The study of English empowers students to read, write, speak and listen in different contexts. VCE English and English as an Additional Language (EAL) prepares students to think and act critically and creatively, and to encounter the beauty and challenge of their contemporary world with compassion and understanding. Students work to collaborate and communicate widely, and to connect with our complex and plural society with confidence.
Through engagement with texts drawn from a range of times, cultures, forms and genres, and including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge and voices, students develop insight into a varied range of ideas. They extend their skills in responding to the texts they read and view, and their abilities in creating original texts, further expanding their language to reflect accurately the purpose, audience and context of their responses.
By developing broad skills in communication and reflection, the study of English enables students to participate in their diverse, dynamic and multicultural world productively and positively.
In this area of study, students engage in reading and viewing texts with a focus on personal connections with the story. They discuss and clarify the ideas and values presented by authors through their evocations of character, setting and plot, and through investigations of the point of view and/or the voice of the text. They develop and strengthen inferential reading and viewing skills, and consider the ways a text’s vocabulary, text structures and language features can create meaning on several levels and in different ways.
In this area of study, students engage with and develop an understanding of effective and cohesive writing. They apply, extend and challenge their understanding and use of imaginative, persuasive and informative text through a growing awareness of situated contexts, stated purposes and audience. Students read and engage imaginatively and critically with mentor texts that model effective writing. Through guided reading of mentor texts, students develop an understanding of the diverse ways that vocabulary, text structures, language features and ideas can interweave to craft compelling texts. They consider these texts through knowledge of the ways purpose, context (including mode) and audience influence and shape writing.
In this area of study, students develop their reading and viewing skills, including deepening their capacity for inferential reading and viewing, to further open possible meanings in a text, and to extend their writing in response to text. Students read or view a text, engaging with the ideas, concerns and tensions, and recognise ways vocabulary, text structures, language features and conventions of a text work together to create meaning. Through discussions about representations in a text, they examine the ways readers understand text considering its historical context, and social and cultural values. They also explore the text through the prism of their own cultural knowledge, experiences and understanding of the world, and extend their observations into analytical and abstracted explorations.
In this area of study, students consider the way arguments are developed and delivered in many forms of media. Through the prism of a contemporary and substantial local and/or national issue, students read, view and listen to a range of texts that attempt to position an intended audience in a particular context. They explore the structure of these texts, including contention, sequence of arguments, use of supporting evidence and persuasive strategies. They closely examine the language and the visuals employed by the author, and offer analysis of the intended effect on the audience. Students apply their knowledge of argument to create a point of view text for oral presentation.
In this area of study, students apply reading and viewing strategies to critically engage with a text, considering its dynamics and complexities and reflecting on the motivations of its characters. They analyse the ways authors construct meaning through vocabulary, text structures, language features and conventions, and the presentation of ideas. They are provided with opportunities to understand and explore the historical context, and the social and cultural values of a text, and recognise how these elements influence the way a text is read or viewed, is understood by different audiences, and positions its readers in different ways.
In this area of study, students build on the knowledge and skills developed through Unit 1. They read and engage imaginatively and critically with mentor texts, and effective and cohesive writing within identified contexts. Through close reading, students expand their understanding of the diverse ways that vocabulary, text structures, language features, conventions and ideas can interweave to create compelling texts. They further consider mentor texts through their understanding of the ways that purpose, context (including mode), and specific and situated audiences influence and shape writing.
In this area of study, students further sharpen their skills of reading and viewing texts, developed in the corresponding area of study in Unit 3. Students consolidate their capacity to critically analyse texts and deepen their understanding of the ideas and values a text can convey. Students apply reading and viewing strategies to engage with a text, and discuss and analyse the ways authors construct meaning in a text through the presentation of ideas, concerns and conflicts, and the use of vocabulary, text structures and language features. They engage with the dynamics of a text and explore the explicit and implicit ideas and values presented in a text. They recognise and explain the ways the historical context, and social and cultural values can affect a reader, and analyse how these social and cultural values are presented. They establish how these values can influence the way a text is read or viewed, can be understood by different audiences, and can position readers in different ways.
In this area of study, students analyse the use of argument and language, and visuals in texts that debate a contemporary and significant national or international issue. Students read, view and/or listen to a variety of texts from the media, including print and digital, and audio and audio visual, and develop their understanding of the ways in which arguments and language complement one another to position an intended audience in relation to a selected issue.
In this area of study students explore the nature of language and the various functions that language performs in a range of Australian and other contexts. They consider the properties that distinguish human communication as unique, the differences between the modes of spoken and written language, and the relationship between meaning and conventions that govern language use. Students are introduced to the theory that language is a system of signs and conventions, and that while the relationship between words and meanings may be arbitrary, our use of language is governed by conventions and informed by accepted systems.
This area of study focuses on the developmental stages of language acquisition, both first- and additional-language learning. Students explore how, in addition to words and their meanings, people learn to use the phonological and grammatical conventions of the language, as well as the appropriate use of these conventions in different situational contexts.
This area of study examines the changes that have occurred in English over time. Students investigate the factors that bring about language change, including those that come from contact with other languages, from social and technological transformation, and from within the language itself. They explore language change across some subsystems of language as represented in texts.
In this area of study students consider the effects of the global spread of English by learning about both the development and decline of languages as a result of English contact, the elevation of English as a global lingua franca and the cultural consequences of language contact. Students explore the many ways English is used as an expression of identity and culture in written and spoken texts.