At a glance
A course that helps students become confident, capable users of English for everyday life, community and the workplace. Students build skills in reading, writing, speaking, listening and viewing by working with a wide range of texts (including digital and media texts).
This course is a good choice for students who:
- want to improve practical reading and writing skills for school and life after school
- want to communicate clearly in everyday, community and workplace situations
- prefer learning through real-world texts and tasks (including digital texts)
About this course
Essential English focuses on building the skills students need to succeed in many settings, including everyday, community, further education, training and workplace contexts. Students learn how text structure, language choices, audience and context work together to shape meaning and points of view. Students also create their own texts in different modes (written, spoken and multimodal).
Pathways
This course can support pathways into areas such as:
- training and further education where strong communication matters
- workplaces that value clear writing, speaking and teamwork
- community and everyday life skills (forms, messages, workplace texts, media and digital texts)
Units in this course
Students complete 2 units for a Minor or 4 units for a Major.
Comprehending and Responding
This unit focuses on understanding and responding to ideas and information in texts from different contexts.
Students will:
- use strategies to understand texts (for example finding key ideas and how the text is organised)
- create texts for different purposes in everyday, community, workplace and social contexts
Making Connections
This unit focuses on interpreting ideas and arguments in texts and making connections between purpose, audience, context and meaning.
Students will:
- analyse how text structures and language features shape meaning and influence audiences
- create texts for different purposes, using appropriate language and structures
Understanding Perspectives
This unit focuses on exploring different points of view and how texts present perspectives and values.
Students will:
- identify how language choices can persuade and position audiences
- create spoken, written or multimodal texts that communicate a clear point of view
Local and Global
This unit focuses on community, local or global issues and developing reasoned responses to them.
Students will:
- use information from different sources to build an informed point of view
- create persuasive and sustained texts that suit purpose, audience and context