Kia ora koutou and welcome to the November newsletter for English, ESOL and Literacy Online.
We hope that you took the time to complete the online survey recently conducted on each of the three sites. Information from this will be used to continue to develop the sites to meet the needs of the teaching community.
Just up on English Online today are the senior secondary teaching and learning guides. These have been designed to help teachers develop quality teaching and learning programmes at levels 6–8 of The New Zealand Curriculum (2007) and have been written by experienced secondary teachers and other curriculum, teaching, and learning experts.
Please share this newsletter with your colleagues and invite them to subscribe.
All the best for the remainder of the term.
Nga mihi nui,
Dr Phil Coogan - Project director
Maria Lute – Project manager
Cognition Education for the NZ Ministry of Education.
In this issue
News from:
Literacy Online
English Online
ESOL Online
Literacy Online
Literacy
Kia ora and welcome from Chris Henderson
This month our community email address changed to literacy@lists.tki.org.nz and this was immediately used to initiate some conversations about spelling and word study. It was pleasing to see the contributions from people who obviously like playing with language in their classrooms and are developing a healthy interest in vocabulary.
Literacy Intervention Pilots
Over the last two weeks I have had the privilege of joining the participating schools sharing their achievements during this 10 - 15 week long intervention. There is much to celebrate about what has happened in these pilot projects. You might know a school near you that you could talk to about what they did and the outcomes for students.
NZRA Conference 2012
The early information for this conference can be viewed here. Think about this now if you are planning to attend. There is also the opportunity to present a workshop.
Kind regards
Chris Henderson
Facilitator: Primary Literacy Community
Secondary Literacy
Kia ora and welcome from Denise Hitchcock
Planning ahead for next year?
Here are some links to websites and materials to support you during the planning process in the last few weeks of term and heading towards 2012:
- Planning for Learning - A Ministry of Education professional learning module providing guidance, resources and examples to support planning secondary English programmes. Although designed for planning of English programmes, the principles and approaches are appropriate for all curriculum areas.
- Leading Literacy in your School - Online modules to support you in developing a school wide literacy project, engaging teachers in literacy professional learning, literacy inquiry and sustaining literacy interventions. You will also find an example of the role of a literacy leader in one school.
- Literacy Learning Progressions - Outlining the literacy skills and knowledge that students need across the curriculum in order to meet reading and writing demands.
NCEA and Literacy
- NCEA Level One Literacy Requirements - Are you aware of the literacy requirements from 2012 onwards?
- Level One and Two Achievement Standards Meeting the Literacy Requirement - Do teachers in your school know which standards meet the literacy requirement in their subject area?
- Literacy Unit Standards Resources - Here you will find a range of resources including standards, guidance for moderation and exemplars of student work.
Research to inform planning
Conferences
- NZARE - The NZ Association for Research in Education conference will be held in Tauranga from 28 November – 1 December 2011.
Kind regards
Denise Hitchcock
Facilitator: Secondary Literacy Community
English Online
Secondary English
Kia ora and welcome from Mike Fowler.
November has been a busy month for the secondary English mailing list community with plenty of revision resources being traded in what has been a short frantic lead up to the English externals. There have been a few positive comments online about the English papers, but the lack of reaction on the forum and in the media is a case of no news is good news. It indicates well set papers which gave students fair opportunities to show their understanding. The new level 1 aligned standards, where students now have maximum of three standards to answer, appear to have been well received by the secondary English community. There is no question that they are a significant improvement on the five old English standards they replaced, which required four essays and a set of short answers and which many students struggled to complete in three hours.
For those keen to expand their resource rooms or their recommended text lists, there have been diverse suggestions for humorous, happy, joyful texts to counterpoint the bleak tragedies that can at times dominate text selections in some English programmes. English in Aotearoa will focus on this in an upcoming edition.
One recent publication that may have slipped under the radar at this busy time is the NZQA announcement of initiatives to reduce teacher workload. What appear to be significant changes to NZQA moderation are proposed for 2012, including fewer standards selected overall and the selection of targeted standards, to be supported by an increase in places at Moderation Best Practice Workshops which from 2012 will be free.
Loaded onto the Teacher Resource Exchange this month:
- Year 12: Gran Torino
- Year 11: Unfamiliar Texts
- Year 10: Advertising
- Year 9: Stand by Me, The Boy In Striped Pyjamas
Regards,
Mike Fowler
Facilitator: Secondary English Community
ICTs in English
Kia ora and welcome from Hamish Chalmers,
In November we've had lots of discussion on the mailing list around gaming and English. It's been amazing to see the varied ways it's being used in and across schools nationally and internationally. It is also a compelling illustration of how ICTs are not only vehicles to deliver and make content engaging but actually an integral and inseparable part of communication in English. It highlights just how substantial the body of research already is around gaming and learning.
MOE enabling e-learning hub launched
This was also launched in early October and is an excellent place to start off if you're looking for specific communities, resources and programmes around e-learning. There's been some excellent discussion in many of the groups on the VLN this month – all accessible from the hub.
Kind regards,
Hamish Chalmers
Facilitator: ICTs in English
ESOL Online
Secondary ESOL
Kia ora and welcome from Breda Matthews
This month on the mailing list, the secondary ESOL community has discussed:
- ways to foster interaction between ELLs and their wider school communities
- the use of the new national ESOL qualifications and other assessment systems
- home school partnerships
- extensive reading
- assessment of ELLs in mainstream classes
- ESOL unit standards assessments
New resources
NZQA released assessment resources for level 3 and 4 ESOL unit standards and announced that they would be providing assessment resources for levels 1 and 2 next year.
Updated NCEA assessment resources on ESOL Online
The following assessment resources have been updated to align them with the requirements of the current versions of the relevant ESOL unit standards.
NCEA ESOL Level 2 summative assessment resources
- Connecting an electrical circuit: ESOL unit standard 2981 v.7
- Drawing a line graph: ESOL unit standard 2981 (version 7)
- Making carbon dioxide: ESOL unit standard 2981 (version 7) ·
- Antarctica: ESOL unit standard 2986 (version 7) ·
- Farming in New Zealand: ESOL unit standard 2986 (version 7) ·
- Whales: ESOL unit standard 2986 (version 7)
NCEA ESOL Level 3 summative assessment resources·
- Formal interview: ESOL unit standard 17359 (version 4)·
- Cars of the Future: ESOL unit standard 17363 (version 4) ·
- Cycling Commuters: ESOL unit standard 17364 (version 4)
A new resource providing insights into life as a refugee-background student
This resource contains Collabor8’s drama performance on this topic and a booklet with information about how bullying affects refugee-background youth. The DVD and booklet are available for $10 for individuals and $20 for schools. Go to www.crf.org.nz to download an order form or contact Alia Bloom 04 801 5812 .
The development of National ESOL Qualifications
The final drafts of the National Qualifications were published and consultation is sought.
Useful links for NCEA
- NZQA brochures in a number of languages as well as short videos and animations on NCEA.
- NCEA: The Myths
- Student exam tips
This page has been produced for all students but contains information that is useful to ELLs and could be incorporated into your programmes for next year.
Kind regards,
Breda Matthews
Facilitator: Secondary ESOL Community
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