Pre-School Education
The (ETA) English Through Auslan Group
The group caters for deaf children in the primary school who use Auslan (L1) and do not yet have age appropriate English (L2) skills. Some hearing impaired children attend their own group, and deaf and hearing impaired children with age appropriate English skills remain in their class. The study of Auslan as the Deaf student's first language occurs at a different time but of course also crops up during the study of English.
English is taught through literacy using contrastive analysis. The group generally operates around a theme which may be a particular story or an information topic. Themes covered to date in 1999 have been; The circus, Insects, The Solar System, the fable Stone Soup and Weather.
The group is heavily staffed to enable as much individual teaching as possible and a Deaf teacher of the deaf and a Deaf adult are a vital part of the team. Each child has individual programs outlining their goals in the areas of Auslan vocabulary, English vocabulary, pragmatics, grammar, punctuation and any other deemed relevant.
The following timetable is currently in use:
Primary Education
Auslan as a L.O.T.E
(Language Other Than English)
The Language Experience Group and Playgroup
The (ETA) English Through Auslan Group
This group began in 1997 to address the needs of Deaf children learning English because this process occurs in a different way to their hearing peers. The group is held at the same time as the remainder of the bilingual classes have literacy so that deaf children do not miss any part of the regular curriculum but also have the chance to be together as a learning community.
