EDST 2003 Learning and Teaching:

Language, Literacy and Numeracy

Week 1
Understanding the roles of language, literacy and
numeracy (LLN) across the secondary school
curriculum
What we’ll cover
• Language, literacy and numeracy
• Language vs. literacy
• Curriculum (school) literacies
• Numeracy across curriculum
• Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher
Education (LANTITE)
What is language?
Easy or difficult to understand? Why?
1. Kung makigsulti ka sa usa ka lalaki sa usa ka pinulongan nga iyang
nasabtan, kana moadto sa iyang ulo. Kon makigsulti ka kaniya sa
iyang kaugalingong pinulongan, kana moadto sa iyang
kasingkasing
2. Адаммен ол түсінетін тілде сөйлессең, оның басына түседі.
Егер сіз онымен өз тілінде сөйлессеңіз, бұл оның жүрегіне
жетеді
3. Ger tu bi zilamekî re bi zimanekî ku jê fam dike biaxivî, ev yek
dikeve serê wî. Ger hûn bi zimanê xwe pê re bipeyivin, ev yek
dikeve dilê wî
4. यदि आप किसी व्यक्ति से उस भाषा में बात करते हैं जिसे वह समझता है, तो यह बात
उसके दिमाग में चली जाती है। अगर आप उससे उसी की भाषा में बात करते हैं, तो वह
उसके दिल में उतर जाता है
5. Si le hablas a un hombre en un idioma que entiende, se le sube a la
cabeza. Si le hablas en su propio idioma, le llega al corazón.
6. 如果你用他能聽懂的語言和一個人交談，那會觸動他的理智
。如果你用他自己的語言和他說話，那會觸動他的心。
The importance of learning languages
• If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that
goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language,
that goes to his heart (Nelson Mandela)
Reflection
1) How did you feel when you first saw the texts in
Kazakh, Cebuano, Kurdish, Hindi, Chinese etc?
2) How would you feel about going through
school in your second (or third, fourth…)
language? Why?
3) What are some advantages of going through
schooling in English if it is not your first
language?
4) What are some disadvantages?
Example:
Science teacher introducing the concept of the freezing
point of water:
T : Ok , what temperature is it when it is freezing?
S1: -20
S2: 12
S3: 5
T: No, no. You are not using your head ….Peter?
S4: 0
T: Good. So what temperature is it when it is hot?
Watch the following video and think about what roles
language plays in learning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf6bOpWuYqA
(another sample math activity)
Language plays a critical role in learning in:
• Communicating key concepts and understandings – using
both technical and everyday language
• Providing the means to explore developing ideas and to test
hypotheses
• Regulating the classroom environment and pace/focus of
learning (including self–regulation, e.g., self –talk)
• Establishing strong interpersonal relations and a
collaborative learning environment
• Creating and communicating a sense of identity and self
What is language and what is literacy?

Dialect EAL/D vs.

ESL
Bilingualism &
multilingualism

Language
vs. literacy
How many
languages
are spoken
in Australia?
Indigenous
languages?
“Foreign”
languages?
What does this graph show? Describe
the key trends.
What does this graph show? Describe
the key trends.
What does this graph show?
Describe the key trends.
What does this graph show? Describe the key trends.

