Developing a program
A course outlines the nature and sequence of teaching and learning necessary for students to demonstrate achievement of the set of outcomes for a unit. The areas of study describe the knowledge required for the demonstration of each outcome. Outcomes are introduced by summary statements and are followed by the key knowledge and skills which relate to the outcomes.
Teachers must develop courses that include appropriate learning activities to enable students to develop the knowledge and skills identified in the outcome statements in each area of study.
The key focus of this study is to provide students with opportunities to develop skills and knowledge in reading, writing, speaking and listening. Teaching and learning in VCE Foundation English should aim to expose students to a range of text types, model effective language use and provide regular practice and feedback to help students refine their own approach to creating texts. Units 1 and 2 of VCE Foundation English have each been divided into three areas of study: Reading and viewing texts; Creating texts; Listening to and presenting persuasive texts. Teachers should construct their courses in Foundation English to maximise the integration of the areas of study and to promote connections between learning experiences and classroom practices.
This study has been designed to be flexible in nature. In particular, ‘text’ has a broad meaning, and could relate to literary works as well as to everyday or academic texts. The term ‘text’ is used to mean any communication involving language, including spoken, print, non-print and digital texts. Teachers should select texts for study that meet the needs of their particular student cohort. As well as flexibility of text type, this study provides flexibility with regard to the level of text difficulty. Teachers should select texts that are challenging yet accessible for their classes.
In VCE Foundation English, teachers must select assessment tasks from the list provided. Tasks should provide variety to reflect the fact that different types of tasks suit different knowledge and skills. Tasks do not have to be lengthy to enable a decision to be made about student demonstration of achievement of an outcome.