english faculty wsc

These do not do justice to a really intensive two days and evening delivered by an expert, who knows her subjects and demonstrates teaching strategies, naturally.

Presenter:  Lesley Wing Jan

 These two days have been most intensive.  The most important point is too recognize that there is an expectation that we will have a Literacy Policy, endorsed by Council available by the end of the year.  Note, all Faculties must now teach to their own literacies.

 We covered:  explicit teaching of writing with genres and purposes.  The importance of reading and the interdependence of reading and writing were stressed.  The importance of graphic communicators or the ‘creation of diagrams, tables and maps to represent information’ now seen as central to literacy learning.

Teachers have to be trained and the expectation is that they will adopt the DEECD’s e5 approach to their own learning – engage, explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate.

The spoken language is the key to explicit teaching and for modeling and scaffolding and building vocabulary etc.

We must establish the reading/writing link.  Reading aloud allows for building of general knowledge, vocabulary, problem solving, developing metacognition and peer sharing etc.

 There has to be common definitions across the school.  What is a graphic communicator, PNI or PMI, essay, report etc.

 In the secondary sector it is assumed that we have a working knowledge of the VELS levels 3 and 4 at least.  We must ensure that we are closely working to VELS at levels 5 and 6.

 Read the handout:  Source:  Routman, R.  (2005),  Wriitng Essentials – Raising Expectations and Standards while Simplifying Teaching, Heinemann, Portsmouth  pp 263 – 266.