in English. Imaginative texts are characterised by the ways they use language to represent, recreate and explore human experience in real and imagined worlds. In English, students encounter texts that convey information about people, events and issues. Students compose and respond to texts that convey opinions and points of view or seek to persuade audiences.

The selection of texts for students to read and view involves several considerations. Students should have access to a wide range of quality texts, both for close study and for wider reading, which provide models of language for a variety of purposes. Classroom resources should be planned accordingly and students should have regular access to the school library, and to the expertise of teacher librarians.

Quality and variety: Computer software and CD-ROMs should be evaluated in terms of their accessibility, readability on screen, and the extent to which they offer different experiences from print texts. Literature is fundamental in English, and literature texts deal with a diversity of human experience, enabling students to extend their understandings of the world and of themselves. Literature texts – including picture storybooks, novels, films, short stories, plays, poems, epics and sagas – play a central role in English. Illustrations in picture story books and informative texts add further dimensions of meaning; the quality of illustrations is an important consideration in text selection.

Engagement: Texts should be selected to engage students and help to develop the interest and motivation for them to read for a variety of purposes, and to develop appreciation of the rewards of reading.

Complexity: The level of complexity of texts should be considered. In selecting readers for students’ independent reading in the early years, primary considerations are the interest level of the texts and whether they are within the student’s current range of reading skill. Texts selected for guided reading and in literature circles can be more challenging, and extend students’ reading skills. Texts for close study in the secondary years should be accessible, but should also be challenging.

Creating texts

Students write texts for many different purposes, including computer-generated and hand-written texts. They participate, through speaking and listening, in different oral situations; classroom programs should be planned to include many opportunities for students to actively engage in speaking and listening (see also below), and to learn to compose and interpret many different kinds of oral texts, including discussions, stories, debates, speeches and dramatic presentations.

Classroom interactions

Many of the skills that students develop, especially in speaking and listening, involve students in interactions with others. The English program should be structured to provide many opportunities for pair, small-group and whole-class discussions; for listening to others, including peers, the teacher and other adults; for making individual and group presentations to different audiences; and for receiving feedback on their work. These interactions provide the contexts for learning how to adjust speech and writing to meet the needs of audiences and different contexts. Talk is central in English.

Opportunities to share their own written and visual texts, both print and electronic, within the classroom help students to develop their skills to meet the demands of different purposes and audiences. Sharing responses to different texts provides students with opportunities to justify their own interpretations to others.

Foundational skills

At Levels 1 and 2, the development of reading skill is of primary importance. This is closely connected with learning to write. Reading and writing build on students’ oral language capacities. Explicit and systematic teaching of the nature of the alphabetic writing system, how sounds are represented alphabetically, and concepts of print is required to enable students to learn to read and write. Beginning readers need explicit instruction about how spoken words are made up of smaller units of sounds, about spelling–sound correspondences, and about common spelling patterns. Strategies to support students’ vocabulary development can be embedded in a variety of learning contexts. Students need many opportunities to practise reading, both aloud and silently, as they develop fluency.

Comprehension is important at all levels, and from Level 1 onwards students benefit from explicit teaching of a range of comprehension strategies such as predicting events and outcomes; summarising main ideas; making connections between texts and their own knowledge and experience; self-questioning; and sounding out unfamiliar words.

Strategies

Some reading strategies have been noted above, but in all three dimensions of English, students need explicit teaching about strategies. Students with a broad repertoire of strategies learn to select appropriately for different purposes and in different contexts.

Strategies for spelling familiar and unfamiliar words are part of this repertoire. Strategies for planning, drafting, editing, revising and proofreading help students to write with purpose and effect, and to convey information and ideas to different audiences. Also required is explicit teaching of strategies to support effective oral communication, including adjusting speaking to take account of audience, purpose and context; varying tone, volume and pace to emphasise meaning; and identifying the main ideas when listening to speakers.

Teachers use a variety of strategies for reading aloud to children, for shared and guided reading, and to encourage independent reading. They also use strategies to provide frequent opportunities for modelled writing, shared and interactive writing, guided writing and independent writing. These strategies also include providing many opportunities for purposeful speaking and listening.

Critical perspectives

The Luke and Freebody1 model of the four resources, or practices, used by readers, highlights the connectedness of reading practices, including critically analysing texts. In English, students learn to use all these practices:

• break the code of texts
• use texts functionally
• participate in the meanings of text
• critically analyse texts.

They learn to break the code of texts, recognising and using the fundamental structures and features of written texts including: alphabet; sounds in words; spelling; conventions and patterns of sentence and text structures.

They learn to use texts functionally, knowing that different types of texts have different purposes and that these purposes shape the way texts are structured and formed, and apply this knowledge in using (for example, comprehending, creating, transforming) text.

They also learn to participate in the meanings of text, making meaning by drawing on their own experiences and prior learning, and by knowledge of similar texts. Students participate in the meanings of text by understanding and composing meaningful written, visual and spoken texts from within the meaning systems of particular cultures, institutions, families, and communities.

In addition, they learn to critically analyse texts. Students learn that texts are not neutral, but they represent particular views. They can also silence other points of view, and influence others’ ideas.

The proposition here is that all of these repertoires are ‘variously mixed and orchestrated in proficient reading and writing. The key concept in the model is necessity and not sufficiency – each is necessary, but in and of themselves, none of the four families of practice is sufficient for literate citizen/subjects.’

The standards in each dimension of the English domain draw attention to the development of analytical skills, including critical evaluation of the spoken language of others, understanding the influence of audience on the construction and presentation of spoken texts, and learning to identify the multiple purposes for which texts are created.

Monitoring growth and achievement

The reflective cycle of planning, teaching, reflecting and evaluating supports the teaching of English at all levels.

Observing students at work in a variety of classroom contexts provides teachers with many different kinds of information about their growth and achievement in English. Keeping records of formal and informal observations provides a sound basis for identifying students’ needs and for planning teaching and learning activities to meet those needs.

Teachers’ observations of student development over time enables them to give informed feedback to students. Feedback on all aspects of their work helps students to continue to progress. There are many classroom situations where students can give feedback to peers, and reflect on their own progress. These situations can be integrated into English learning activities, such as writing workshops.

Endnotes

1. Luke, A., & Freebody, P. (1999). A map of possible practices: Further notes on the four resources model. Practically Primary, 4(2), 5–8. Also see MyRead at www.myread.org