View Learning Outcomes | Learning Outcomes and Indicators

Curriculum Focus

Communication

Teachers model writing of various text types and encourage students to communicate ideas, opinions Ôæd feelings through writing for a variety of purposes and audiences, for example, diaries, letters, reports, recounts. Teachers provide students with opportunities to communicate information in writing based on real situations, for example, classroom activities, excursions, experiments and topics of interest. In groups and individually, students write imaginative texts which take a variety of forms, such as simple narratives, plays or poems. They innovate on known texts, such as folk tales or poems.

Aspects of language

Contextual understanding

Teachers continue to model a variety of texts in order to reinforce the idea that there are different ways of communicating according to the audience and the purpose, for example, letters, reports, poems. Students plan and write texts according to specific purposes and audiences. They participate in shared writing activities in which they discuss the most appropriate organisation and format of a piece of writing. They understand that their writing has power to influence, entertain and inform others and that it records information for later use.

Linguistic structures and features

Teachers model the writing of more complex sentences and sequenced texts of different types. They focus on the characteristic structure and features of a text, providing criteria that can be used to discuss the student’s text. They provide scaffolds for students in writing texts that are planned, sequenced and organised. Through questioning and expanding students’ talk, teachers clarify the content of the writing task and model how this is written in English. Teachers provide frameworks, such as guiding questions or headings to support students in the writing task. They discuss features of the students’ writing and provide advice on appropriate structures and features used when composing different types of text. They encourage students to use conjunctions and appropriate sequence markers in their writing. Students become more specific in their use of vocabulary, punctuation and some grammatical forms, for example, articles, pronouns, descriptive vocabulary. Teachers model the redrafting and refining of texts to take account of linguistic structures and features and encourage and support students in their attempts to do this in their own writing.

Strategies

Students are provided with opportunities to write a variety of texts for different purposes. Teachers assist students to take part in shared group and individual writing activities by modelling the planning and construction of texts. Students develop strategies to extend their vocabulary, such as making word lists related to themes and are encouraged to use their knowledge of sound–letter patterns to spell unfamiliar words. After discussion, students are encouraged to carry out some initial editing and redrafting of their own writing and may use computers to do this. Students develop strategies for spelling, such as referring to word family lists, personal dictionaries and class word lists or print around the room. Understanding of the writing process is developed, from initial draft where meaning is most important to subsequent drafts where accuracy of spelling and punctuation is refined.