Students' knowledge and use of language begins before formal schooling and is refined throughout their years of formal education and beyond. As students progress through the grades, they are expected to work more independently and to acquire more sophisticated and complex language. This prepares them for advanced learning and eventual entry into the workplace. Students' range of language use develops cumulatively as they mature; they become more skilled in using language as they learn how it works and its many purposes.
The pace of development depends upon students' experiences, abilities, strengths, and needs; background knowledge and skills; social, cultural, and geographical environments; and language opportunities. Students constantly shape and reshape language based on self-assessment and the responses they receive from others--at home, at school, in the community, and in the workplace.
A student's language learning is influenced by a number of factors, including the complexity of the task, the support she or he receives, and cultural norms. Students need learning activities that are well suited to their abilities and maturity and which include a variety of experiences, from highly structured and concrete to more open-ended and challenging. Students should have opportunities to express their views, make real decisions, feel that their ideas are valued, and assume increasing responsibility for learning.
An English language arts program should encourage students to:
Students with positive attitudes toward language learning are more likely to become good speakers, listeners, readers, and writers. The learning environment should stimulate students' imaginations and foster enjoyment of language in all its aspects. Language experiences should encourage students to understand and respect cultural, racial, and linguistic diversity. Language activities should help students link classroom learning with the languages and cultures in their homes. These activities should incorporate the full range of students' experiences in their families, schools, local communities, and the wider world.
Making Connections
The various language arts--listening and speaking, reading and writing, viewing and representing--are integrated, interdependent processes. Skills in one mode are often correlated with skills in another. Students should therefore have opportunities to build their skills in all language processes.
Language learning should be taught in an authentic context so that students can perceive the relevance of tasks and make connections between familiar experiences and new knowledge. Students continually build knowledge and understanding by connecting the new with the familiar. Some associations are immediate and spontaneous; others develop as students try to make sense of ideas by collaborating, interacting with others, presenting, reviewing, and setting new goals.
Thinking Critically, Creatively, and Reflectively
Students' abilities to think critically and creatively depend on their language skills. By reflecting on their ideas and using language to express them, students become more adept at expressive, artistic, and logical thought, as well as problem solving, and broaden their foundation of written, oral, and representative language use. These are essential skills for independent and lifelong learning that develop as students use language to analyse their ideas and to move them from the personal to the public realm.
As well, feedback from others and from personal reflection helps students assess their own language development. This awareness motivates students to consider cause and effect in their communications and to improve their abilities to manipulate language for clarity and impact. As well, students should have opportunities to become discerning and critical "consumers" of mass media communications.
Appreciating Culture
Students increase their understanding of and respect for their own and other cultures through literature and other forms of communication. Communications 11 and 12 should give students opportunities to explore contemporary and classic literature and mass media. Students should also have frequent opportunities to talk and write about what they have learned from a variety of works and media.
Communicating in the Workplace
The ability to communicate clearly in oral, written, and visual language is an important employment skill. Students must be able to comprehend and produce the multiple forms of language common to the workplace. The growing importance of work-related communications means that students must also be able to continue to adapt and expand their reading, writing, speaking, and representing skills as required by changing demands in the workplace.
Using Technology
Information technology is an important area of language activity as well as a powerful tool for gathering, manipulating, organizing, and communicating information. In order to explore the uses of information technology in language, students need opportunities to learn how to use technology for research, writing, communicating, information management, and presentation.
Revised: March 5, 1999
