This resource will help teachers and schools identify strong links between English and the capabilities. It will also help teachers design learning activities.
The resource assumes familiarity with the English curriculum. It links aspects of this curriculum with Ethical Capability, Critical and Creative Thinking, Intercultural Capability and Personal and Social Capability.
Note: It is a school decision as to which capabilities are linked to which learning area(s). To help support these decisions, this resource provides general advice on teaching and assessment, as well as specific illustrative advice related to English.
The knowledge and skills learnt through the capabilities are highly transferable across learning areas and are applicable throughout schooling and in later life.
The capabilities support English to foster ethical, thoughtful, informed and active members of society.
Identifying a strong link between a capability and English supports learning in both curriculum areas. There is strong justification to link a learning area and a capability in instances where:
Looking over each capabilities curriculum, we begin to see broad links between the strands in different capabilities and in aspects of various strands and sub-strands of the English curriculum.
Linking the Critical and Creative Thinking strands to English
Critical and Creative Thinking consists of three interrelated strands. The table below provides an overview of each strand and how it links to English.
Questions and Possibilities
Explore the nature of questioning and a range of processes and techniques to develop ideas
English and Critical and Creative Thinking mutually support students to …
develop ideas and construct effective questions
Reasoning
Explore how to compose, analyse and evaluate arguments and reasoning
English and Critical and Creative Thinking mutually support students to …
compose their own arguments and analyse the arguments of others
Meta-Cognition
Explore the use of strategies to understand, manage and reflect on thinking, problem-solving and learning processes
English and Critical and Creative Thinking mutually support students to …
manage their learning and thinking as they engage with, create and reflect on spoken, written and multimodal texts
Linking the Ethical Capability strands to English
Ethical Capability consists of two interrelated strands. The table below provides an overview of each strand and how it links to English.
Understanding Concepts
Understanding and applying key concepts and ideas concerned with ethical issues, outcomes, principles and values
English and Ethical Capability mutually support students to …
develop the skills to analyse and understand the values on which many texts are built; identify ethical issues in texts; create texts that engage with ethical concepts and ideas; and use language, including ethical concepts and ideas, to express and exchange knowledge, attitudes, feelings and opinions
Decision Making and Actions
Understanding ways to respond to ethical problems and factors and challenges that influence ethical decision-making and action, and applying this understanding to different contexts
English and Ethical Capability mutually support students to …
develop the skills to analyse and understand the different ways that people respond to ethical problems and the challenges involved, and to create texts that engage with decision-making in response to ethical issues
Linking the Intercultural Capability strands to English
Intercultural Capability consists of two interrelated strands. The table below provides an overview of each strand and its broad links to English.
Cultural Practices
Describing, observing and analysing characteristics of their own cultural identities and those of others; and using critical reflection to better understand the perspectives and actions of individuals and groups in specific situations and how these can be shaped by culture
English and Intercultural Capability mutually support students to …
learn how language enables people from different cultures to interact effectively, build and maintain relationships, and apply their skills; create connections between social and geographical dialects and culture; understand and apply approaches to the study of literature that draw on understanding of culture and cultural practices, such as comparativism and historicism; and develop understanding of the cultural contexts associated with different uses of language and textual features
Cultural Diversity
Understanding the nature of cultural diversity and critically examining the concept of respect, challenges and opportunities created by cultural diversity and the way in which cultural diversity shapes and contributes to social cohesion
English and Intercultural Capability mutually support students to …
appreciate the value of studying texts from a range of cultural contexts
Linking the Personal and Social Capability strands to English
Personal and Social Capability consists of two interrelated strands. The table below provides an overview of each strand and its broad links to English.
Self-Awareness and Management
Develop the knowledge and skills to regulate, manage and monitor their emotions and interpret and assess their personal characteristics in the context of development of resilience
English and Personal and Social Capability mutually support students to …
develop language to express their feelings; and understand some factors that influence the development of resilience and apply this understanding to analysis of relevant texts
Social Awareness and Management
Learn to participate in positive, safe and respectful relationships; critique societal constructs and discrimination; and negotiate with others and work collaboratively
English and Personal and Social Capability mutually support students to …
enrich and deepen their understanding of human experiences; critique social constructs and develop language skills to build and maintain respectful relationships; and collaborate effectively, including selecting and adapting language for different purposes
Asking the following questions can be a first step in identifying strong links:
- Which of the learning area content descriptions reflect concepts or other knowledge and skills in a capability?
- Would explicit teaching and learning related to the identified link support progress towards the achievement standards for the learning area and/or capability?
The example below identifies a link between a Level 7 English content description and a Levels 7 and 8 Intercultural Capability content description. The identified link is between ideas and viewpoints about events, issues and characters represented in texts drawn from different cultural contexts (English) and the concept of cultural representation, its purpose and its effects in general (Intercultural Capability).
