Content

Stage 2 Australian Languages — First Language is a 20‑credit subject that consists of the following focus areas:

• self — exploring identity in the context of family, community, and the wider world
• family — engaging resources of kinship to develop identity and understanding
• community — engaging resources of community and Country to develop identity and understanding
• Australia and the wider world — celebrating and embracing the cultures and languages of home communities in order to consider the future through a broader global perspective.

These four focus areas are cyclical in their development and are designed to develop and extend students’ strong understanding of identity and belonging as individuals, and in communities. The interrelationship of focus areas in the study of [First Language] is shown in the diagram. The focus areas are discussed in more detail following the diagram.

Students study all four focus areas.

Students should study a range of resources in [First Language]. The language that students use to respond to a resource or resources may be either [First Language], English, or a combination of both [First Language] and English, as specified in each assessment type.

The focus areas are broad enough to allow flexibility in school programs, but specific enough to be of practical assistance to students and teachers. They are not intended to be taught independently. They are not necessarily designed to be of equivalent length — teachers may allocate more time to some than to others — and they may be sequenced and structured to suit individual groups of students.

The length of time and depth of treatment for each focus area will depend on a number of factors, including the:

• particular learning requirement(s) being covered
• degree of familiarity that the student has with topics studied previously
• needs and interests of the students
• nature of the language itself
• linguistic and conceptual complexity of the resources selected for study
• linguistic and sociocultural distance between the focus area and the student’s own world and experience
• assessments (including ways in which they are structured and the conditions under which they are set)
• language of the response
• access to resources.