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Not for ourselves alone

Curriculum 2025

Essential English

 

Subject Name Essential English
Year Level 12
Subject Length Full year
Subject Type Optional
Prerequisite Subjects Successful completion of year 11 English or English Literary Studies recommended
Staff Contact Kate Hynes
kate.hynes740@schools.sa.edu.au

Content

Students extend their communication skills through reading, viewing, writing, listening, and speaking. They will consider and respond to information, ideas, and perspectives in texts selected from social, cultural, community, workplace, and/or imaginative contexts and examine the effect of language choices, conventions, and stylistic features in various texts for different audiences.

Throughout the year, students may:

  • Respond to texts
    Students respond to various texts that instruct, engage, challenge, inform, and connect readers. They consider information, ideas, and perspectives represented in the chosen texts.
  • Create texts
    Students create procedural, imaginative, analytical, interpretive, or persuasive texts appropriate to a context.
  • Undertake a language study
    The language study focuses on people's use of language outside of the classroom. Students consider the use of language in their chosen context, including the communication of information, ideas, and perspectives.  

Assessment

Responding to texts  30%

  • Students produce three responses to texts. At least one of the responses must be produced in written form, and at least one must be in oral or multimodal form. A written response should be a maximum of 800 words, and an oral/multimodal response should be a maximum of 5 minutes.

Creating texts  40%

  • One advocacy text - 800 words or 5 minutes oral/multimodal.
  • Two additional texts - one written and one oral/multimodal - 800 words written and 5 minutes oral/multimodal.

Language study  30%

  • The language study should be a maximum of 1500 words if written or 9 minutes if presented in oral/multimodal form.

Additional Information

Essential English does not meet the prerequisite for interstate universities.