ESL Scope and Scales FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

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ESL Scope and ScalesFREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
DECS Language Multicultural Education
Portfolio Professional Development Resource
Materials for ESL
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•   Who are ESL learners?
• ESL learners are students from non-English
  speaking backgrounds who need to develop their
  use of Standard Australian English to a level
  that will allow them to achieve the Standards
  within the SACSA Framework relevant to their year
  level. The decision that language is the issue is
  based on teacher judgement.

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• Are Aboriginal learners also ESL learners? 
• Aboriginal learners may have an Aboriginal
  language or Aboriginal English as a first
  language. These languages or dialects have their
  own grammar different from Standard Australian
  English, so standard Australian English needs to
  be learnt as a second or additional language.

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• Who has responsibility for ESL learners?
• All teachers with ESL learners in their
  classrooms will share the responsibility for ESL
  learners developing Standard Australian English.
  Teachers will use the ESL Scope and Scales to
  identify the language requirements of their
  teaching programs. By assessing student work,
  they will be able to describe what language
  learning the student still needs to develop.

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• Why is language an important focus?
• The school curriculum requires students to be
  able to describe, analyse, critically examine,
  communicate understandings etc. Therefore
  Students need to have a wide range of language
  skills in order to be successful.

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• What is the link between the Learning Areas in
  SACSA and the ESL Scope and Scales?
• Reference to the ESL Scope and Scales is made in
  the Introduction to each Learning Area in SACSA.
  It reads In supporting teaching and learning
  for ESL students and in assessing their
  performance educators should use the Learning
  Area Scope and Standards, in conjunction with the
  Scope and Scales for ESL.

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• What is the relationship between Standards and
  Scales?
• A learner of ESL who has achieved Scale 6, for
  example, has achieved Standard 1 in the English
  Learning Area that is, the linguistic competence
  of a seven-year-old Standard Australian English
  speaker. Remember that each of the Standards is
  for an average to above average achievement of a
  child of the year level in which the standard is
  assigned. The closer a student is achieving to
  the Standard in English for their age, the less
  likely they will be requiring ESL support.
• However even if a 7 year old achieved Scale 6 and
  hence Standard 1 and so was identified as not
  needing ESL support, it would still be valid to
  say that there are some areas of the language
  that the child needed to develop further, such
  as
• knowing how to speak in more formal situations
• being able to draw on a wide knowledge of
  cultural texts (eg folk-tales and other stories
  likely to be used in English-speaking homes in
  Australia, famous Australian people and
  television shows, Australian music, major
  Australian historical events, geographical
  aspects of the local area or the nation)

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• choosing appropriately for a wide range of
  contexts
• a wider lexical store, especially for social
  situations like picnics and barbecues, and sports
  matches
• However, there remain differences between the
  Standards for the English Learning Area and the
  Scales. These are that
• whereas the Standards are age-related, the Scales
  include learners of ESL of any age from the
  beginning. That is, it is possible to locate Year
  10 learners of ESL on the complete range of
  Scales, from 1 to 14
• the Outcomes of the Scales refer to the texts and
  contexts comprising all the Learning Areas, not
  just the English Learning Area
• the focus on the understanding of the cultural
  meanings in a text and the degree of cultural
  appropriateness of choices
• the Strands in English are organised according to
  the macro-skills Listening, Speaking, Reading
  and Viewing, and Writing whereas ESL has only
  two Strands (Texts in Context, Language)

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• What is the purpose of the ESL Scope and Scales?
• The ESL Scope will provide teachers with planning
  and programming ideas to address the language
  requirements of the Learning Areas. The ESL
  Scales will allow teachers to assess and report
  ESL learners language achievements over time.
  They will provide a mechanism for ESL learners to
  be identified for support and receive feedback on
  their English language development.

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• What is the organisational basis of the ESL Scope
  and Scales?
• The ESL Scope and Scales are organised into two
  strands Text in Context and Language - to
  reflect the inseparable relationship between
  language and the context in which that language
  is used.

