The consultation draft of the Language and Literacy Levels across the Australian Curriculum: EALD Students document is on the web! It will not be published in hard copy for at least the first year while it is a consultation draft. To view or download it go to www.decd.sa.gov.au/literacy/ >EALD>Lang & Lit Levels.
It describes the development of Standard Australian English required to meet the increasing demands of the Australian Curriculum across the years of schooling from Foundation (Reception) to Year 10.  It is primarily an assessment, monitoring and reporting document to be used to inform programming and planning for all teachers. The document replaces the ESL Scope and Scales in use for at least the last decade.
Bronwyn Custance was the lead writer and used her substanial knowledge of language and the Australian Curriculum to complete what I am sure will be seen as a very valuable assessment and planning resource for a range of teachers. She was supported in the writing by the EALD consultants and the reference group which consisted of DECD and Catholic Education staff.
Professional Learning to support the implementation of the document is almost finalised and fliers will be distributed by the start of Term 1. Even though a significant amount of PL will be delivered by EALD consultants next term, school based literacy leaders will also be able to deliver the training by downloading PowerPoints and detailed facilitator notes from the web. More information about how to access these will also be sent to schools early next year.
I have just learnt that the EALD positions will be rolled over for Term 1. However, two of the current consultants will be moving on so there will only be six consultants during next term. Pam Boyle is retiring and Carmen Liddane has won the position of IELC coordinator at Goodwood Primary. They have both made valuable contributions to the EALD Programs team over a long period. I wish them both well.
Finally I hope you all enjoy safe and happy holidays and I look forward to adding some more posts in 2013.

Busy, busy, busy. The regional Yr 6 - SACE genre map is complete thanks to the input of about 20 Science, Maths, History and English teachers from half a dozen schools in the region. It will now go up on the regional website. The supporting document outlining purpose, structure and key language features will soon follow.
The Literacy Leaders Network Day has come and gone. There were a lot of postive comments about the keynote speaker Jenny Hammond. I also took the chance to hear her speak to SATESOL members on the following morning about issues arising from her research into secondary transition from Intensive English Centres in Sydney. While the workshop presentations were not filmed the presenters PowerPoints or Prezis should be on the Literacy Secretariat website. If your school is looking for an example that enacts the elements of a whole school approach to literacy improvement than check out the Prezi by Alice Carter and Davide Marino from Whyalla. At three different events since their presentation, teachers from different schools have told me how much they enjoyed the presentation and that they now have a model to discuss with their own principals. Isnt this the goal of the LLN days?? Alice was also asked to speak briefly at the Eyre and Western Region's Leaders Day about the work she is leading at Stuart High. Her leadership in this area undoubtedly assisted her to win an acting assistant principal job at her school!
Last week I was able to build on the work that Davide Marino has donethis semester with his staff at Edward John Eyre High about nominalisation. Lots of heads were nodding and people were engaged in the activities so I showed me that they were starting from a reasosnably strong base.
I have also presented four hours of PD about noun groups, nominalisation and circumstances to primary teachers and secondary new arrivals teachers. The PD was over two Wednesday evenings and this allowed the teachers to trial a teaching activity and report back to the group. Their comments showed how they were able to thoughtfully modify the activities to suit their students.
My colleague, Giuseppe Mammone, has returned to the office after some leave. He was missed in the office and around the region. Yesterday we met with the IELC leaders in the region to consider the survey responses from principals about transition from IELCs to mainstream primary schools. The feedback was generally positive, but we have undertaken to develop a one page summary about each student that is sent to schools before transition and another document that clarifies the roles of IELCs, mainstream schools, parents and EALD consultants in the transition process.
Yesterday was the last Secondary ESL Teacher Network meeting for the year. Twenty-one teachers attended to hear about the main item which was the Language and Literacy Levels. Their feedback shows that overwhelmingly they appreciated the training and the consultants' delivery. More thorough PD will begin from the start of the 2013 school year.
The Levels, including an introduction and glossary are due to be completed in about a week. After that time they will be posted on the Lit Sec website. Work on the supporting moderated evidence and implementation PD is also getting close to completion , but will likely continue for the rest of the school year.
So that brings me to next year. As you can imagine I have had a number of schools or groups wanting to "book" me to deliver PD in 2013. I have been accepting these but explaining that these are tentative because the tenure of consultant positions finishes in January. At this stage we do not know how many there will be, where they will be based or indeed if the positions will exist at all. I hope to write one or two more posts before the end of the school year so hopefully the situation is clarified by then.

The first two weeks of Term 4 have been busy as usual. No rest for the wicked. For instance the writers of the Year 9 Science explanation document meet as a group for the last time. The document includes a teaching resource accompanied by three PowerPoints about explanation structure and language. It will be launched at EDC Hindmarsh on 21st November. Fliers will soon be distributed to all secondary principals in the region.
Bronwyn Custance and I aligned the Language and Literacy Levels to the four phases of EALD student progression across F-2, Yrs 3-6 and Yrs 7-10 in the ACARA EALD Teacher Resource. This may form part of the introduction to the Levels document.
The ERCs are well underway in their work to develop a new moderated evidence resource to accompany the Levels. This is a large chunk of our work for the next few weeks.
However, we are still finding time to help prepare for the Literacy Leaders Network meeting on 2nd November. I will be part of a panel on the day and talk briefly about the work ERCs have been doing towards the implementation of the Australian Curriculum and what we see as opportunities and challenges for EALD students posed by the new curriculum. I have also met with a couple of the groups presenting on the day. This includes a pair of literacy leaders, Alice Crater and Davide Marino, from Whyalla who are doing great things at a whole school level.
While in Whyalla I delivered some PD about nominalisation and sentence openers to staff at Stuart High. It was very well received. I also visited Hincks Ave Primary to observe their two new GI ESL students and give some recommendations for their teaching. It was wonderful to see the way in which students, SSOs, teachers and leaders were working to support these two new Filipino students. I'll be back in Whyalla on 8th November to present some grammar PD for teachers at Edward John Eyre High.
I managed to find time to attend the Western Adelaide regional leaders meeting last Friday. The table I was on gave some positive feedback about the level of advice and PD provided by Giuseppe and me. Just as importantly the leaders heard about the department's new numeracy and literacy strategy. Teachers and leaders are being encouraged to have their say about the 6 drivers for improvement.
Finally I have compiled a summary of the ERCs feedback about the plan and process for "at risk" ASSOE students during transition into mainstream. Jill Brodie-Tyrrell and I meet with ASSOE staff tomorrow to discuss in detail, but I can say that 28 transition plans were written in the first year and there was no need to write a subsequent pan for any of these students. This suggests all these students made a successful transition into mainstream high schools.

