Languages

LANGUAGES OTHER THAN ENGLISH – (LOTE)

 

The Federal Government and the Department of Education and Training acknowledges the important role that Languages education plays in preparing students to participate effectively as global citizens of the 21st century.

Students in Years 8 and 9 at Governor Stirling Senior High School are required to study a language.  The two languages currently offered are Indonesian and Italian. 

It is during these early years that cognitive skills in a second language are established in each learner. This allows them to approach fluency development with the highest confidence.  Languages uniquely develop the student’s thinking skills within the cognitive domain. This has far-reaching and permanent implications for their own language communication.

It is compulsory that the language chosen in Year 8 will continue to be studied in Year 9.  Students will then have the option to continue the study of that language in Year 10.  Prospective year 8 students may continue with the language they have studied in primary school or choose to begin afresh with a new language. Therefore, both beginners and continuing students are catered for.

Students are advised that most Universities offers ALL students, whether they intend studying a language at university or not, a 10% bonus mark based on their TEE LOTE mark. This could lift the student's TEE aggregate and allow them entry into courses from which they would otherwise be excluded.

Students who study a second language at Governor Stirling Senior High School benefit from a series of enrichment activities including overseas cultural tours, excursions and visiting speakers.  Last year the Indonesian students went to Malaysia where, our students lived with host families and soaked up the culture and language in general.

The LOTE learning area has 6 major outcomes. 

  • Listening and Responding, Speaking
  • Viewing, Reading and Responding
  • Writing
  • Cultural understandings
  • The System of the target language
  • Language learning strategies

These six Learning Outcomes are inter-related and cannot be achieved in isolation.

The lower school LOTE courses support the achievement of the school-wide Curriculum Framework’s Overarching Outcomes in addition to those Outcomes that are the particular responsibility of this Learning Area.

 

LAST UPDATED: December 2011