2024 NSW Modern Language K-10 Syllabus: Part 1
Whilst I was somewhat aware that a new syllabus was on the horizon, I was still shocked when it finally dropped. The 2024 NSW Modern Language Syllabus is a somewhat light read, like when you abruptly reach the last page of a novel, I finished it and said “oh, I’m done already?”. I don’t mean this to sound negative, when I read the document I felt like it spoke directly to me and my teaching style though upon further reflection I realized that a hundred teachers could look at it and probably reach a hundred different conclusions - a compliment to the writers. I just wanted to give some thoughts on the syllabus, since I felt like a voice was missing, aside from the dot points and ‘teachers advice’ on the website, which can be found roughly here.
There is a lot to like about the digital-makeover of the Language syllabus. My bread and butter are Stage 4 language learners, so the new tick a box option allowed me to give every other year group the flick (this may go some way to explaining why I finished reading so quickly). As a person who can be both lazy and gloss over details, I wholeheartedly agree with this feature. Also the option to ‘tag in and tag out’ teaching advice and examples in the ‘content’ tab is well thought out. I could go on, but I want to get to the meaty parts and zero in on a few parts of the syllabus that I found fascinating. In part 1 of possible 1-part blog series (like I said, I can be lazy), I want to take the briefest of looks at 1 of the 3 focus areas (Interacting, Understanding Texts and Creating Texts) and its associated sections, specifically how the NSW Syllabus is approaching Understanding Texts at a Stage 4 level.
The outcomes themselves are actually incredibly short. Understanding Texts is literally:
interprets and responds to information, opinions and ideas in texts to demonstrate understanding
It doesn’t really warrant further clarification does it? It’s a fairly large target to hit that’s one-size-fits-all. Okay, blog post over then. So, why am I even doing this then? Well things become a little more interesting when you start digging a little deeper into the associated ‘Content’ and ‘Teaching Advice’ sections. Rather than go through every ‘content’ dot point for Understanding Texts outcome (maybe a job for another day), might I refer you to this excerpt from ‘Teaching Advice’:
“Understanding a text is an active process of making, constructing and deciphering the meaning of language input through listening, reading, viewing and combinations of these modes. A text is any written, spoken or signed, nonverbal, visual, auditory or multimodal communication”
If I’m to be frank, this excerpt as well as the dots points didn’t really seem to indicate any sort of drastic move away from what many teachers had already been doing - Perhaps that’s because there actually isn’t any bathwater being thrown out here. I would think all teachers currently use a plethora of texts in their classrooms already and have all manner of ways to interact with them. Any given textbook has a multitude of text types within it, with the newer ones having videos and listening activities imbedded in their websites. My intrigue was piqued when I read this section from the Teaching advice though:
Excerpt from the Teaching advice
As I mentioned, the whole section could speak to each teacher differently and I suppose that’s the point, but the word ‘comprehension’ followed by a suggestion (maybe is that more of a requirement? Guess we’ll need to wait for training days) that reading and viewing texts should represent a significant amount of time suggests to me a shift towards formalizing Krashen’s Comprehensible Input (CI) hypothesis. Maybe I’m seeing the things I want to see, but I feel like this is one of the first times a NSW syllabus has given CI the nod in a syllabus, heck Krashen is ever cited as a reference in their bibliography.
What could that imply for the average Australian classroom? It does suggest perhaps a step away from Skill-Building Hypothesis and Grammar Instruction, which I suspect form the basis for language learning as the majority of classrooms across the NSW. Therefore a shift towards Comprehension Hypothesis would be unprecedented, but the cynic in me really wants to hear exactly what NESA has in mind here. I will be doing a more comprehensive look (hyuck hyuck hyuck) at the difference between Skill-building vs Comprehension-based learning in my next blog post, but don’t hold your standards too high, its all back of the napkin level stuff.
Further into the teachers advice section, they once again lean into another of Krashen’s hypothesis:
“Students should be given opportunities to apply their knowledge of the target language when creating texts. However, before expecting students to produce language, teachers should provide as much comprehensible target language input as possible through texts. This will help students become familiar with the key vocabulary and grammar needed to achieve communication”
“Providing as much comprehensible target language input as possible through texts” might be a phrase which could easily be understood in a multitude of ways, or it could be recognition of Krashen’s (2020) Optimal Input hypothesis, which theorizes that “we acquire language and develop literacy from input, from understanding what we hear and read, NOT from speaking or writing.” Here, have a read yourself Krashen on Optimal Input, its only a short read.
You may be curious how one could engage students in their second language without asking them to produce language themselves. I’ve been working on some draft programs and stories designed for the new syllabus, take a look at some of my programs. You will notice the prevalence of ‘content’ dot points targeting the Understanding texts outcome. In fact, for the majority of the first unit most activity are designed to build students understanding of the language through comprehensible second language input.
As mentioned, aspects of the syllabus seem to be able to be interpreted in a number of ways. So remember this is just one lowly teachers take on it all. While we’re still on the topic of the Understanding texts outcome, there are some other things I wanted to quickly touch on:
The syllabus states “listening, reading and viewing should represent a significant amount of class time”. This aligns with the idea that forcing output from the students too early in the target language can cause students anxiety, adversely effect what Chomsky called a student’s “language acquisition device”, see the Krashens Affective-Filter hypothesis. I can close my eyes and still remember the sheer terror of having to stand up and give answers in my Japanese class back in 1998 (I love you guys if you’re reading this, I know one of them works at NESA now too lol). I’m okay now, but investing a large amount of time in ‘understanding’ before ‘creating’ reduces anxiety and ensures their confidence and motivation stay as high as possible for as long as possible. I will say that, since starting Story-Listening, I haven’t had a single student approach me outside of class and ask to do any particular assessment during lunchtime, which is an unusual coincidence.
With the syllabus emphasizing students receiving input in the target language for learning, rather than pushing output, this seems to recognize the idea that students don’t need to speak to necessarily learn, see the “optimal input” hypothesis. I’ve got a great video of one of my students retelling a story after Term 1 last year. This student participated in every activity, but never said a single word in English or Japanese the entire time. While she was able to indicate through non-verbal ways that she comprehended what was going on, when the assessment time rolled around, I was absolutely floored to see that this student was top of the class, despite never having spoken a word. Not a single student in the class could guess who topped the class either and they could do some magical things too - like summarizing our class stories, correcting themselves, reading foreign writing systems without having being directly taught them, using the correct intonation and having natural pronunciation…They weren’t alone either.
There is a huge list of suggested ‘texts’ on the NESA website. It is interesting to see all the other text types, I’m sure it will inspire some interesting strategies. Like Movietalk or simple things like Look and Discuss - I used to like looking at those Wikihow Comics/informational graphics and talking about them in comprehensible language, asking circling questions, teasing out information from the students. Looking at this list, the options are basically endless, which is convenient.
Does looking at this extensive list make you wonder what is in store for the Stage 6 syllabus?
Before I sign off, I just wanted to put it out there once again that these are just the ramblings of one teacher, I think we all recognize that the teacher is the single biggest factor that influences learning in the classroom. Each teacher obviously needs to teach the way that is comfortable for them and while programs may require some modification to encompass some foundational parts of the syllabus, I think it has adequate scope for all approaches. So, you do you! And remember, the grass isn’t greener on the other side, its greenest where you water it (I heard that nugget on TV the other day).
Also a reminder, there is a subscribe option on the bottom of the main page if you’d like to be notified of any news or releases. If you enjoyed this, I might invest some time breaking down the other outcomes or look more deeply into this one.
