Students become familiar with all handshapes, movements and locations of single signs. They are learning to produce simple positive and negative statements with some time marking, and to use plain verbs or unmodified indicating verbs. They learn to describe familiar objects, animals or people using simple lexical adjectives and to depict the movement of people, animals and means of transport...
Students become familiar with all handshapes, movements and locations of single signs. They are learning to produce simple positive and negative statements with some time marking, and to use plain verbs or unmodified indicating verbs. They learn to describe familiar objects, animals or people using simple lexical adjectives and to depict the movement of people, animals and means of transport using an appropriate classifier handshape in an entity depicting sign. They are able to use simple handling and SASS depicting signs. They explore emotions through the use of NMFs, and begin to use NMFs for grammatical purposes in modelled language. They learn to use simple constructed action to represent the characteristics of a single animal or themselves or another. They learn the metalanguage of nouns, verbs and adjectives, and learn that signers can modify verbs to show the referents involved.
As students learn to adjust their language to suit different purposes and situations, they begin to understand how culture shapes language use. They compare how they feel when they use different languages and how they view different languages and people who use them. This introduction to the meta dimension of intercultural learning develops the ability to ‘decentre’, to consider different perspectives and ways of being, and to become aware of themselves as communicators and cultural participants.
By the end of Level 2, students interact with teachers and each other to talk about themselves, their families, friends and immediate environment. They follow instructions to complete action-based activities such as signing games or transactional activities, using repeated constructions, gestures and affective non-manual features (NMFs). They interact in familiar classroom routines by responding to requests, such as DS:line-up PLEASE, LOOK-AT-me PRO1. Students ask and respond to simple questions and distinguish between statements and questions. They express likes, dislikes and feelings using lexical signs and affective NMFs. They recognise and produce fingerspelled names for roll call and games and produce modelled signs, phrases and sentence patterns in familiar contexts. They use culturally appropriate protocols, such as maintaining eye contact and responding to and gaining attention by waving or tapping a shoulder or table. They identify specific information in signed texts, such as the properties of colour, number, size or shape, and describe people and objects, for example, PRO3 5-YEARS-OLD, PRO1 HAVE 2 BROTHER, or THAT BALL BIG.
Students demonstrate simple procedures using...
By the end of Level 2, students interact with teachers and each other to talk about themselves, their families, friends and immediate environment. They follow instructions to complete action-based activities such as signing games or transactional activities, using repeated constructions, gestures and affective non-manual features (NMFs). They interact in familiar classroom routines by responding to requests, such as DS:line-up PLEASE, LOOK-AT-me PRO1. Students ask and respond to simple questions and distinguish between statements and questions. They express likes, dislikes and feelings using lexical signs and affective NMFs. They recognise and produce fingerspelled names for roll call and games and produce modelled signs, phrases and sentence patterns in familiar contexts. They use culturally appropriate protocols, such as maintaining eye contact and responding to and gaining attention by waving or tapping a shoulder or table. They identify specific information in signed texts, such as the properties of colour, number, size or shape, and describe people and objects, for example, PRO3 5-YEARS-OLD, PRO1 HAVE 2 BROTHER, or THAT BALL BIG.
Students demonstrate simple procedures using known signs, gestures, objects and list buoys. They recount and sequence shared events using familiar signs and visual prompts. They view short imaginative and expressive texts such as stories and nursery rhymes, demonstrating understanding through drawing, gesture, modelled signs or English. They use fixed handshapes in creative ways, for example to create amusing sequences of signs to enact movements, and portray characteristics through the use of constructed action. They identify similarities and differences in ways they interact when communicating in English and in Auslan.
Students know that Auslan is a language in its own right, different from mime and gestures used in spoken languages. They know that eye contact is necessary for effective communication and that meaning is communicated visually through the use of whole signs, gestures or fingerspelling. They identify and categorise signs according to handshape and they recognise major types of path movements. They know that some signs link to the appearance of a referent, for example PEN, HOUSE, and that some words, such as proper nouns, are borrowed from English by fingerspelling and mouthing. They know that locations of signs can be modified to change meaning, for example when pointing to people. They recognise the importance of facial expression, eye gaze and other NMFs in a visual-gestural language and culture and know that sign order is flexible in Auslan.
