English – Student Diversity

Student diversity

The Western Australian Curriculum values diversity by providing for multiple means of representation, action, expression and engagement, and allows schools the flexibility to respond to the diversity of learners within their community.

All schools have a responsibility when implementing the Western Australian Curriculum to ensure that students’ learning is inclusive, and relevant to their experiences, abilities and talents.

For some students with diverse languages, cultures, abilities and talents, it may be necessary to provide a range of curriculum adjustments so they can access age-equivalent content in the Western Australian Curriculum and participate in learning on the same basis as their peers.

In the English curriculum, meeting the needs of diverse learners may include selecting appropriate texts that affirm aspects of diversity and acknowledge the impact of diversity on students’ social worlds. Texts can be written, spoken, visual, multimodal and in print or digital/online forms. Texts include all forms of augmentative and alternative communication; for example, gesture, signing, real objects, photographs, pictographs, pictograms and Braille. The English glossary defines key terms, such as ‘speak’, ‘write’, ‘read’ and ‘listen’. This provides important information about how students can access content within the Western Australian Curriculum and demonstrate what they know and can do. Teachers will design and adapt assessment, which may include varying the mode used to assess knowledge and skills. Teachers may provide alternatives for oral presentations, including live and recorded presentations. They may provide flexibility in open-ended tasks that can be completed at different levels of complexity for their students.

The English curriculum is for all students. It is recognised that some students may require adjustments to support how they see, hear and/or process language. Students may require access to a wide range of approaches, including but not limited to:

• auditory, visual and kinaesthetic methods of instruction
• simultaneous learning modes, such as combinations of listening, speaking, reading, viewing and writing resources
• resources, such as picture cues for words or hand and mouth movements to illustrate a sound
• peer-assisted learning
• challenging individual and group extension activities
• devices, mnemonics, rhythms and rhymes to reinforce vocabulary, expressions and features
• alternatives to representing understanding, including drawing, role-play and digital tools.

All schools have a responsibility when implementing the English curriculum to ensure that teaching is inclusive and relevant to the lived experiences of all students.

Students for whom English is an additional language or dialect

English as an additional language or dialect (EAL/D) students’ experiences, understandings and expectations may be different from those assumed to be ‘common knowledge’ in Western Australian learning contexts and must therefore be considered. The curriculum often refers to the familiar and the everyday; however, the ‘everyday’ is determined by social and cultural contexts. Students attempt to make connections between new learning at school and what is known from home. EAL/D students need to learn English, learn through English and learn about English.

Students from an EAL/D background require specific support to learn and build on the English language skills needed to interact at school and to access the curriculum. EAL/D students need support to learn the different registers of English. These include the social language of informal interactions as well as the learning area–specific tasks. Standard Australian English is the variety of spoken and written English language used in Australia in more formal settings, such as for official or public purposes, and recorded in dictionaries, style guides and grammars. While it is always dynamic and evolving, it is recognised as the ‘common language’ of Australians.

Many languages are spoken in homes and communities around Australia, including the many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island languages and dialects. EAL/D learners start school with spoken and/or written skills in one or more languages. EAL/D students may have already developed relevant concepts and skills in their first language or dialect. Their existing language skills are a rich resource for learning English and for accessing the curriculum.