Institute Three: DECS Language and Literacy

Language and literacy is a comprehensive and innovative professional development program for teachers that has led to significant improvements in language and literacy outcomes for all students, irrespective of whether English is their first or additional language. It achieves this by dealing with the English language in a highly systematic way and by focusing on the language patterns of the subject areas.
It aims to:

• Develop an understanding of the features of the classroom genres—the patterned texts of the school curriculum.
• Show the different ways each subject uses language, focusing on how students can develop the language for the levels of abstraction and reflection that they meet increasingly as they move through school.  
• Identify and articulate ways of connecting ideas in a text and making those ideas flow clearly and effectively.
• Contrast uses of language that are personal or impersonal, direct or indirect, and informal or formal.
• Develop understanding of the differences between spoken and written language both as a teaching and learning tool.
• Develop the ability to assess language explicitly and efficiently to support the learning of all students.

Leader: John Polias

John Polias is an international consultant in language and literacy. He is currently one of three accredited tutor trainers for Language and Literacy: Classroom Applications of Functional Grammar, Teaching ESL Students in Mainstream Classrooms: Language in Learning across the Curriculum and ESL in the Mainstream for the Early Learner. John has been an ESL teacher since 1978 at all levels of schooling, a lecturer in ESL teaching and linguistics at university level and a consultant in language and literacy since 1991.  John is also a writer of academic texts, curriculum and teaching materials, including the recent ESL Scope and Scales for the SA Department of Education as well as co-writing publications such as Teaching ESL through Science: A Science Curriculum for Intensive English Language Programs. John has also worked with the Hong Kong Education Department on how meaning is made in science, mathematics and the humanities. 

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