In the last couple of weeks, a major focus of my work and the other consultants has been the Language and Literacy Levels. For example, I met with my manager, Karyl Martin, and Bronwyn Custance who is the writer of the document to clarify the relationship between it and ACARA's EALD Teacher Resource.

Essentially we feel the ACARA document informs:

• teachers about what each broad cohort of EALD students is likely to be able to do across the literacy macro-skills
• teachers and leaders about general teaching strategies for each cohort
• school decisions about prioritising EALD support and which students should be assigned a Language and Literacy Level.

Meanwhile, the Language and Literacy Levels will be used to:

• inform each student's EALD support category to allocate EALD funding to schools
• inform teachers of the language needed to access and demonstrate knowledge of Australian Curriculum
• provide a fine grain assessment of student writing (and oral language)
• monitor and track any student's progress especially in writing.

The two documents are not in competition with each other. Indeed the introduction to the Levels will include a reference to the ACARA document and its usefulness. To further this work, Bronwyn and I will meet next week to align specific Levels to the descriptions of the four stages of EALD progression from R-10.

During the last few days, some of the consultants have started developing a set of moderated evidence to support teachers in assigning accurate and consistent Levels from 2013. This is just one aspect of the implementation planning happening in Term 4. Catholic Education have also been part of some of our implementation planning meetings and as a result there will be sharing of resources across the two systems.

In my last post, I mentioned a garmmar PD session I was going to run at the start of the school holidays. It went very well. Most participants rated the training as excellent. This is one of the reasons why I am offering it again. It will be in two parts from 4-6 pm Wednesday 31st October and 4-6 pm Wednesday 7th November. Both sessions will be held at Flinders Park. Emial me for a flier ross.hamilton@sa.gov.au

The last couple of weeks have been very busy, but I still managed to take a couple of days off to celebrate my birthday in Sydney by climbing the bridge in 100 kph winds. I can highly recommend it.
Back in the "real world" I have had the opportunity, thanks to Jock Lawson ICAN Manager, to speak with the FLO school coordinators and FLO provider representatives about how I might assist in the teaching of literacy in FLO programs and in student transition into and out of FLO.
The latest Secondary ESL Teacher Network meeting organised by my colleagues Dick Doyle and Joan Richards took place on Thursday evening. It was useful to hear from several teachers about how their schools are using a whole school approach to literacy improvement. I dont think as many teachers would have been able to do so just a couple of years ago.
Since my last post, I have also been part of a group of IELC leaders which revisited a regional plan to improve transition between primary IELCs and mainstream schools in the region. One of the actions is to survey mainstream schools to see what they think are areas for improvement.
Yesterday was the last TESMC Module at Kilkenny Primary. One advantage of delivering the course in a Term 3 is that teachers can now apply their learning before the end of the year. However, some teacher participants think they have not been given sufficent time to trial the strategies in their classes during the course. What has impressed me so far is the perserverance many SSOs have shown to complete activities when they dont necessarily relate to how they work with students at the moment.
I have continued to work with the Science teachers to write the Yr 9 genre document. The task has had many revisions and therefore required revisions of success criteria, task process steps etc. However, when we meet for ther last time after the holidays I am confident the resource will provide teachers and their Year 9 Science students with the resources required to plan for and successfully write an expanation. The final copy will be available from the regional web site by mid next term.
Also to be completed mid Term 4 is a regional genre map aligned to SACE and the Australian Curriculum. I will be hosting several meetings with SACE English, History, Maths and Science teachers in early Term 4 to help identifty the most important macro-genres in these SACE subjects. This will then be used to decide which common genres should be explicitly taught and assessed from years 6-10 to prepare students for SACE.
The ESL consultants have also looked at the feedback from the trial of the draft 1-10 Language and Literacy Levels. It shows there is a strong correlation between the Scales and Levels. While there are some minor adjustments to be made as a result of the feedback, most of those who trialled it were happy with its organisation and content. The draft 11-14 Levels will soon be finished and trialled. The ESL consultants will spend some of the term holidays working with their Catholic Ed colleagues developing implementation resources.
Next week I will be delivering a 1/2 day PD session about noun groups, nominalisation and circumstances in the R-7 Australian Curriculum. Twenty one primary teachers have registered so it is obviously a topic of some interest at the moment. I will also deliver the PD in Whyalla next month.
For those taking holidays, I hope you enjoy them!

Since my last post I have spent a bit of time working with the other consultants planning our work for 2013 and the program for the Literacy Leaders Network meeting on 2nd November. Fliers will be distributed in the usual manner. We have secured Jenny Hammond as the guest speaker. She was the edior of Scaffolding: teaching and learning in language and literacy education published by PETAA.
I also visited ASSOE to help in their deliberations about curriculum and pedagogy renewal. It was pleasing that my advice was echoed in the draft paper being developed by primary IELP leaders on the topic. I worked with this group to revise the IELP Transistion Report in light of the Lanaguage and Litercay Levels. The report is completed by IELP teachers about each student before they move into the mainstream.
During this last week I have also been able to attend the latest PD session run by Dr Peter White from UniNSW. We looked at a set of texts written by the same student over several years. Her improvement in recount writing was clearly demonstrated. She used language to engage the reader about one or two main events rather than just trying to recount a bland series of events. The role of the teacher and task design was key to the student's progress.
I also attended the Literacy and Numeracy Expo for two days. Highlights were the presentation of the executive summary of the Adolescent Literacy Project undertaken by the SA secondary principals' association. Recommendations included more literacy PD specific to the secondary years. I suggest all secondary teachers and leaders make themselves aware of the report. It will be intersting to see the DECD response.
However, the most outstanding presentation came from Priyanka Sharma from The Pines IELC. She demonstrated that the teaching of functional grammar within a teaching and learning cycle can be fun and contribute to students making extraordinary progress. All of what she showed is achieveable in IELPs or mainstream classes. Hopefully the ESL consultants can arrange for her to repeat her presentation and to have it filmed so as many teachers as possible can view it. I think a number of doubters in school and corporate leadership positions should also see the evidence.