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• Why arent the ESL Scope and Scales organised
  according to the macro-skills?
• Much of what happens in the classroom in
  schooling contexts (in contrast with the
  playground etc) is not just listened to or spoken
  but rather listening and speaking, reading and
  writing occur simultaneously with texts. The
  genre, field, tenor and Mode continua are the
  most useful ways for catering for these typical
  texts in these typical contexts.
• That doesnt mean that one couldnt engage the
  students in listening activities but we know that
  an effective listener takes into account the
  genre (the predictability of the staging allows
  one to focus on other elements of the text, for
  example), the field (knowledge of the field will
  allow one to engage in the text confidently), the
  tenor (the degree of formality will impact on how
  much I have to focus on the beginning of the
  utterances) and the mode (do I rely on the words
  only or can non-linguistic elements in the
  context make some or most of the meanings as
  well).  

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• What is the link between the ESL Scope and Scales
  and funding?
• Most ESL support categories for which funding is
  provided require the identification of the ESL
  Scale for each ESL learner. This data is entered
  into EDSAS.

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• Who is responsible for data collection?
• It is intended that assessment of ESL learners
  should be part of the normal teaching process
  undertaken in a school. Schools will make their
  own decisions about how the ESL data is collected.

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• What are the number of texts to be assessed?
• A minimum of 2 texts of different genres is
  recommended to provide an assessment of a
  students English language development.

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• How should funding for the support of ESL
  learners be used?
• It is expected that the funding provided to
  schools for ESL learners will be used to improve
  their learning outcomes. However, schools will
  determine the best way to use their funding.

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• What is the ESL Programs view of having SSOs
  teach the ESL program?
• While all teachers are responsible for the
  language development of ESL learners, qualified
  and/or experienced ESL teachers (where appointed)
  should have lead responsibility for ESL
  programming and delivery. Where SSOs are used,
  the ESL teacher or classroom teacher should have
  oversight of the program.

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• Why do we have another new document?
• Curriculum documents will never be static as they
  need to respond to changing times and changing
  understandings. It is professionally responsible
  for the Department to commission new documents.

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• How can we keep track of the students
  achievements?
• Teachers are designing various ways of recording
  student achievement of the Outcomes in the ESL
  Scales. One way is to highlight photocopies of
  the relevant Scales. Another is to use the
  Overview chart. Keeping work samples and Scales
  records in students individual folders ensures
  data is easily accessible and transferable. EDSAS
  allows the history of ESL Scales to be recorded
  for each ESL learner.

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• What ESL professional development courses PD
  courses are available?
• Language and Literacy
• ESL in the Mainstream
• ESL IN the Mainstream for the Early Learner
• ESL in the Mainstream Online
• Early Literacy and the ESL Learner
• To register interest contact
• CEASA 8463 5875

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• How do you decide upon an overall scale for the
  piece of work if there is difference across and
  within the strands?
• This is going to be difficult and not recommended
  because a Scale does not work well with one piece
  of text it works well with lots of texts because
  a Scale can be seen as a tendency. In other
  words, a student achieves a Scale because, across
  a range of texts and contexts, they tend to
  choose the sorts of things described in the
  indicators for that Scale.
• So, one text is simply contributing to the
  achievement of a Scale.
• Of course, a student develops beyond a Scale when
  they tend to choose the language described in the
  next Scale.

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• How do you decide upon a scale for the student if
  the minimum pieces of evidence have different
  scales?
• Get more pieces and it ends up being a consistent
  achievement of the indicators, ie a tendency to
  have control of the indicators as described.
• If you cannot do that, then maybe look at the
  kinds of genres or texts and work out which one
  demanded greater delicacy of choice and which one
  showed good control of the staging and which one
  is strongly cohesive or which one makes powerful
  choices in Field, Tenor and Mode. Then you
  balance these up and make your decision.

