Welcome to ADECS

Excited to announce the details of my upcoming, NESA-accredited, face-to-face courses on programming the new NSW K10 Modern Languages syllabus.

The courses will run in two locations on 4 dates across Terms 3 & 4:

1. Saturday 12 August 
2. Friday 15 September
3. Saturday 21 October
4. Friday 17 November

Friday events will take place at The King's School in North Parramatta, while Saturday courses will run at Mount St Benedict College in Pennant Hills. Lunch is included in the registration cost and there is free, ample parking on site.

Completing the course will contribute 6 hours of NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) Accredited PD in the priority area of Delivery and Assessment of NSW Curriculum/EYLF addressing Standard Descriptor(s) 2.1.2, 2.2.2 from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers towards maintaining Proficient Teacher Accreditation in NSW. 

Cost is $250 per participant with discounts available to groups of 2 or more teachers from the same school.  

Click here to download a flyer about the day,  or to register, click through on the link below. For all other enquiries, email alison.dean@adecs.com.au 

Since my first encounter in early January, I have been going down a rabbit hole  exploring the potential of this platform. My primary interest has been learning how to leverage it to assist teachers in their everyday practice: from administrational tasks (report writing, course descriptions etc), to assessment design, marking and feedback provision. I've been sharing my journey at conferences in NSW and QLD and worked with a number of schools as they begin getting their head around this amazing leap forward in education. Its implications in general, but especially for us as Language teachers, are immediate, profound and very exciting.

This blog post provides an overview of my journey so far, and contains a link to a collection of "how-to" resources I've been creating along the way.

For teachers interested in getting started, I've just published a self-guided course on the Teacher Training Australia website. Schools and faculties may also be interested in in-person PL/ resource-development workshops. Please enquire via the link below.

Last year, I was approached by the Sydney Institute for Community Languages Education (SICLE) at the University of Sydney to write a course in languages methodology for NSW Primary and Secondary teachers of other subject disciplines. The Institute had secured a grant from the NSW Department of Education to address the decline in the number of language teachers by offering practising teachers (proficient in other languages) the opportunity to add approval to teach languages to their Departmental accreditation. The rationale behind the project seemed like such a no-brainer to me: in every school I’ve worked in, I’ve known many of my Business Studies, English, Maths and Geography colleagues to be highly proficient, or indeed bilingual, in other languages. Upon learning that I was a language teacher, many of them would express a deep interest in how languages were taught, always with the rider that they would “love to be able to teach it, they just wouldn’t know how.”

So when this opportunity came along, I jumped at the chance. 

Mapped to the AITSL standards, the course comprises of 14 weeks of online modules, followed by a 5-week prac component. For those interested in the content, I’ve written a blog post here. 

The level of interest in the course has been wonderful, and the first offering was quickly oversubscribed. 30 enthusiastic teachers representing 12 languages will be zooming in with me every Tuesday evening until early Term 4. Teachers interested in joining subsequent cohorts in 2024 are encouraged to visit the SICLE website (click through below) for more information.

I've had a great time this semester working with schools from the Sydney Metro, Hunter, New England and North West districts on the familiarisation and programming of the new K-10 Modern Languages syllabus. The framework represents a refreshing new take on the provision of Languages education in NSW and I've been loving the opportunity to share my insight and passion for this next iteration with teachers from around the state. 

Every school I've worked with so far is at a different stage: some almost ready to go, others yet to engage with the framework at all. Each school has their own needs and for that reason, I'm offering a range of different PL models for consideration. Click through for details.

For many schools, recent changes in eligibility requirements are resulting in a re-think of school-based assessment task design. At the  2023 annual Chinese Language Teachers Association conference in early April, I presented an assessment model for the Continuers languages courses, which in its design, ensures a level playing field between native and non-native speakers. By engaging selectively and deliberately with each of the syllabus outcomes, the model results in a more nuanced assessment of student performance, paving the way for the provision of targeted, more meaningful feedback for students. Click through for details of this course.

I was recently engaged by a NSW Catholic Education Diocese to conduct a languages curriculum review of one of its schools. The staff's passion and commitment to language learning came through in spades, and I'm really looking forward to our follow-up 'refine and align' sessions. 

If your school is up for NESA registration, or you'd like an objective eye cast over your curriculum documentation, don't hesitate to get in touch. 

I am continually inspired by the educators I meet and work hard to deliver relevant, evidence-based professional learning. Click through for testimonials of my recent work.

Elated to announce that I have graduated with First Class Honours in the Graduate Certificate in International Education  (IB) from the University of Melbourne. I specialised in curriculum and assessment design for the Languages B course, creating scope & sequence and assessment resources as part of the assignment schedule.

I've put together my reflections of this inspiring  and incredibly rewarding course here and am looking forward to working with IB teachers and schools in the delivery of their DP program.  

I've created a workshop specifically targetting assessment design for both the SL and HL Languages B course. Click below for more information.