Once a strong link is identified, a learning activity can be designed that enables progression towards the appropriate English achievement standard as well as the appropriate capability achievement standard (again, see the example below). This may involve incorporating other relevant content descriptions to create a sequence of learning.
Example: Linking a Level 7 English content description and a Levels 7 and 8 Intercultural Capability content description
This table includes a selected content description and achievement standard extract for both English Level 7 and Intercultural Capability Levels 7 and 8, plus linking notes and an activity idea.
| | English, Level 7 | Linking notes and activity idea | Intercultural Capability, Levels 7 and 8 |
|---|
Content description | Identify and explore ideas and viewpoints about events, issues and characters represented in texts drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts
(VCELT393) | Can both Intercultural Capability and English help us to understand how cultural representations influence perspectives? Yes. Intercultural Capability can help students to generally understand why and how cultural representation occurs and the effects of these representations, and English can help students to understand how different kinds of cultural representations and perspectives associated with these are expressed. As part of a text study (novel, story, film, essay or other), students consider the cultural context in which characters and/or authors are located, the representations of those characters and/or authors, and the value afforded them in the text. Students consider social and cultural change that has occurred since the construction of the text. Students write reflectively about these representations and/or create their own imaginative texts that explore the implications of representation of diversity. | Examine how various cultural groups are represented, by whom they are represented, and comment on the purpose and effect of these representations
(VCICCB014) |
Achievement
standard extract | By the end of Level 7, students … listen for and explain different perspectives in texts. | By the end of Level 8, student … understand how cultural groups can be represented, and comment on the effects of these representations. |
How do we assess the capabilities?
Student understanding of a capability’s knowledge and skills is assessed against its achievement standards. The key to formative and summative assessment is explicit teaching of the discrete knowledge and skills underpinning the capability’s content descriptions in such a way that students are supported to progress towards the targeted achievement standard. Explicit teaching builds shared understanding of knowledge and skills, which provides a foundation for setting transparent expectations of what should be shown in student work and for feedback.
For general advice on teaching and assessment and transfer of learning, see
General resources for the capabilities.
Examples of learning activities that link English and the capabilities
All examples are illustrative only and assume familiarity with the English curriculum
Learning activity idea: Students collaborate to sequence ideas they have heard in a spoken text. As part of this task, they name skills that are required to work collaboratively with peers, such as listening to each other, and reflect on how well the skills were applied during the task.
This activity would strengthen learning in both English and Personal and Social Capability through linking listening and effective collaboration and giving students the opportunity to experience the value of listening to each other when responding to a spoken text (see Personal and Social Capability content description
VCPSCSO006).
Learning activity idea: Through a creative and/or imaginative writing unit, students are invited to draw on literary texts from their own and other cultures that they have read, viewed and/or listened to for inspiration and ideas. As part of this unit, they explore how engaging with literary texts from another culture is an intercultural experience, and they reflect on what they have learned about themselves and other cultures through this experience.
This activity would strengthen learning in both English and Intercultural Capability through building student understanding of intercultural experiences and introducing an opportunity to consider and appreciate different cultural perspectives (see Intercultural Capability content description
VCICCB006).
Learning activity idea: As part of navigating and reading a text, students connect ideas in the text to their own experiences as a way to make meaning, and they reflect on how connections to similarities and differences in their own experience can be expressed sensitively.
This activity would strengthen learning in both English and Personal and Social Capability through introducing how connecting to similarities and differences in one’s own experience is a way to build and express empathy (see Personal and Social Capability content description
VCPSCSO029).
Learning activity idea: As part of the study of a text drawn from a social context different from their own, students compare the attitudes in the text to those of individuals and groups from their own context. They explore the values that underlie attitudes to ethical dilemmas of the kind raised in the text, and how values, context and experience interact and influence responses to ethical problems.
This activity would strengthen learning in both English and Ethical Capability through introducing knowledge that helps to explain why individuals and groups in general may hold different values and approach decision-making differently when encountering ethical problems, and providing opportunity to use this knowledge as part of an analysis of a text (see Ethical Capability content descriptions
VCECD018 and
VCECU015).
Learning activity idea: Through a creative and/or imaginative writing unit, students are invited to challenge the ‘rules’ of writing and to break into hybrid and potentially subversive ways of expression. They apply different techniques for generating ideas and reflect on their effectiveness and wider applicability.
This activity would strengthen learning in both English and Critical and Creative Thinking through introducing ways to challenge assumptions and provoke shifts in perspective on the ‘rules’ of writing and introducing a rich context in which to apply them (see Critical and Creative Thinking content description
VCCCTQ045).
For more resources to support the teaching of all four capabilities, see the individual capability resources webpages and
General resources for the capabilities