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Structure of the key learning area

Substrands

Communication

The Communication substrand correlates to the Texts substrand of the English CSF, but places greater emphasis on communicative language use and the acquisition of English. It focuses on how students interact with the English-speaking environment and communicate in the new code of English. It also focuses on the development of their ability to produce and respond to spoken and written English texts used for social interaction and in the school context across the curriculum.

ESL students need to encounter a wide range of texts. 'Texts' in both the English CSF and the ESL Companion are broadly understood to mean any communication involving language, from the interrelated categories of literature, everyday and mass media texts, drawn from all key learning areas. Appropriate text selection is a critical aspect of catering for the learning requirements of ESL students. Particular attention needs to be paid to how familiar ESL students are with the content and the complexity and breadth of the vocabulary and linguistic structures used.

In the early stages, texts developed by teachers and students might be needed as an adjunct to ESL-targeted texts and texts from mainstream contexts. Depending on the students' age and stage of schooling, authentic texts used in mainstream contexts can be carefully introduced, with varying degrees of support from the teacher.