Language spoken at home - Ranked by size

Australia - Total persons (Usual residence) 2021 2016 Change

Greater Capital Greater Capital

Language (excludes English) Number % Number % 2016 to 2021
Cities % Cities %

Mandarin 685,268 2.7 3.8 596,703 2.5 3.6 +88,565

Arabic 367,154 1.4 2.1 321,720 1.4 2.0 +45,434

Vietnamese 320,760 1.3 1.8 277,391 1.2 1.7 +43,369

Cantonese 295,292 1.2 1.7 280,943 1.2 1.7 +14,349

Punjabi 239,041 0.9 1.2 132,500 0.6 0.8 +106,541

Greek 229,643 0.9 1.3 237,583 1.0 1.5 -7,940

Italian 228,046 0.9 1.2 271,602 1.2 1.5 -43,556

Filipino/Tagalog 222,044 0.9 1.1 182,498 0.8 1.0 +39,546

Hindi 197,132 0.8 1.1 159,637 0.7 1.0 +37,495

Spanish 171,378 0.7 0.9 140,813 0.6 0.8 +30,565

Nepali 133,078 0.5 0.7 62,005 0.3 0.4 +71,073

Korean 115,545 0.5 0.6 108,994 0.5 0.6 +6,551

Sharing
Which languages and dialects can you speak? Did you
learn them at home or school? Can you write as well as
you speak? Could you complete a university assignment in
your 2nd or 3rd language?
• Students from language backgrounds other than English
are not deficit monolingual English learners.
• Such students have very different language socialization
experiences in their country of origin and/or home
environment, but their language and literacy development
is complicated and enriched by the constant interaction
between their first and second (and subsequent)
languages and cultures, and between their emerging
(and increasingly multimodal) oral and written
English(es).
• A student’s home language or dialect should be
recognised and acknowledged as a legitimate mode of
communication alongside Standard Australian English,
and is a valuable resource for learning in the classroom.
See
http://www.acara.edu.au/verve/_resources/EALD_teacher
_resource.pdf

44. …a national teacher resource (has been) developed to

support all teachers in making the Australia Curriculum:
Foundation to Year 10 in each learning area accessible to
EAL/D students. The resource describes how language
proficiency develops and helps all teachers to identify the
language levels of EAL/D students, understand their
cultural and linguistic diversity and to cater for their
specific learning requirements when teaching the learning
area.
Reflection
What strategies do you think middle/high school teachers in
Australia/other countries might use to engage students
whose first language is not English?

Can you recall something from your prior experiences?

What is literacy?
 Q: What have you read recently about
literacy in the news?
"More than one in five Australians can at most complete very simple reading or
mathematical tasks, such as reading brief texts on familiar topics or
understanding basic percentages," a new report by the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development has found.

Adults with low skill levels are far less likely to participate in education and
training than those with high-level skills. Only 23 per cent of low-skilled
Australian adults are engaged in education, compared with 48 per cent of all
adults.

https://www.smh.com.au/education/one-fifth-of-australian-adults-have-limited-lit
eracy-and-numeracy-oecd-20190214-p50xpo.html

In the news
 Q: What have you read recently about
literacy in the news?
More coverage on the issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI11yrWWMu0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcDNWCwjF_g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwDLFuPmOB4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avLCWY8EX1U

Here are a couple of documentaries on the topic as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXWAIXy4oG4 (Four corner
documentary on young Australians’ literacy)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNpGmB-mIZU (Australians’
literacy problem)

In the news
Activate your knowledge…
From your readings in this program so far, and
your background knowledge…
1) What do you understand so far about ‘literacy’?
2) How does literacy teaching and learning in
primary school and high school differ?
3) How do you think ‘literacy’ is similar and
different in the different subject areas?
What is literacy?
The key ideas
for Literacy are
organised into
interrelated
elements in the
learning
continuum

https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/general-capabiliti
es/literacy/
Literacy as encoding and decoding
Source: (Snyder, 2009)
• Traditional view: literacy as cognitive
• ‘cracking the alphabetic code’
• Acquiring word formation, phonics, grammar,
comprehension skills
• Ability to decode (reading) and encode (writing)
are building blocks for other things
• “Once literate, children can get on with the
business of learning” (p.19)

This is part of literacy, but is it the whole story?

Literacy as encoding and decoding
Source: (Snyder, 2009)
• “More recent understandings see literacy not as an
unchanging set of basic skills but as a dynamic repertoire of
social practices” (p.19)

• Instead of purely cognitive, both cognitive and social

perspectives are needed: literacy is about meanings (not just
of words and sentences but of texts within contexts).

• This includes multimodal texts: i.e. words and their

meanings, but also text within its (social) context.
What is literacy?
Source: (Faulkner, 2005)
“Literacies are ways of working with language and texts”
(Faulkner, 2005, p.108).

Literacy types:
• Public literacies – including school literacies
=> Examples?
Writing a report about a science experiment

• Private literacies – including home literacies

=> Examples?
Following NSW Health on Twitter
Let us Kahoo it
https://create.kahoot.it/details/9ac222f3-70f8-4c24-9cf1-4e934cd77826

True or false (and why?)

