Languages

More than 90 per cent of independent schools in Victoria offer a Language Other Than English (LOTE) component in their curriculum.

Languages taught include: Indigenous languages, Arabic, Auslan, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Russian, Sanskrit, Spanish and Turkish.

The Australian Government’s Language Program helps schools and school communities to improve the learning outcomes of students who are learning languages other than English.

Funding is allocated for:

• teacher development
• teacher and student resources
• employment of language assistants
• specific projects.

 The following grants are offered:

Building Capacity Grant - this grant enables schools to target funding towards specific areas of their LOTE program. It may be used in the areas of teacher professional learning, staffing, resources upgrades and specific learning programs. The Building Capacity Grant is a base grant and is paid directly to schools.

Specialist Consultancy Program – enables a specialist LOTE in-residence consultant to work with schools for up to four days to assist LOTE teachers to improve and further develop their programs. Application forms are available on the Targeted Programs Languages web page in November of each year.

Country Schools LOTE Program – to fund specialist LOTE consultants to hold two-day meetings with teachers in country schools to help them develop LOTE programs. This grant is restricted to small country schools with one LOTE teacher. Application forms are available on the Targeted Programs Languages web page in November of each year.

Professional Development Program – to fund teachers to:

• undertake intensive language study in-country
• undertake training or retraining courses
• undertake post-graduate study for languages
• attend national or international conferences.

Application forms are available on the Targeted Programs Languages web page.

Resource Development Grants – to develop school resources for LOTE. Application forms are available from Sharyne Rankine, Assistant Director, on 9825 7247.

Independent Schools Victoria LOTE Seminar Calendar

The Independent Schools Victoria LOTE Seminar Calendar 2008 is available for download below and has been produced exclusively for Member Schools, giving detailed descriptions of the comprehensive professional learning opportunities available for teachers of languages. It includes:

• details of each session
• a presenter's profile and target audience
• an easy to read calendar that provides an overview of seminars on a monthly basis.

Downloads

• LOTE Resources
• LOTE 2010 Professional Development Seminars
• Mobile Phones in the LOTE Classroom - Expression of Interest Form
• Indigenous Language and Cultural Education Grants - Expression of Interest Form
• 2009 Indigenous Language Grant