In the last couple of weeks I have worked with my colleague, Giuseppe Mammone, and two primary teachers to develop an R-7 Australian Curriculum Genre map. A draft has now gone out to schools for feedback. I have also developed a similar map for Years 8-10 and one  page overviews for each genre. Each overview outlines the purpose, structure and language of that genre. The language is linked to the headings in the Aust Curriculum literacy continuum (e.g. text knowledge). The 8-10 materials have also gone to schools for comment.
I was filmed last thursday doing a very brief introduction to two ESL Moodle courses. One is ESL Leadership 101 and the other is ESL Teaching Resources. Both can be accessed via the Literacy Secretariat site. The short vidoes were aimed at giving ESL teachers who had registered for the latest Literacy Leaders Network online conference some suggestions about which of the online Moodles they might find most useful.
I also spent a morning with staff from the Australian Red Cross and Australian Federal Police hearing about the dreadful situation often desperate people find themselves in as a result of people trafficking. These people are often duped into coming to Australia and then exploited for profit or sex. While the numbers are relatively small in South Australia these two websites may be of interest www.antislavery.org.au/resources/fact-sheets.html and www.ag.gov.au/Peopletrafficking/Pages/default.aspx
Yesterday I was invited to speak with the leadership team at William Light R-12 School about what language choices make the biggest differences in student writing. Reports from the school are positive and a couple of faculties may work with me about this later this year. I am more than happy to discuss this with other site leaders with the view of discussing it further with their learning area coordinators
Today I started working with three Science teachers to develop a Year 9 Science genre document. It is the next step in the regional project about the explicit teaching of genres across Years 8-10 Aust Curric. The first document and accompanying PowerPoint are on the regional website www.decd.sa.gov..au/westernadelaide/pages/Curriculum > Literacy.

This week I have visited three more schools to write new IELC Transiton Plans for students enrolling in mainstream from ASSOE or to review plans written last term. I believe these plans are working well because there have been some good news stories as a result of schools focusing upon these "at risk" students. Once a school is made aware of the student they have used a variety of existing processes or programs to monitor and engage students. I am yet to have to write a plan for the second term that any of the students have been at their new school.
While mentioning ASSOE, the staff there was kind enough to let me trial the Year 8 English genre document with them. From their point of view, they gained more insight into the structure of the Australian Curriculum: English and the standard of work in the mainstream. I gained some useful feedback about the draft resources.
Last Thursday, I attended some very informative professional learning about creating and composing factual multimodal texts. This PETAA training was run by Michele Anstey and Geoff Bull. One of the highlights for me was a very clear definition about what is a multimodal text. We also started to learn and apply some of the grammar of other semiotic systems apart from linguistics. While much of the day was aimed at primary students, I think the information about the inquiry model is also applicable to older students. The presenters have written a text on the topic and it is available from the PETAA. PETAA have also produced twelve free online units of work from Years 3-8. They are aligned to the Australian Curriculum: English and available from www.globalwords.edu.au
Over the last few weeks as schools start to come to terms with the implementation of the Aust Curriculum, three secondary schools have asked how they should plan for and assess ESL students when students study ESL as a subject instead of or as well as English. Teachers are allowed to assess students with disabilities against a lower year level, but there is no guidance about ESL students. It is an agenda item for this Friday's meeting of the ESL Regional Consultants, but I would love to hear other people's opinion on this.
Advance Notice! The next Secondary ESL Teacher Network meeting is from 4-6 pm on Thursday 13th September at Adelaide High School. Flyers will be sent to the normal email lists.

Hello again. Term 3 is very much under way.
Since my last post, I have finished the TESMC course with the Brompton Primary School staff. At the moment they are writing teaching and learning cycles to be implemented from the beginning of this term. The day after finishing the course at Brompton, I began a new course with 32 staff members at Kilkenny Primary. In fact, as a result of the school leadership devoting Monday to the course, we have already completed 4 of 9 modules.
Last Friday, I was fortunate to hear the Kilkenny principal, Mike Tate, talk about how his school has implemented a whole school approach to reading. It was a wonderful example of instructional leadership and appropriate use of data and resources. Mike along with his leadership team have also fully participated in the first four TESMC modules. Even when I spoke to him last term about the option of his staff doing the shorter Language for Learning course he knew what he wanted for his staff and students and decided TESMC would deliver the desired outcomes.
At the same meeting at which Mike spoke, Keith Bartley spoke about the new directions for DECD. He took questions from the audience at the end so I took the chance to ask about the Every Chance for Every Child strategy. This is aimed at making birth to five year olds "school ready". As our state is inviting more migrants and refugees to help develop the state socially and economically, I asked if there was scope to include migrant or refugee children in this strategy, because not all of our students have the same starting point. The answer was about who decided it, not why nor if it could be extended to include older students, but at least the issue had been raised. If you too feel the strategy should be offered to older students in need, you might like to have your voice heard by going to the Every Chance for Every Child website and leaving a comment.
Last week, I continued to promote and organise the launch of the Explict Teaching of Writing across the Years 8-10 Australian Curriculum: Year 8 English document. This will take place at EDC Hindmarsh from 4-6 pm on Thursday 9th August. Soon after the launch, the document and accompanying PowerPoint will be posted on the regional website so others can access it.
Today, I worked at William Light R-12 School. It was great example of the diverse work of an ESL consultant. I initially worked with Sabrina Walker, English/ESL coordinator, to give advice about upcoming learning area professional development about the Australian Curriculum. I also updated her about the regional genre map under development. We then spoke with the principal, Michele Pope, about what language choices make the most difference in senior secondary writing. This resulted in her arranging for me to return to deliver the same professional learning to her leadership team. I also worked her Sabrina and the counsellor and a year level manger to write an IELC Transistion Plan for a newly enrolled student from Adelaide Secondary School of English. I then met with a Year 12 ESL teacher to give advice about subject counselling and offerings. Finally, I read a text written by one of her students and gave her feedback about what grade I would give it and why. The rest of the week looks like it will be just as busy and varied.
In closing, thanks for those people who tell me they have read and enjoyed my blog. Dont forget you dont have to wait until you see me in person. Post a comment! The blog has now had over 300 views including at least two from the USA and Russia. These may have been the result of search or URL typos but it is gladdening to think people overseas may find my blog to be of some interest.

