Subject Information

English

What do we offer?

English is the study, use, and enjoyment of the English language and its literature, communicated orally, visually, and in writing, for a range of purposes and audiences and in a variety of text forms. Understanding, using, and creating oral, written, and visual texts of increasing complexity is at the heart of English teaching and learning. By engaging with text-based activities, students become increasingly skilled and sophisticated speakers and listeners, writers and readers, presenters and viewers.

The new curriculum changes emphasise three big ideas:

The first Big Idea Language and identity are inextricable and emphasise how our reading and production of texts are informed through our identity and how our identity informs our understanding. Learners will connect with the Significant Learning through the lens of their own cultural identity and learn to engage with worlds and ideas beyond their own experience.

The second Big Idea Making and creating meaning are processes that occur when we interpret and when we produce text, allowing the learner to engage in a real way with that text. This engagement builds and connects meaning in the conversation between the reader and the text. Both the first and second Big Ideas are ways of strengthening the enjoyment and enrichment of the first Big Idea. The Significant Learning in the Learning Matrix relates to the Big Ideas and is structured around two interconnected strands, each encompassing oral, written, and visual forms of the language:

• making meaning of ideas or information they receive
• creating meaning for themselves or others.

The third Big Idea  is that learners develop a critical awareness that enables them to consider who wrote a text, for whom, why and whether it may have purposes that are not immediately apparent. This means that they:

• understand that writers of texts are influenced by their culture, values, beliefs, and sense of identity.
• use the above understanding to identify a writer’s point of view, their purpose for writing, and the language techniques the writer has used.
• begin to reflect critically on the explicit and implicit messages in the text, as well as how they have been presented by the writer to the audience.

Reading and Writing:

These core skills are taught and assessed at all levels. All junior classes read and study short stories,  novel and poetry through the year,  in preparation for the NCEA programme in the senior school.

We also use software programmes like Writers’ Toolbox for Years 9 & 10 as well as StepsWeb , to lift the literacy skills of our priority learners. We encourage our students to enter poetry and short story writing competitions which are advertised throughout the year by class teachers.

Speaking and Listening:

All students are offered the opportunity to deliver a speech in class or to a small group. We hold speech competitions at each year level and present best-speaker cups at our prizegiving. In addition, students compete in public speaking competitions outside of the classroom such as the Lions Secondary Schools Speech Competition and the Race Unity Speech Competition.

We also run an active Debating Club with regional competitions at the senior and junior levels. Our seniors also compete at the national level in the New Zealand Schools’ Debating Championships and there is an opportunity to represent our region at national level.

Presenting and Viewing:

Film is studied at all levels as being able to analyse visual texts is an important skill. Film study focuses on the production techniques used and the director’s intention in using them.