1) Only English teachers should teach literacy
2) Literacy is only about reading and writing
3) Literacy is mainly relevant in primary schools
4) Students who struggle with one literacy will struggle
with all literacies
5) Writing is mainly for testing
6) Literacy problems indicate low intelligence
7) Schools should build on students’ home literacies when
teaching school literacies
https://moodle.telt.unsw.edu.au/mod/questionnaire/view.ph
p?id=5326543
Curriculum literacies
An example from mathematics, an excerpt from the
section on functions from a Year 8 textbook:
Compare properties of two functions each represented in
a different way (algebraically, graphically, numerically in
tables, or by verbal descriptions). For example, given a
linear function represented by a table of values and a
linear function represented by an algebraic expression,
determine which function has the greater rate of change.
(van Lier & Walqui, 2010)

• What does it take for any student to accomplish such a

task?
“It may be that the student understands algebraic,
graphical, and numerical representations, but very likely
he or she needs to listen to descriptions, discuss the
functions with peers, and develop ways of expressing
comparative information and results so that other
students can understand them and so that the teacher is
satisfied that the student understands them as well. In
sum, the student has to work verbally through the
problem under the guidance of the teacher and peers,
and then be able to express his or her understanding
through language, possibly accompanied by graphs and
equations or tables of values. In all of this work, thinking
and language are intimately intertwined.” (van Lier &
Walqui, 2010)
 Why is subject literacy (literacy in the
learning areas) difficult?
Source: (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008)
• Lexical complexity
• Grammatical density
• High levels of abstraction, ambiguity and subtlety
• Unfamiliar genres (e.g. text types)
• Written language is quite different from oral language
• Subject literacies are rarely taught specifically (instead –
vaccination model of early literacy / development – not
sufficient, especially with ESL)
• Politics of classrooms: content teachers versus literacy
teachers (!) – resistance by teachers
Literacy across the curriculum
1. Look at the attached genres (see the word file ‘text
types’)
What are their key linguistic features ? Which are likely to
cause problems for students?
Or
2. Look at the attached descriptions of writing tasks (see
the pdf file ‘writing tasks’).
Which ones are helpful/unhelpful and why?
Literacy across the curriculum
Look at the attached piece of writing by Mouhamed, a Year 7
student who arrived in Australia from Lebanon speaking very
little English 8 months previously.

He was asked to respond to the following task: Imagine you

are an Australian explorer. Where did you go, what happened
and what did you find?

Read the sample text carefully and write down your response
to the following questions:
• What are Mouhamed’s strengths?
• What areas does he need to develop?
• What factors have influenced his response to the task?
Literacy across the curriculum
To evaluate the student’s writing, we may need to know
about what Year 7 history students are expected to
achieve:
e.g.
• HT4-9 uses a range of historical terms and concepts
when communicating an understanding of the past
• HT4-10 selects and uses appropriate oral, written,
visual and digital forms to communicate about the past
https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-a
reas/hsie/history-k-10
It’s not just writing, it’s reading…
(Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008)
• Mathematics – re-reading, close reading for detail
• Chemistry – information layered in multimodal texts
(diagrams, text, formulas etc) – going back and forth
between types of information
• History – paying attention to author, bias, positioning;
deciphering the ‘story’ of particular author and also
reader’s own positionality (i.e. not fact-learning)
• (for more examples, please check the excel file ‘week
1 audit’)
… and oracy
Competency with spoken language, i.e., oral literacy or oracy,
is also crucial for learning and teaching.
• In most Australian classrooms, this competency is assumed
• Oral language takes different forms, ranging from conversational
language, to academic oracy (students using Standard Australian
English (SAE) in formal and academic situations, and in ways that are
specific to each curriculum area).
• Sometimes students can give the impression of fluency with English, but
their proficiency may be limited to the more informal social and
playground language contexts, or conversely, very formal varieties only.
Content area /curriculum literacies
• What are the language and literacy demands of
your subject area?
• https://create.kahoot.it/details/7fbcdcee-e7f7-4d1
2-ac0d-4ef089539581
ACADEMIC LANGUAGE DEMANDS IN SCHOOLING Cummins

cognitively
demanding
communication
explaining
the
explaining a causes of
maths solution war

participating
in a debate
on climate
change context-
context-
embedded reduced

reporting the results of

telling
an experiment
someone
how to
kick a ball copying notes
chatting with from the board
a friend
cognitively
undemanding
communication

Q: Think of some activities in your subject – where

do they fit?
 Reflection
Think about your own experiences of learning (school/uni) subject
literacies, and discuss these questions in small groups:
1) What subject literacies are you more proficient in?
2) What subject literacies are you more of a beginner in?
3) Can you think of examples of what you find easy/difficult about a
specific literacy type?
4) Have you explicitly been taught any subject literacies at school/uni?
If so, what/how were you taught?
5) If you are a mother tongue English speaker, which subject
literacies are most ‘natural’ to you? Which are closest to your
private/home literacies?
6) If you are a second-language user of English, how does your
subject literacy compare to your overall proficiency in spoken
English?
What is numeracy?
Numeracy crisis
In the news again:
“Migrant children trumped Australian-born kids while girls
dragged down the national performance in maths.”