With the help of Erika von Aspern, I think I have solved the problem of people not being able to post comments on my blog. The default settings only allow google account holders or blogger members to post comments, but I have changed the settings so that anyone can leave a comment.
Just click on "comment" at the bottom of any of my posts and a field appears into which you can type your comment. Then click "publish". If you want your name to be recorded as the author of the comment, add your name to the comment. Otherwise I will not know who sent it, because anonymous while appear as the author.

I had three relaxing days of annual leave last week. Port Elliot and surrounds are beautiful even in mid-winter.
This week along with other regional officers I attended a meeting with Anna Lewkowicz from the group managing the Middle Years Development Instrument. It is intended that Yr 6 students will go online to complete a survey about those non-academic factors that are relevant to their learning and participation. This wellbeing data will be fed back to schools and regions so that strategies can be put in place before the students reach high school. The organisers seem to have considered the needs of ESL students who might be surveyed by translating consent forms and encouraging the use of BSSOs. The data should be disaggregated for groups like NESB students so it could make for interesting reading later this year.
Monday evening I attended the ESLE meeting to give feedback about the draft senior years EALD curriculum. The group was small but the comments and questions were very thoughtful. We felt that on some occasions it still reads like an English course and that the achievement standards assess cognitive development and not second langauge development.
On Tuesday I showed the draft Year 8 English Genre Project work to the regional director and assistant regional director. Both were impressed with the quality of the work and want it promoted through principals. They are also keen to see the accompanying PowerPoint so that teachers have a clear process for planning, teaching and assessing writing in the Australian Curriculum.
I attended the reference group meeting for the Literacy Levels on Tuesday afternoon. The draft shows progression from one Level to the next through well described indicators and good use of examples.
Yesterday, James Dekort from Le Fevre High worked with me to create the PowerPoint that will accompany the Year 8 English Genre Project. It might seem odd that an ESL consultant is putting so much energy into an English resource. However, the process will be valuable to ESL teachers as well. Later this term we will do something similar for Science. The explicit teaching of genres across the currciulum is something that ESL has always supported if not led.
I understand that people are having trouble posting comments. I am not very IT savy but will try to find a solution. In the meantime, emails are welcome ross.hamilton@sa.gov.au . I am able to track the number of views my blog gets. It is now well over 200 so I know somebody is out there!
Best wishes for term 3.

Last week was the first week of school holidays so I was able to attend to some of the work that had started to "pile up" during the term. I marked two different sorts of work. Firstly I "marked' TESMC participant reflections on Between Module Readings and Between Module Activities from the course. It is pleasing when participants see how the practical and theoretical parts of the course come together to support their teaching. I also marked some Year 12 work from Edward John Eyre High School. In one of my weaker moments I agreed to analyse the use of certain langauge features in A and C grade student texts. Art, Psychology, Chemistry and PE texts were analysed. I looked at the use of non-human foregrounding (starts of clauses), evaluative langauge and nominalisation. While foregrunding did not appear to have a significant impact on the grades, A grade texts did use more nominalisation and evaluative language and the choices were, on the whole, more sophisticated. The school can use this to help inform their decisions about what teaching they should prioritise as part of their whole school literacy agreements.

I also worked with some of the other ESL consultants to organise the trialling of the Literacy Levels next term. Nearly 40 schools have shown interest in being part of the trail. This is a wonderful response. I also spent a great deal of time coordinating the Year 8 Genre Project. It is nearing completion. It will be presented to regional English teachers on 9th August and then to staff across DECD at the Literacy Expo in late August. I have also begun my preparation for the TESMC course to be run next term at Kilkenny Primary School. There will be 30 participants so it is best to start early.

In closing, I want to acknowledge Kate Prescott whose position as an ESL Psychologist finishes at the end of this week. This is not a result of the quality of her work or a diminishing number ESL new arrivals with psychological issues. Rather it is a result of budget savings through corporate staff cut backs. Thank you Kate for your caring and expert work. Best wishes for the future.

In the last couple of weeks, I have given seven sites some intensive support to assign their ESL Scales. These schools include primary and high schools in Western Adelaide, Port Augusta and Whyalla. On most occasions I have only been making minor adjustments to some of the Scales already assigned. I think this is a sign a of the quality of the previous tarining about how to assign Scales and the professionalism of the etachers involved. Participation in voluntary regional moderation helps schools to have accurate Scales history for their students and therefore schools can have confidence in this data when tracking student improvement and prioritising resources. In addition these sites should have very few concerns if they are randomly selected for inclusion in the external moderation process. Each year 40 schools are notified which 10 sets of evidence they need to send for moderation. After moderation each school and regional office is sent the results. These show the percentage of Scales that were confirmed at each school and a comparison to the region and the state.
To coincide with Refugee Week I organised a professional learning session at the Aboriginal, Multicultural, Languages and Learning Resource Centre. The resource centre staff had a range of resources about refugees on display. After teachers had the chance to look at these, two speakers from the Australian Refugee Association spoke about the services they provide. In particular, we learnt about the expansion of homework clubs into the southern suburbs and that senior students can underatke Flexible Learning Options (FLO) through ARA as a way of completing their SACE. We also heard from Ker Wol Mading, one of the DECD CLOs, who spoke briefly about some of his personal experiences growing up in Africa and the important work of the CLOs.
Last week I attended the Settlement Council of Australia (SCoA) national conference here in Adelaide. It was sobering to hear the state minister for Multiculural Affairs deliver a very emtional and sincere speech about the plight of asylum seekers. It was also refreshing to hear from someone as eminent as Professor Graeme Hugo who presented current immigration statistics. These debunked many of the ignorant claims made in the media and general population about the negative impact asylum seekers supposedly have upon Australia. However, I felt disappointed that at a two day conference entitled "Creating our Future" very little was said about children with a migrant or refugee experience and that the important day to day role that schools play, sometimes in partnership with agencies and NGOs,  in the settlement of students and their families was not even acknowledged.

