View Learning Outcomes | Learning Outcomes and Indicators

Curriculum Focus

Communication

Teachers communicate with and teach students through oral English using enjoyable, stimulating activities, within the clear context of everyday classroom life. Students are supported through the use of a variety of non-verbal and visual cues. Teachers control the complexity of the English they use with students, using known vocabulary and sentence structures in new situations. They encourage students to be creative with their English resources and to adapt them to new communicative and functional demands. Teachers ensure that new language is modelled, taught and practised in similar contexts and then recycled in new contexts. For example, English that is modelled and used in a shared experience is recycled in games and reading and writing activities. When students use their newly acquired English in new ways to create new meanings, their efforts are encouraged and rewarded, as long as communication and meaning are sustained. Through interacting in English when working and playing with others, students are encouraged to talk simply about themselves and the learning and creative activities they are involved in at school.

Aspects of language

Contextual understanding

Students understand, from their first-language experiences, that different situations call for the use of different styles of language or manner of approach. Through communicating with a range of people in a wide range of situations in the classroom, and through teacher modelling of appropriate English for these situations, they begin to learn that the same is true for English. They start to adapt their English repertoire and non-verbal resources to respond appropriately to these differing learning and social situations. Teachers provide intonational and contextual clues for meaning when conversing or reading to students. Teachers discuss with students, at a basic level, the need for common courtesy phrases and the contexts for using them, and give clear consistent models to follow. Students talk simply about the effects of non-verbal language on others, and they use non-verbal language conventions to enhance the meaning of their own spoken texts.

Linguistic structures and features

Teachers accept and respond to students’ developing oral English. They scaffold the talk, providing students with correct models, and extending what it is students are already able to say in English. They focus students incidentally on correct grammatical features and vocabulary without lessening the communicative value of the students’ own forms of English. They restate when students indicate they do not understand, and they use non-verbal language to support the interaction. Teachers encourage students to play and experiment with the sounds, rhythms and meanings of English through songs, rhymes, repetitive stories and word play. Teachers also assist students to perceive patterns in English at both the grammatical and phonological levels through these kinds of activities.

Strategies

Teachers encourage students in their efforts to communicate in English and through non-verbal language. As students learn to listen to English for meaning by focusing on contextual clues, they become more able to participate with purpose in classroom activities and routines. Teachers respond positively to students’ attempts to communicate and provide support by scaffolding, expanding and restating students’ English in conventional forms. Teachers modify their own language to match the level of understanding of the students, while still challenging them with new and more complex forms. Teachers understand that students are employing generalisations they have made about the way English works at the grammatical level as they move from formulaic to creative utterances. They also understand that students are developing useful coping strategies to help them to sustain and enhance their communication with others in the classroom and playground. Teachers encourage students to use their first language to clarify and reflect on tasks with other learners, in both formal and informal classroom contexts.