It came as a surprise to me, after an extensive Google search and reading of numerous policies, that English, and more specifically Standard Australian English, is not the official language of Australia (ACARA, 2016c; Lo Bianco, 1987). There are examples cited by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (1999) that state, 'English is regarded as…

This article begins by discussing the Australian Curriculum: English and its remit to contribute to this nation's reconciliation agenda. Ever cognisant of our individual identities as non-Indigenous teachers and teacher educators and our relations to this topic, we hone in on one Content Description from Year 10, and analyse one stimulus text, an…

Evidence suggests that increasingly young adolescents are finishing school with poor literacy skills limiting their access to further education, training and employment. This has lifelong effects in terms of their economic participation and health and wellbeing. This paper examines the spatial practices of one school's approach to improving…

This paper investigates the language of the 2009 NSW Stage 6 English Syllabus. I argue that the language of the syllabus aims to create two distinct subjects: Subject English, that is, what students learn; and the subject position of its students, that is, what students are expected to become. Analysis reveals themes of personal development and…

This paper will begin by looking at globalisation, education and transnationalism in the context of Australia's post-war immigration history leading to a brief examination of the international literature surrounding second and third generation immigration. A brief review of international educational trends in English language teaching in recent…

This paper provides a description of practice outlining changes made to English assessment structures for the purpose of facilitating improved teaching and learning. These changes, which included marking, feedback, reporting, and the evaluation of the efficacy of teaching, were implemented across Years 7 to 10 English classes in an independent…

In this paper we focus on one facet of Asia literacy and examine the potential of intercultural understanding through two films about Asians in Australia, as the basis for exploring Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia "inside" and not through the more accepted mode of "outside" the nation. In doing so we foreground how…

In this article, the author reflects on keynotes by Debra Myhill and Wayne Sawyer in a search for ways with grammar. One of the keynote speakers, Debra Myhill, shared her research into teaching grammar that she had conducted in the UK. Myhill had asked a sample of teachers to follow a specified unit plan and had conducted pre- and post-testing to…

A national survey of senior secondary English curriculum content has confirmed that contemporary literature predominates among set texts, being seen as an "essential" category for study because of its "relevance" in helping students "understand the world in which they live." Perhaps uncontentious -- depending on the…

The year 2012 is significant for English teachers in Australia, not only is it the National Year of Reading, but it is also the year when an increasing number of English teachers across the country are implementing the "Australian Curriculum: English," the first national curriculum in the history of the nation. This paper addresses the…

This is the text of a paper given at the 2011 Symposium of the Australian Academy of the Humanities on the theme, "Educating the Nation: The Humanities in the New Australian Curriculum", the 42nd Annual Symposium of the Australian Academy of the Humanities at the University of Melbourne, 17 November 2011. It was presented in a session on…

In late 2011, the author was approached by Garry Collins, the president of ETAQ, to deliver a keynote for ETAQ for their first meeting in March 2012. The reflections presented in this article have been drawn from the transcript of that presentation. The reflections focus mainly on implementing the Australian curriculum--English. (Contains 1 note.)

This paper is concerned with how refugee stories can be used as the means of exploring values and developing intercultural understanding in the English classroom. To illustrate this possibility, André Dao's (2005) "Vuot Bien--The Search for Freedom: Huong Thi Nguen's Story," about the impact of war and oppression on people's lives,…

In this article, I report on the first stage of a whole school literacy project," Embedding Literacies in the KLAs" (ELK), which aims to support multilingual learners to access the literacies they need for high stakes curriculum learning. As it is "quality teaching" that has been found to have the greatest impact on student…

This paper reports on the findings of a study that investigated formative assessment practices of Senior English teachers in the standards-based Queensland assessment system. This paper focuses in particular on the teachers' provision of feedback on rough draft summative assessment items. It identifies the links between assessment criteria and…