Last Wednesday, I split my time between Woodville High School and Allenby Gardens Primary. I was assisting large numbers of teachers at both schools to assign ESL Scales. It is encouraging to see this important work being shared within schools and not just considered to be the "work of the ESL Teacher". Assigning accurate ESL Scales allows the school to have confidence in this data to better allocate resources and track student progress. It also builds teacher capacity in terms of language. Typically teachers only have to be involved in the scaling process for a couple of times before they realise that this sort of language needs to be explicitly taught not just assessed. At Woodville High ESL, English and Science teachers were involved. At Allenby Gardens the whole school seemed to take part. The school has long seen the value in regularly assigning ESL Scales and not just to their ESL studnets. Each term they assign ESLScales to all their students as another way of tracking student progress.

Indicators of when scaling is working well in a school include:

• having an agreed and documented process
• identifiable leaders of the process
• support for staff to undertake relevant training
• release time to complete some of the scaling
• a colleagiate approach to assigning Scales
• some form of internal moderation
• an easy process for recording the Scales and sharing them with others.

During the week, I also prepared for the next meeting of the group writing the Yr 8 English Genre Project. Individual writers have been creating drafts of various resources that will be discussed by the whole group tomorrow. There is interest from central office about the group presenting the final resources at the Literacy and Numeracy Expo in August.
I also used the time last week to continue to organise Thursday's training session about the needs of refugee students and their families and the some of the services available to them. Registrations have been slow but I am confident it will still be a valuable session for those who are able to attend.
Today, I re-worked Session 3 from Tactical Teaching: Reading so that it is more aligned to the widespread understanding of genres and text structure in DECD schools. Many DECD teachers already have a deeper understanding of the topic than that presented in the TTR course. I have also taken the opportunity to align it the Australian Curriculum Literacy General Capabiliy elements (e.g. Gramar Knowledge). This is a more rigorous and relevant framework than the one promoted in the orignal course.

Hello again. It is nice to be acknowlegded once in a while. The Literacy Secretariat recently obtained some data about its website. It makes very interesting reading. For the year ending April 2012, the site had about 77 000 visitors who viewed 214 000 pages. 67% of the visitors were from Australia. No surprise but there were 8 000 visitors from the UK, over 2 000 from each of the USA and Japan and even 151 from Pakistan. Obviously they come for different reasons but the work of the ESL team features very highly in regards to what they took from the site. The three top downloads were all created by the ESL team! Over 6 000 visitors downloaded the Persuasive Writing resource paper. About 3 000 took the Procedural Writing and Explanation Writing papers. Many other ESL resources were also downloaded in large numbers. If you are yet to visit the site yourself go to www.decd.sa.gov.au/literacy/
Despite the work of the ESL team being in demand, corporate salary cuts have been announced. At yesterday's ESL Team meeting the recommendations of the review was presented. The review acknowledges that those positions to be cut are simply those whose tenure is first to expire. Therefore, one of the two ESL psychologist postions will finsh at the end of this school term. There has not been a 50% reduction in the number of new arrivals with psychological needs. The other recommendation is that two of the eight ESL consultant positions not be re-advertised for next year. These are primarily the people who created the most popular resources on the Literacy Secretariat site as well as other resources and training and development to meet the needs of 12% of the students in ECD schools. This is unlikely to be the end of the changes because these cuts will also be followed by a round of "1 in 7 cuts" and then another round of cuts in response to the recent state budget. The ESL team may be very small by the time all these cuts take place.
In the meantime schools are in the midst of assigning ESL Scales. It is rewarding to see so many teachers becoming more familiar with language in this process. This "backdoor" literacy training enables some teachers to then begin explicitly teaching the language that makes their students' work more written-like.

I have started delivering what will be my last training about how to assign an ESL Scale. On Tuesday afternoon I presented the first part of this training to teachers at Underdale High. I'll finish it this Tuesday. I still have a couple of sessions to come about moderation of ESL Scales but I am very much looking forward to using the new document from next year. Ten years is a long time for any curriculum document to last. Over the next couple of weeks principals will be asked to decide if their school wants to take part in the trial of the new document in week 4 of next term.
Tuesday was also the first meeting of the writers of the joint regional and Literacy Secretariat genre project. We used a unit planner to decide what we the desired results, the links to the Australian Curriculum, what would be evidence of student learning, success criteria and how students will reflect upon their learning. As you can see from this sequence "backwards design" is one of the underpinning principles of our curriculum writing. Other resource to be developed over the next few weeks are a year planner, a teaching and learning cycle, an assessment rubric, a student checklist, an annotated model text and an example of a lesson plan. This is ambitious but the writers are keen to develop ample useful teacher-friendly resources.
Australian Curriculum was also the theme of this term's Secondary ESL Teacher Network meeting on Wednesday evening. About 20 teachers were introduced to the AC Literacy Continuum and its links to the document that will replace the ESL Scales. They also investigated the Year 7-10 part of the AELD Teacher Resource and considered its use in schools.
"Refugee Week" will be celebrated in late June so I have been organising a session for Thursday 21st June when teachers and leaders can view relevant resources and listen to a couple of outside agencies speak about what they think are the needs of refugee students and the services they provide for this group. Look out for the flyer in the next couple of days!
Thursday I was one of a dozen or more who participated in a training session with Dr Peter White from the University of NSW. The focus was conjunctions. As usual it was highly informative and has implications for how we support students to successfully compose certain genres. In the near future there may also be an announcement of a very exciting proposal involving both the university and DECD.

Hello again. Last week I attended the regional staff meeting. Items included a report from the Aboriginal Turn Around Team about how they work with some of the most disconnected families in the community. They are having successes with families including school aged children that the children's schools and other regional services have not been able to connect with despite their best efforts over very long periods. Some of the success is no doubt a result of the relatively small number of families the team works with and the resolve and hard work of the three team members. As I listened to them recount some cases and the plight of family members I wondered if some refugee familes might benefit from a similar approach. Perhaps the new configuration of DECD will enable a small team of social workers and CLOs to be formed to emulate the work of the Aboriginal team.
I also visited Findon High to work with the assistant principal to write IELC plans for two students who started there this term. The information that is provided by ASSOE about students deemed to be potentially "at risk" when they move into the mainstream includes their strengths and interests. At Findon HS this was helpful because it allowed us to write plans that linked students to existing school or VET courses.
On Thursday I meet with Simmone Retallick from Underdale High to plan a whole school training session about the Australian Curriculum. It appears that secondary schools are at different points along their introduction to and planning for the teaching and reporting of Phase 1 subjects next year. In UHS's case the situation is less sure because they are currently deciding if they will teach AC or IBMYP. Regardless of which they use, the school sees some value in making their staff aware of some general approaches like backwards design, identifying literacy demands in assessement tasks and explicitly teaching these as part of a teaching sequence.
The rest of my week was spent developing some resources for the upcoming secondary ESL network meeting and ESL Scaling and moderation at Underdale High and Allenby Gardens Primary. I also developed a draft primary genre map that others working with Sandy Deam, RCC, can use as part of the genre resources they are creating for the region. Never a dull moment!

