Well, here I am back in Australia after my amazing journey around Indonesia! While traveling around Indonesia I always had it in the back of my mind that the new Australian Curriculum for Languages would be implemented in 2014. It feels weird that I have been excited about implementing the new curriculum but I truly regard it as both an exciting teacher challenge and hopefully also the springboard from which to launch a thoroughly inspirational Indonesian Program so that I can share a fraction of my 7 months of complete Indonesian language and culture immersion with my students.
I am very fortunate to be a member of a very active and committed local hub group called The Fleurieu Peninsular Indonesian Teachers Hub Group. There is a very strong core within our group and together we have been responsible for a variety of amazing programs. I love the way we work together as a team and that everything we do benefits all our students equally and is never about personal accolades. Our hub group is truly amazing and even though we work individually at separate sites, the sharing and support we give each other more than makes up that. So it wasn’t that surprising that even before I returned to Australia, I received an email from Ibu Sharon suggesting dates for a hub meeting to discuss planning for 2014 and entwined in that planning is the implementation of the Indonesian Curriculum.
Once the date of our hub meeting was finalised (tricky finding a date that fitted in with family and business commitments), I began my research so that I would be ready for the largest dot point on our agenda: Planning for 2014 using ‘The LOTE Curriculum’. I opened my trusty iPad and in the safari browser typed in ‘Australian LOTE curriculum’ and this is what came up:
Upon looking at the first link I discovered a document dating back to 2011 and obviously one of the original planning documents with nothing about the nuts and bolts of the Australian Curriculum for languages.
I then opened the 2nd link which contained many further weblinks but none of them included the draft Indonesian curriculum so then I looked more closely at the timeline right at the top of the page.
It appears that the curriculum is yet to be approved and implementation is expected to be in May 2014.
So I decided to consult a true ‘guru’, Andrea Corston, a great friend of mine who is also the 2013 vice president for INTAN (Indonesian Teachers Association SA).
Hi Andrea,
I guess you are back in Australia by now too! Sorry to email you about work things, but hopefully my questions are simple and don’t need too much thought!
I am curious to know where we are up to with the LOTE curriculum. I have just looked at the ACARA website and it seems that implementation isn’t till May 2014. Is this true?
Also I can’t find a copy of the LOTE curriculum with a list of outcomes. Is this because it hasn’t been done yet or is it because it won’t include such a list?
Our hub group are meeting soon to plan for 2014 and I would love to know where to start!!
Her detailed answer demonstrates why she is a ‘Guru’:
The Australian Curriculum for languages which have already been written and are currently being finalised (including Indonesian) will be released for a familiarisation year in 2014. See Attachment 4, page 30 of the DECD Guidelines for the implementation of the Australian Curriculum in DECD schools: Reception – Year 10 for these timelines http://www.decd.sa.gov.au/teachingandlearning/files/pages/Guidelines_for_the_Impleme.pdf
That is, there will be Professional Learning offered to help teachers and school leaders to understand the new Languages curriculum requirements throughout 2014 – this could be offered through DECD, CEASA, MLTASA and hopefully INTAN, so it is highly advisable for all South Australian Languages teachers to be linked in to their professional networks so they don’t miss these opportunities. Indonesian and other languages currently being developed will be ready for implementation in 2015.
So although the Indonesian curriculum should be released by ACARA by May (and possibly before), there is no requirement to teach to it in 2014 as it will take some time for teachers to get their heads around the new orientation. There are no outcomes in the new Australian Curriculum for any Learning Area, as assessment will be described against Achievement Standards as for English, Maths, etc.
The most recent November ACARA update (attached) describes the revised Strands and Sub-strands for all Languages, on which the Language-specific curricula will be based.
Andrea Corston
INTAN Vice-President
Wasn’t that a comprehensive update! I am slightly relieved and also slightly disappointed that the LOTE curriculum is not ready for an immediate start but in reality the delay allows me to be more prepared for it’s impending implementation next year.
From Andrea’s email, I realised that maybe I should have made my search slightly more specific so I began another search and this time typed “Australian Indonesian Curriculum” into google and the first on the list was this: http://consultation.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Static/docs/Languages/F-10%20Indonesian%20-%20Draft%20curriculum%20-%20May%202013. a 104 page document and from page 6, I finally found the draft curriculum!
I am finally feel prepared for the first point on our agenda for the next Indonesian Teachers Fleurieu Hub Group meeting!! I now need to make a start on the others but that will be another post!!
Indonesian Teacher Reflections 
Great minds! I’ve been working with the drafts too, but putting them side by side with other LA documents. We will have yr7s in high school for the first time in 2015, coinciding with the Indonesian curriculum. So I’ve been looking at what we can do concurrently with units of work in other LAs. It’s a bit optimistic to think that other LA teachers will want to do cross/co curricular with me (assessment wise), but I can rely that they will do specific units of work. For example, there’s a unit on water in yr7 science – so easy to do in Indonesian, especially following on from a “my school” topic. So in theory they’ll do the conceptual stuff in Science and then I’ll get them applying language stuff in Indonesian. And we’ll talk about it all with our sister school 🙂
Fun times ahead… I’m still not a fan of the draft curriculum, and finding it very difficult to use for planning, but that’s my job!
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Thanks for your incredibly quick comment! I love the idea about looking at other curriculum documents and basing a unit of work on that! Looked at your blog and really like the unit on water sustainability. It is exactly the sort of unit I am hoping to get my teeth in using the new curriculum. For me, I am so hoping that the new curricululum will give me the chance to be a lot more creative with topics for study.
On the topic of your blog, can I follow your indo5 blog somehow? I love the posts you have and would love to receive them! I have just investigated the site through WordPress but maybe I need to try it through Google?
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I subscribe to yours through “Feedly” (I miss Google Reader!!). But if you’ve got an iPad, FlipBoard is a really nice way to read blog posts 🙂 I always feel guilty about the indo5.net blog – it needs some updating but instead here I am shopping online…
Would love to work with you on any curriculum endeavours!
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I used to have flip board, however it was one of many apps that were deleted to make room for all my photos and video while traveling. So will give that a go again! I am very interested too in working with you. That would be very exciting even though I am pretty sure you are secondary and I am primary. Is that true? I absolutely love the work you have done with students (and have uploaded) and it would be great to have another person to bounce ideas on!! Now I just need to come up with a really juicy topic to kick start my year! Actually there is a good chance of a teacher visiting from one of our sister schools in Jakarta so he would be a good place to start…..
From, Catherine Elliott
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I have just started my preplanning brainstorming. I have just investigated the cross curriulum aspects of the civics and citizenship as well as the health & PE curriculum. Have you looked at them yet?
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