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ESL in the current English syllabi of NSW secondary schools

Standard Australian English is Australia’s national language and In NSW Australia, the study

of the English language is mandatory for all secondary school students (stages 4-6,)

regardless of whether they are native English speakers or English second language (ESL)

learners. New South Wales (NSW) is the Australian state with the greatest annual intake of

immigrant populations (Iredale & Fox, 1997) and yet, currently there is no ESL syllabus for

stages 4 and 5 of secondary schooling in NSW; there is instead a program for the integration

of a set of ‘ESL scales’ (Curriculum Corporation, 1994) There is, however, a separate ESL

syllabus for stage 6. Both of these approaches to teaching English as a second language in an

English-speaking country have their relative strengths and weaknesses.

The NSW Multicultural Education Policy acknowledges that “approximately one quarter of

all students in NSW government schools come from language backgrounds other than

English, both overseas and Australian born” (NSW Department of Education and

Communities, 2005) All students who enter Stage 4 of the NSW secondary schooling system

must undertake study of the NSW English Years 7-10 Syllabus. (Board of Studies NSW,

2003) This system is currently in transition to the Australian National Curriculum, but the

structure and content of the new curriculum and syllabus remains largely the same, focusing

on critical and analytical study of the English language. Such concepts are especially

challenging to ESL learners, as research indicates that ESL students can be fluent in

conversational English in as short a period as two years, (Gibbons, 2002) but the academic

development needed to succeed in secondary English requires a level of literacy that can take

anywhere from 5-11 years to develop. (Ernst-Slavit, Moore, & Maloney, 2002) As there is

currently no separate ESL syllabus for stages 4 and 5, and none in the current design of the

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national curriculum, the only option for the majority of ESL students in NSW schools is to

study the mainstream, compulsory English syllabus, possibly with the aid of an ESL support

program, if it is available at their particular school. In the English Years 7-10 Syllabus, a set

of ESL scales are the only official consideration of ESL needs. The scales “do not provide a

curriculum for ESL learners.” (McKay, 1994) A significant weakness of the ESL scales as

they are currently mapped to the English Years 7-10 Syllabus is that they assume a ESL scale

level four ability for all ESL students entering Stage 4 (Year 7), in both the current English 7-

10 syllabus and the national equivalent. A level four student can respond orally to predictable

and familiar situations, recognise the “the organisation of information in texts” (Curriculum

Corporation, 1994, p. 80) and demonstrate an awareness of effective writing, cohesion and

coherence. (Curriculum Corporation, 1994)

The Australian Curriculum retains this marginalised integration of ESL scales

alongside mainstream English outcomes. All of the grammatical, syntactical and

phonological functions and processes of English have been explicitly taught to native English

speakers in the early Stages 1 and 2. By Stage 4, this knowledge is assumed, and so the levels

1-3 of the ESL scales are ignored, meaning the needs of any Stage 4 ESL students below this

level of development are not met. Furthermore, the syllabus acknowledges that in order to

“achieve the English outcomes in Stages 4 and 5, ESL students need to be operating at the

highest level of the ESL scales in each strand.” (Board of Studies NSW, 2003) To improve

the current situation would require significant investment of resources in the form of ESL

teachers and specialists to all schools in NSW. It would also require the design of a separate

English syllabus for ESL learners in Stages 4 and 5, such as the one currently available to

Stage 6 learners of English in NSW, although this presents its own challenges and

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weaknesses. A syllabus such as this must be targeted at meeting the needs of ESL students, as

the current system is targeted as marginalising their needs.

In Stage 6 of NSW secondary schooling, English remains mandatory for all students

competing for the HSC, and there is an ESL specific stage 6 syllabus for meeting the needs of

ESL learners in NSW. The stage 6 ESL syllabus is only available to “any student who has

been educated overseas or in an Australian educational institution using English as the

language of instruction for five years or less.” (Board of Studies NSW, 2009, p. 53) The

design of the stage 6 ESL syllabus is unfortunately similar to the Stages 4 and 5 ESL scales in

its marginalisation of the learning needs of ESL students. The outcomes and content of this

syllabus are very similar to those of the English (Standard) course, with only a page at the

end of both the preliminary (Year 11) and HSC (Year 12) courses dedicated to the language

modes that the content is supposedly undertaken through. (Board of Studies NSW, 2009, pp.

63,74) These pages provide an outline of the knowledge, understanding and skills that ESL

students should develop over the course of Stage 6, but no practical strategies for how the

teacher can facilitate the development of these skills in their ESL students.

Unfortunately, much like the system for Stages 4 and 5 of English, the

implementation of this ESL syllabus is limited by a school’s individual resources. Many

Stage 6 ESL students end up “in mainstream classrooms for a host of localised, institutional

reasons…with teachers who are not specifically EAL/D (English as Additional Language or

Dialect) trained.” (Alford & Jetnikoff, 2011) As a result, Stage 6 syllabus design in Australia

has a reduced focus on language and a prioritisation of critical text analysis, often for the

reason of making the document usable by mainstream English teachers who are not EAL/D

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trained. (Alford & Jetnikoff, 2011) The considerable limitations in the design and

implementation of the stage 6 ESL syllabus are major weaknesses of syllabus design and ESL

teaching and learning in practice in NSW. An improvement of current the Stage 6 ESL

syllabus will only be possible when the education system in NSW truly acknowledges the

diversity of their secondary schooling population and their learning needs.

The current and future NSW secondary schooling system may contain Stages 4 and 5

provisions and a Stage 6 syllabus to address the needs of ESL students; however, their scope

is limited and their implementation restricted by specific ESL learning eligibility criteria.

Their design marginalises the ESL learners as a group requiring support and in both cases

places their learning needs secondary to the mainstream outcomes of the study of English for

native English speakers. This means than most ESL students desiring a secondary learning

qualification in NSW must study a syllabus designed for the academic and critical study of

English by native English speakers, with minimal consideration for the needs of ESL students

and the strategies needed to support their learning. These are major weaknesses in urgent

need of improvement, especially given the fact that a defining feature of Australian society is

it multicultural population, reflected in NSW’s highly diverse secondary school students.

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Bibliography

Alford, J., & Jetnikoff, A. (2011). High-challenge Teaching for Senior English as an

Additional Language Learners in Times of Change. English in Australia, 46(1), 11-

20.

Board of Studies NSW. (2003). English Years 7-10 Syllabus. Sydney: Board of Studies

NSW.

Board of Studies NSW. (2009). English Stage 6 Syllabus. (2009643). Sydney: Board of

Studies NSW,.

Curriculum Corporation. (1994). ESL scales: a joint project of the States, Territories and the

Commonwealth of Australia initiated by the Australian Education Council. Carlton:

Curriculum Corporation.

Ernst-Slavit, G., Moore, M., & Maloney, C. (2002). Changing lives: Teaching English and

literature to ESL students. International Reading Association, 116-128.

Gibbons, P. (2002). Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: Teaching Second Language

Learners in the Mainstream Classroom. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

Iredale, R., & Fox, C. (1997). The Impact of Immigration on School Education in New South

Wales, Australia. International Migration Review, 31(3), 655-669.

McKay, P. (1994). ESL development : language and literacy in schools project (2nd ed.).

Deakin, A.C.T: National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia.

NSW Department of Education and Communities. (2005). Multicultural Education Policy

Retrieved 08 Nov, 2012, from

https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/policies/student_serv/equity/comm_rela/

PD20050234.shtml

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