Victorian Curriculum F-10 English as an Additional Language (EAL)
The EAL curriculum is available on the website of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA): Victorian Curriculum F-10.
The curriculum includes:
- content descriptions which describe teachable knowledge and skills. This covers what to teach and what students should learn.
- achievement standards which describe what students are able to understand and do when they each the end of each level in all three modes of the curriculum
- elaborations, which are non-mandated examples that give guidance on how schools can turn the curriculum into classroom and learning activities.
The EAL curriculum supports learning in all areas of the Victorian Curriculum. Teachers of all subjects use the content descriptions in the EAL curriculum to support the language learning needs of EAL student in their classrooms, in relation to the language demands of their subjects.
EAL is also a learning area in its own right. EAL students need to develop language skills across all the curriculum areas and capabilities, not just in English. The curriculum has been designed to be accessible to all teachers in mainstream schools and English language schools and centres. This includes EAL specialist teachers and out-of-field EAL teachers.
The curriculum supports teachers to recognise students’ existing languages and leverage them for learning English, new conceptual and cultural knowledge and skills.
The three pathways for EAL are based on early, mid and late immersion in English medium education and are not age-based. Schools have flexibility in moving students between pathways.
All government schools are expected to implement the Victorian Curriculum F-10 EAL from Term 1, 2021.
EAL program planning
The learning needs of EAL students will vary according to factors such as their pre-migration experiences. Variable factors in a student’s pre-migration experiences include level of formal education in their home country, age, the stage of English language development at which they enter the Victorian school system, and their access to EAL support.
The Policy and Advisory Library provides advice about planning and implementing effective programs for a school’s EAL student cohort. See:
Guidance for planning and implementing EAL programs
Karen bilingual program
Learning in two languages: Karen bilingual program – 2009 to 2013 research and evaluation of an alternative model of English provision for Karen language background students beginning kindergarten in the city of Wyndham.