Hi remember me! It has been a couple of weeks since I last posted an update of my activities. I am still enthusiastic about the blog but I am been extremely busy. In the week starting Monday 7th May I worked with the other secondary ESL consultants to plan the next network meeting for secondary ESL teachers. The focus is Australian Curriculum. It will be at EDC Hindmarsh from 4-6 pm on Wednesday 30th May. Email me ross.hamilton@sa.gov.au if you want more details or to register. Other highlights of the week were delivering TESMC Module 6 at Brompton Primary, running regional ESL Scales moderation and attending the ESL consultant meeting. Along with the other members of the ESL Program I gave my input into the corporate review of the program. In brief, three salaries will have to go to offset the continuation of free travel to some new arrivals students. A decision is likely in the next couple of weeks. If I was a betting person, I would not put any money on there still being eight ESL consultants even as early as the start of next term.  The "1 in 7" cuts to salaries that all government departments are supposed to make is still to come so the ESL Program may be very small. I think that the consultants while perhaps a bit unsure about their own personal circumstances are most concerned about how the program will still deliver the same service to regions, sites and teachers with a significant cut in salaries. Stay tuned.
Last week began with a meeting of WASMYLLN where I outlined the joint project between the region and the Literacy Secretariat. Four WASMYLLN members each representing a different secondary school were indentified to be the writers of a unit of work for Year 8 using Australian Curriculum: English. As well as a unit plan they will also produce a task sheet, assessment rubric, student checklist, annotated student text and a teaching and learning sequence. They have a busy term ahead.
The rest of last week I was in Whyalla. I worked with most of the staff at Whyalla Town Primary School so they could begin to assign ESL Scales to all their students. I also provided ESL Scales training to five teachers at Edward John Eyre High and between 25 to 30 teachers from seven other local primary and high schools. I also had the chance to work individually with eight EJEHS teachers to develop their ability to explicity teach some of the literacy demands in senior secondary subjects like PE, Design & Technology, Art and IT.

Since the start of term I have delivered TESMC Modules 4&5 at Brompton Primary as well as meeting with the leadership at Kilkenny Primary to start planning the delivery of TESMC at that site during Term 3. This will allow teachers ample time in last term to implement and share their learning from the course.
This week I was part of an SSI Review Team that visited a school to provide them with some commendations and recommendations primarily about the teaching and learning of literacy. While this three day visits feel long and very intense, they do allow for opportunities to converse with and observe staff, parents and students. Part of the role of a review team member is to maintain confidentiality, but I think I can say that it was a pleasure to be a guest in a school that tries so very hard to deal with the complexities of their changing cohort. Typically some of the recommendations result in me be invited back to work more closely with the school as they begin to address those recommendations about ESL students and parents.
Yesterday I attended the region's senior years curriculum committee meeting to give an update about achievements and developments in ESL that relate to Year 10-12 students. It also gave me an opportunity to promote some of the presentations at the Regional Literacy Fair that took place today.
It was attended by about 160 primary and secondary leaders from almost every school in the region. Each school had a static display that featured at least one aspect of their literacy work. During the hour given to view these I probably saw a thrid of them. While they adressed a wide range of literacy topics and approaches typically they were evidence or research based and part of a school school approach. Many also featured the terminology, resources or processes developed by the Literacy Secretariat including the ESL Program. Those who organised the day and presented can be very proud of their part in a wonderful event.
My modest contribution was to give deliver two sessions. The first was an introduction to the ESL Literacy Levels and their alignment with the literacy continuum in the Australian Curriculum. In the other session I gathered feedback from school leaders that will help shape the development of a regional genre map and accompanying teaching resources.

After a very nice break, I am now at the end of my first week back at work and even with schools still on holidays it has been busy. The Western Adelaide Regional Director, Brendyn Semmens, is proposing that I would be one of several people to work with a group of teacher and coordinator representatives from secondary regional schools to develop some literacy resources (eg Yr 8-10 units of work in Science and English that are aligned to the Australian Curriculum and include a focus on literacy). The project would be supported, at least finacially, by the Literacy Secretariat. If this project is approved, and it appears likely that it will in some form, I will keep you informed of it's progress during 2012.
In fact, the Australian Curriculum has been a constant theme in all my work this week. On Monday, I developed an activity to run at the end of TESMC Module 5 that allows teachers to see the links between what they have learnt in the first five modules and literacy in both the AC: English and AC Literacy General Capabilty literacy continuum.
On Tuesday, most of the ESL consultants and Bev White from Catholic Ed met again for a full day to continue the editing of the draft ESL Literacy Levels. While we made some suggestions to the writer, Bronwyn Custance, about the placement of some of the language features and examples at certain year levels, even at this stage, the document as a whole is a logical and sufficently detailed resource.  I am very confident that it will have application beyond just the teaching and assessing of ESL students. Principals doing SPALL should find it of particular interest because it uses the AC literacy continuum framework.
On Wednesday, I put together two PowerPoints that I will present at the Western Adelaide Regional Literacy Fair at AAMI Stadium on 4th May. The first topic is Functional Grammar in the Australian Curriculum and the other is The ESL Literacy Levels. The connection with AC is evident in the first title. As mentioned above the AC literacy continuum provides the framework for the ESL Literacy Levels. After the fair, I will inform you when these PowerPoints go up on the regional website.
Yesterday, I was one of about 30 tutors of TESMC and/or How Language Works to undergo a familiarisation of the new Language for Learning course. It uses many of the activities and resources in TESMC with the exception of those specifically related to ESL students and some of the work around the functional model of language, the teaching and learning cycle and the register continuum. Activities about the literacy demands in the AC have been included. Subsequently the course has only 6 modules. This is likely to have a significant impact on the future number of TESMC courses run in schools. Many schools, particulary those with few ESL students, will likely opt for the shorter L4L course.
Today, the Literacy Secretariat and QIE had a joint staff meeting. The ESL consultants appreciate these opportunities to hear from and work with staff based in Central Office. Bronwyn Parkin's session concisely explained the AC literacy curriculum and how it would influence the work of all at the meeting, because the Lit Sec has been given the brief of supporting schools to incorporate the literacy continuum into AC Phase 1 subjects and over time all AC subjects.
Finally for this post, there are a couple of personnel issues that may effect your work. Firstly Lina Scalfino will be on leave until July so enquiries about the management of the ESL Program should be directed to Karyl Martin in Lina's absence. I should soon be able to let you know who is backfilling Karyl. Also you may be aware that travel to primary IELCs has been reduced as a way of reducing expenditure. However, for very good reasons, some travel is still being funded by the ESL Program. This has meant that the projected budget savings have not been achieved so the additional savings will need to be paid for by cutting salaries in the ESL Program. These will NOT be school based salaries but rather corporate salaries (ie ESL staff in Central Office or regional offices). An outside consultant has been employed to recommend which postions will be cut. Again I will try to keep you updated about this, because it will be an enormous challenge for the ESL Program to deliver the same level of service with reduced staff.