“Australia's maths performance dropped the equivalent of

half a year of schooling between 2003 and 2015.”
Numeracy, mathematics
What is numeracy?
Numeracy, mathematics

• Yes, mathematics teachers teach the knowledge and

skills related to the six interrelated elements in the
learning continuum

• What does the student’s numeracy development to do

with other subject teachers?

• See https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curricul
um/general-capabilities/numeracy/
Another questionnaire
True or false (and why?)
https://create.kahoot.it/details/fd3d4e56-a237-46d4-b3c0-0f
30314bdea3

1) Only maths teachers should be concerned about students’

numeracy
2) Numeracy is just about counting and measuring
3) Learning numeracy is mainly for testing
4) Lack of numeracy skills indicates low intelligence
5) Schools should recognize culturally diverse students’
numeracy knowledge/skills
https://moodle.telt.unsw.edu.au/mod/questionnaire/view.php?id
=5326544
e.g., Numeracy and the Arts

• Students select and use relevant numeracy knowledge and

skills to plan, design, make, interpret, analyse and evaluate
artworks.
• Across The Arts subjects, students recognise and use: number
to calculate and estimate; spatial reasoning to solve problems
involving space, patterns, symmetry, 2D shapes and 3D
objects; scale and proportion to show and describe positions,
pathways and movements; and measurement to explore
length, area, volume, capacity, time, mass and angles.
• Students work with a range of numerical concepts to organise,
analyse and create representations of data relevant to their
own or others’ artworks, such as diagrams, charts, tables,
graphs and motion capture.
 Literacy and Numeracy Test
for Initial Teacher Education,
https://teacheredtest.acer.edu
.au/about
Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher
Education student
• The dates for the tests and all information is available on
the ACER website https://teacheredtest.acer.edu.au/
Registration Registration Test window
Test Window opens ^ closes ^ dates *
2033 Window 1 10 January 2023 23 January 2023 13 February 2023
- 26 February
2023
2023 Window 2 4 April 2023 17 April 2023 8 May 2023 - 21
May 2023

2022 Window 3 5 July 2022 18 July 2022 8 August 2022 -

(TBA) 21 August 2022

2022 Window 4 27 September 10 October 2022 31 October 2022

(TBA) 2022 - 13 November
2022
Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher
Education student
• From 2018, all BEd students must provide evidence of
having achieved the test standard in both components of the
LANTITE tests prior to enrolling in EDST2002 Professional
Engagement and any subsequent placements.
• For more information on support, see
https://www.unsw.edu.au/arts-design-architecture/our-school
s/education/student-life/resources-support/national-literacy-n
umeracy-test-lantite /
, and talk to your tutor. Selected students can enroll in EDST
2094 communication skills in T2 and sit the test Window 3.
• Note if you don’t pass the first time in either numeracy or
literacy, or both, and need to resit the test, you must receive
Numeracy Sample Question 1

• EXPENDITURE Government operating expenditure on

education refers mainly to money spent on schools and
tertiary education. Of the total operating expenditure on
education in 2011–2012, 51% was spent on primary and
secondary education and 36% on tertiary education
(universities and TAFEs). What percentage of the total
operating expenditure on education in 2011–2012 was
spent on the remaining aspects of the education budget?

• %
 Numeracy Sample Question 2
• Here is the schedule of costs for Gym and Swim
memberships at a sports facility.

Gym only ($) Swim only ($) Gym and Swim ($)
12 Months 596 461 773
(upfront)
12 Months 51 33 66
(monthly debit)
6 Months (upfront) 330 295 502
Casual (per visit) 12 5 15

• For a 12-month ‘Gym and Swim’ membership, how much

more does it cost to pay by monthly debit rather than upfront?
Final reflection
1) What did you learn today about language, literacy
and numeracy? Think for a minute, then summarise
what you learnt

2) Reflect on your own ‘academic literacy’ (= abilities in

reading academic articles/books, preparing academic
assignments, using references, doing research etc.).
Are you happy with your level of academic literacy?
How can you improve?
3) Reflect on your own numeracy experience. Did you
apply any numeracy skills here today?
Concluding joke