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• What is the difference between range and wide
  range?
• How longs a piece of string? It depends on what
  were talking about which linguistic element it
  is. Typically, it is one scales difference.
• I dont use the term range and wide range in
  this example but its illustrated in something
  like
• The council said no to our idea and The council
  didnt approve our idea and The council rejected
  our idea

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• If a student has used a wide range of language
  features, but not the most appropriate, what
  scale should be given?
• I have tried to qualify the word use with level
  of control and level of appropriateness.
  Naturally, there is a degree of delicacy in the
  choice. So a higher degree comes later in
  development, eg
• said no, didnt agree, didnt approve, rejected
• The discussion point is whether this little
  continuum is accurate for any one learner. I
  suppose the issue is not if it is so for every
  learner but that on average it is. Teachers can
  always make adjustments for individuals.

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• Why is modality in both field and mode? Should we
  be looking for different things?
• Modality, as used in Tenor, means degrees of
  possibility, frequency, obligation and
  inclination, eg
• I might go to Portland, It might be built in
  Portland
• I usually go to Portland, Its usually built in
  small towns
• You have to go to Portland, It has to be built in
  Portland
• I might go to Portland meaning Im sort of
  willing to go
• Modality has another meaning and that is when it
  is the adjective of Mode, so we get
  multimodalities. Ive made sure that I havent
  used modality alone in Mode but multimodality

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• What happens to spelling after 7?
• This is tricky because of trying to fit in adult
  writers and primary aged writers on the same
  scale. After Scale 7, I am saying that spelling
  shouldnt be a focus for assessing the writing
  ability of a student. I am not saying that it
  isnt something thast should be assessed in
  individual assessments of texts but that as a
  scaling exercise, spelling is Field-related and
  you are already assessing for Field. Also,
  proofreading and spell checkers can fix spelling
  but they cant fix Field.

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• In some texts it is appropriate to foreground the
  topic of the sentence rather than a conjunction
  or a dependent clause. Where does this come in
  features that organise the text?
• This goes back to implicit conjunctive relations.
  Conjunctions are (one of) the most congruent and
  explicit ways of organising a text but for a
  variety of reasons (some to do with culture and
  power) we choose to do things incongruently
  (metaphorically) and implicitly. So instead of
  using First, Second etc we use something like
• The main factor is ,
• Another important factor is
• This is included in Genre (Language) Scale 12,
  where I have said A wider range of alternatives
  to conjunctions to organise formal oral and
  written texts The main factor instead of
  Firstly

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• Another possibility is moving the cohesive
  kinds of conjunctions (eg Therefore, However,
  Nevertheless) from the front of the clause. Now,
  conjunctions are expected to come at the front
  so, if you move them, there is a reason for it.
  It most probably is because you want to place
  extra focus on the participant (maybe because of
  contrast), eg compare the meanings in a) and b).
• The car was supposed to continue along Highway
  42. However, the police set up roadblocks on
  Highway 1 as well, because they werent
  absolutely certain.
• The car was supposed to continue along Highway
  42. The police, however, set up roadblocks on
  Highway 1 as well, because they werent
  absolutely certain.

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• If the text does not require a great deal of
  modality, how is it scaled?
• If modality doesnt play a major part in the
  text, then there is a contextual reason for it.
  Little modality means that the text is located in
  a context which has neutral tenor. If the text
  doesnt require moving away from neutral tenor
  then go to another text which does.
• Leave indicators out of the scaling exercise if
  theyre not relevant for the text and context.
• Another point. Remember that not choosing
  something is as significant as choosing
  something, if you know you are not choosing it!
  Imagine what the text would be like if it did
  have degrees of modality that were inappropriate.

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• What are the most important strands to look at
  for written factual genres?
• If we assume the student has chosen the
  appropriate genre, has maintained the field,
  maintained appropriate tenor and the text flows
  somewhat OK and (Im not worrying about tense,
  verbal groups, spelling and punctuation), then I
  would focus on the things below.