My last post finished with a reference about continuing the rewrite of the ESL Scales. Yesterday the ESL consultants, Karyl Martin, our manager, and Bev White from Catholic ED met with Bronwyn Custance, the writer, to continue this process. We worked in pairs to track development of criteria (eg circumstances) across pairs of scales and to give her some advice about the recommendations coming from the reference group. When the consultants meet again in a couple of weeks time, we will try tracking individual criteria across all year levels. Bronwyn doesn't need my endorsement, but I think she is well on track with the draft. She has drafted Scales 1-10 to date and plans to do the next two within the first few weeks of next term. As well as having a detailed knowledge of the Australian Curriculum, her knowledge of grammar is tremendous. On top of all this she has the ability to manage such a big task with ease. With her at the helm, I am very hopeful the draft document can be trialled in schools in term 3.
It may interest you that the Aust Curric Literacy Continuum we are using as the framework for the new Scales is also being used in SPALL (Secondary Principals As Literacy Leaders) course. You may be aware that PALL, primary principals' version, had its Big 6 for Reading. It appears that the Big 6 in SPALL will be the elements of the literacy continuum (eg text knowledge, grammar, word knowledge). Therefore I anticipate that the new Scales will have a better reception in secondary schools than the current version had.
Based upon participant feedback after the last Secondary ESL Teacher Network meeting, the consultants are planning for the next meeting to have a single focus: The Australian Curriculum. It will be held after school on Wednesday 30th May. Look out for fliers in Term 2 with more details or email me at ross.hamilton@sa.gov.au
Continuing the theme of Australian Curriculum, a couple of days ago I met with Mat Charleston, senior leader at Brompton Primary. I showed him some additional resources I have developed to show the links between noun groups and nominalisation and the new curriculum. It throws up some inconsistencies in the curriculum, but both of these language items introduced in TESMC are important to the literacy in all four Phase 1 subjects (ie Eng, Mths, Sci, Hist). There is also some material in module 1 of the new L4L course that makes more general connections with literacy in the Aust Curric.
We also started discussing how TESMC participants at his school could demonstrate they had "taken on" new learning from the course. I had developed a checklist for a classroom walk through, but Mat's proposal, which I have to admit is better than mine, is to have each teacher host a staff meeting in their classsroom during which they spend 10 minutes showing artefacts (eg genre posters, register continuum posters, teaching and learning cycles) and explaining how they use them with their students.
Happy Easter and enjoy the term holidays and I will try to post again in the second week of the school holidays when I return to work. I enjoy my job, but 4 weeks annual leave is a struggle at times.

I would like to acknowledge the sad passing of Brien Davies from Adelaide Secondary School of English. Brien was proud of his school and was always ready to share his work. For example, a few years ago he organised for teachers from my previous school to visit ASSoE to meet students and teachers and take way curriuclum materials. I always found him friendly and sincere and in all our conversations he showed he cared greatly about his students.

Last Friday I delivered the first three of nine TESMC modules to staff at Brompton Primary. Despite some of them preferring to discuss spiders and trees at various stages during the day, we had a very productive day. We meet again on 24th April to do modules four and five. One of the teachers gave me some student work to read through so I could give her some feedback. She was a participant in a PD session I'd run earlier in the term at the school about persuasive writing. I can already see that she and her students have given some attention to persuasive language devices and the most appropriate ways to begin sentences (foregrounding). I'm always more than happy to give this sort of feedback to teachers who are implementing new learning from PD I've run.

Today I have used the other side of my brain and started using formulae in Excel to calculate class averages and effect sizes. This suits standardised tests given and then repeated over time. If ESL students are doing TORCH or PAT-R reading tests then it is applicable. I doubt if it is as reliable if you are scaling pre-teaching and post-teaching texts unless they are scaled by the same teacher with a sound understanding of the Scales.

I have also finsihed a draft resource paper about recount writing. The paper had been started by some of my colleagues last year, but needed to be finalised and proofread. Hopefully it will join the other resource papers wriiten by the ESL Regional Consultants and published on the web. They can be found at www.decd.sa.gov.au/literacy >Resouces>Resource Papers.

I have also started to put together teacher resource kits for ESL new arrivals. While the changes to free transport for new arrivals will probably mean a few more than the usual number opt to enrol straight into a manistream school in the city rather than an IELC, the kits are really for schools in Eyre and Western. At the moment there are students who are eligible to attend an IELC in Pt Lincoln, Whyalla and Wudinna, but ofcourse the nearest IELC is between 4 and 8 hours drive from these towns. I intend to keep one kit in this office for Western Adelaide schools to borrow and place two in Eyre & Western, probably Pt Lincoln and Whyalla. I intend to use DECD resources along with a few from our counterparts in Victoria.

I have also been writing my reports. Unlike many of you who are currently writing reports about students I am reporting about my work. This takes various forms. For example, as well as attending a performance management meeting this week I also need to report about what PD I ran this term and how many attendees each session had. This is in addition to reporting about teacher feedback about the PD. For the record about 200 teachers, SSOs etc have attended PD I have presented individually in the Western Adelaide Region. Another 50 have attended PD delivered by me in Eyre and Western. This is on top of PD that I jointly ran with other consultants. This includes the 100 staff who attended the whole day session about NAPLAN persuasive writing, all those who attended either of the two whole sessions about the Introduction to ESL Scope and Scales and the more than 40 teachers who attended the ESL Teacher Induction Day.

