Language and Literacy PDs at AISSA

This year I‘ve had some brilliant opportunities for professional development and have been fortunate to share these with a colleague from Wilderness, Bess Smith.

At the start of the year we went to a two day workshop on Working with Language and Literacy Levels across the Australian Curriculum: EALD Students held at AISSA  presented by Bronwyn Custance. 

Both Bess and I gained a lot of information about how to use the Levels as assessment and reporting tools. In particular, the underpinning of the Levels that considers how language works to construct meaning intrigued us. This functional grammar approach is also in line with Literacy Capability within the Australian Curriculum.

Back at school we discussed the possibilities of learning more about functional grammar to help us develop a systematic and explicit pedagogy that would support EALD students to achieve curriculum success.

To action this idea we successfully applied to do a six day course on How Language Works: Success in literacy and learning and as you can see in this photo we are really enjoying the workshop presentations by Shaan Gilson & Jan Finlayson.

 

How Language Works

At the How Language Works workshop with Bess.

The course has not finished yet and there are readings and homework activities to complete.  So it’s back to my desk to be a student and to learn.  For me teaching is not purely about delivering the same course every year, it is about constantly striving to achieve success for my students through my own development, continuous learning and innovation.

 

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2 Comments
  1. A great approach to teaching to be a constant learner yourself as it certainly makes one more reflective about your own practice.

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