Students learn about Country/Place and community by interacting with respected community members, by exploring Country/Place, and by engaging with stories, songs and other texts such as videos,...
Students learn about Country/Place and community by interacting with respected community members, by exploring Country/Place, and by engaging with stories, songs and other texts such as videos, maps, and pictures. They learn about the concepts of kin and social groupings.
Students use the language being learnt in classroom interactions, routines and activities, supported by the use of visual and concrete materials, gestures and body language. At this stage, there is a focus on play and imaginative activities, games, music, movement and familiar routines, which provide scaffolding and context for language development.
Students develop their oral language skills through listening to the sounds, shapes and patterns of the language, through activities such as rhymes, songs, clapping and action games, and through imitating and repeating sounds in aural texts and as modelled by the teaching team, visiting respected community members and community speakers.
Students experiment with simple formulaic expressions, single-idea phrases and with one- or two-word responses to prompts and cues. As they progress to using language for interactions such as greetings, asking for help, talking about self, friends and family, or asking and answering questions, they notice that language behaves differently in different situations.
Students learn to use appropriate respect terms and to demonstrate respectful and appropriate behaviour when interacting with respected community members, community speakers and community texts. Students for whom the language is their heritage language, develop a stronger sense of their own group and individual identity through the study of the language and culture.
Students learn to recognise letters that represent the sounds of the language. They write by tracing and copying, forming letters legibly. Students learn to read and write words and sentences independently, using modelled language, for example, matching pictures with single words, labels and captions. They use repetition to help them identify high-frequency words and simple phrases and to recognise the purpose and intention of simple texts.
Students begin to understand how the language works, and compare it with English and other known languages. They understand its place in the context of broader regional and national language diversity. Students learn about their role in developing resources for the language, for example by working with the community language team to create new games and songs in language, understanding how such efforts support the language to grow.
By the end of Level 2, students interact with the teaching team and respected community members to talk about themselves and family, using familiar modelled language and gestures. They use appropriate protocols when interacting with respected community members and community speakers, such as appropriate forms of address, terms of respect and behaviour. They use movement, gestures and modelled questions and responses to participate in guided group activities, for example, collaborating to adapt and perform action songs. They interact in familiar classroom exchanges, using routine classroom language, movement, gesture and action, for example when requesting objects, responding to simple questions, following instructions. They identify key information about Country/Place, under the guidance...
By the end of Level 2, students interact with the teaching team and respected community members to talk about themselves and family, using familiar modelled language and gestures. They use appropriate protocols when interacting with respected community members and community speakers, such as appropriate forms of address, terms of respect and behaviour. They use movement, gestures and modelled questions and responses to participate in guided group activities, for example, collaborating to adapt and perform action songs. They interact in familiar classroom exchanges, using routine classroom language, movement, gesture and action, for example when requesting objects, responding to simple questions, following instructions. They identify key information about Country/Place, under the guidance of respected community members. They use simple statements, gestures and written captions to demonstrate their understanding of Country/Place, for example, by naming bush foods, animals, plants and natural objects, and by classifying and labelling these into culturally appropriate categories. They identify places in the local area which have names in the language. They respond to texts such as stories, songs, dance and visual art through singing, miming, play-acting, drawing, action and movement. They demonstrate their understanding by identifying key animals, birds and other characters or by retelling/describing elements of images, performances or stories. Students use familiar words, patterns and support materials to create and present shared stories, songs and performances. They translate and explain the meaning of symbols, words, simple phrases and gestures used in everyday contexts and situations. They create simple bilingual texts for the classroom environment. They identify markers of their own identity, such as family, school/class membership and language/s spoken, and compare these to the importance of Place, family and relationships in Aboriginal communities. Students identify similarities and differences in the ways people communicate and behave in different languages and cultures
Students are familiar with most sounds in the target language and can link these to written symbols and writing conventions. They use metalanguage to describe basic structures of the language, recognising that some elements may have fallen into disuse and be unknown today. They understand that messages in Aboriginal languages can be communicated in a number of ways, such as respected community members' story-telling, or through song, dance and visual design. Students identify elements of the kinship system when appropriate, and recognise that Aboriginal peoples have their own personal relationships with Place, natural species and phenomena. They identify which stories belong to which natural features, including animals and plants. They know that different words are used to address and communicate with different people, depending on relationship and situation. They identify words in the language that have been borrowed from other languages. They recognise that many different languages are spoken at their school, in their local community, and in other parts of Australia. They identify how language use reflects where and how they live and what is important to them. Students identify the importance of learning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, including the benefits to communities of language revival. They recognise that new words can be formed from within the language itself and work with the community language team to build resources for the language, such as new games and songs.