In the next couple of days, I intend to deal with my large volume of correspondence and start planning for next term's PD. We have another ERC meeting on Friday. The new version of the ESL Scales will form a big part of our work on the day so I'll probably be able to give you an update about this next week.

On Monday I worked with a group of six enthusiastic teachers from Allenby Gardens Primary. It was pleasing that the school had arranged for them to be released for half a day to give due consideration to this new learning. Just as impressive was that one or two part-timers attended in their own time. During the training one or two admitted that they had done the training previously but had not assigned Scales as part of the whole school process and therefore forgotten most of what they had learnt. However, by the end of the session they were remarking that they need not wait until then to practise their new skills. In this situation I also suggest that teachers cement their skills by explicitly teaching language choices in context. This has the added bonus of improving student learning! This is the real purpose in becoming familair with the model of language behind the ESL Scales.

Yesterday morning was the Secondary ESL Teachers Network meeting at which Richard Waugh from Glenunga International High gave a presentation about the use of graphic novels in Year 8-10 ESL and Yr 11 Language B. He successfully displayed how the teaching of graphic novels links to the new Australian Curriculum's general capabilities, the English strands of Language, Literacy and Literature and the Achievement Standards at Years 8-10. Lyn Bellwood from Catholic Education delivered a valuable presentation about how to refine tasks in Year 12 ESL and ESL Studies to give students a better chance of achieving the A standard. I have a copy of her PowerPoint. My email is above so please contact me if you'd like a copy.

In the afternoon I was part of an ESL Team meeting whcih included managers from central office, Community Liaison Officers, ESL psychologists and ESL ASOs as well as the eight ESL Regional Consultants. One task was to continue to work in groups to plan improved transition for students entering a mainstream school from an Intensive English Language Centres (these used to be known as NAP centres). The secondary group has already been able to develop and implement a new process to support students making their transition from ASSoE into mainstream high schools. Basically, ASSoE students who are identified as potentially "at risk" in their first term in mainstream now have an individual transition plan written for them. The plan is written by staff at the mainstream school with support from their ESL Regional Consultant. The school than implements the plan during the student's first term and it is reviewed in their second term. The intention is to reduce the number of newly arrived students "slipping through the cracks" once they move into a mainstream high school.

Today I have spent most of the day preparing supplementary resources for modules 1-3 of TESMC. The group of teachers I am delivering this course to includes a few early years teachers. They are understandably expecting examples aimed at younger students so I have turned my hand to making 2 way information gap activities and sequencing activities involving lady birds, catepillars and rabbits. The last 24 hours have certainly tested my ability to provide support from Reception to Year 12, but that is my brief.

Finally, what's in a name? Well enough for the ESL Program to decide to begin making a change from English as a Second Language (ESL) to English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EALD). Many of you are probably aware that other states use to EALD instead of ESL. The Australian Curriculum also uses EALD. However, apart from coming into line with most of the national and international community, the term far better reflects the experiences and resources that our learners have. It seems odd to continue to use a term that does not ackowledge that many of our students knew several languages or dialects before English. So don't be alarmed if over the coming months you see the term ESL gradually being removed from DECD and being replaced by the more accurate AELD.

I am an ESL Regional Consultant with DECD the South Australian department of education. Along with a colleague, we provide English as a Second Language (ESL) services to other regional office staff, school leaders and teachers in schools in the western region of metropolitan Adelaide and a country region in the west of the state. Primarily we offer training to staff about the needs of ESL students, how to more effectively teach these students and how to track their improvement. We have a focus upon strengthening students' academic progress and their wellbeing. We have being doing this work for 2 years and during that time we have used a range of methods to keep in touch. In my personal life I don't use social media, but appreciate its appeal. Let's see if this blogging experiment works. I don't intend for it to replace the other forms of communication we use, but just  to provide another option. If by chance someone outside DECD finds any of these blogs useful than that would be an unintended bonus.

Earlier this week I worked as one of several presenters of Tactical Teaching Reading session 2 at Woodville High. The day was well organised and fully resourced and supported by school leadership. The day built upon a similar day last year when staff were trained in the reading processes in session 1 of the course. After the session staff spent the rest of the day doing joint curriculum writing to implement some of the reading strategies from session 2. From an ESL point of view, it was encouraging to see teachers considering how they might differentiate the teaching and learning of reading for a range of students including ESL students. Some of the strategies are similar to strategies in the old ESL in the Mainstream course.

I also had an opportunity to work with a small but compassionate group of Woodville staff in the afternoon to write transition plans for migrant and refugee students who enrolled there from Adelaide Secondary School of English at the being of this term. This is a new process that's aimed at not letting relatively newly arrived ESL students "fall through the cracks" when they enter a mainstream school. Each student now has an individual plan to meet their needs as identified by ASSoE staff. Woodville High staff will now implement the plan and I will return next term to check each student's progress against the plan.

On Thursday I assisted teachers at Fulham North Primary assign ESL Scales to student work. The school has an appropriate scaling process in place and it is well known by most teachers. At most, teachers were only one scale "out" in their assessment. On most occasions I could confirm their scaling. The scaling data provides teachers with another tool to monitor student progress especially in oral and written work.

Friday I took a trip to the Barossa for the Western Adelaide Regional Leaders Conference. I can recommend googling Debra Masters and "Visible Students" or "Assessment Capable Students". Debra is a colleague of John Hattie and gave clear examples of how students in some NZ schools were taking control of their learning. They could articulate the assessment criteria, their own progress and the strategies that could help them continue to progress even when they had fallen into the "pit". They didnt seem to view lack of success as permanent but just another opportunity to show resolve and learn something new!!

Next week is the first Secondary ESL Teachers Network meeting for 2012. The program includes the use of graphic novels in ESL classes. I'll also be running modules 1-3 of TESMC with staff at Brompton Primary. The leadership there have been exceedingly supportive. As well as paying for the course they have arranged for the use two student free days to run five of the nine modules. We have already had some discussions about how they want the course tailored and what difference they what it to make for students especially their ESL students. If you or your school is interested in doing a TESMC course go to http://www.decd.sa.gov.au/literacy/ >Professional Learning.