Module 1.1 Introduction to the Professional Learning Guide

What is a Language Support Program?

A Language Support Program is designed to cater for students with language difficulties. Its purpose is to develop the capacity of schools and teachers to provide appropriate programs and learning experiences that will improve the oral language skills of children and young people.

While you or your school may offer a range of approaches and programs that attempt to meet the oral language needs of the majority of students through the study of English and English as a Second Language (ESL), these opportunities may not enable students with specific and general language difficulties to develop the necessary competency in the use of oral language.

Under section 32 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, education providers must comply with the Disability Standards for Education, 2005. To comply, an education provider must make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to accommodate a student with a disability. The Disability Standards for Education set benchmarks for education and training providers with which all Victorian government schools must comply. Particularly, guidelines relating to participation and curriculum development apply to students with identified language difficulties.

For more information see Disability Standards for Education (http://www.ag.gov.au).

 

Rationale

The long-term nature of language disorders and difficulties means that, even when provided with specialised speech pathology intervention, a significant number of students require ongoing, targeted teaching that enables them to access the day-to-day curriculum of the classroom.

A Language Support Program can assist you and/or your school to develop strategies to support the needs of these students.

Strategies that your school may consider include:

• the use of targeted resources, such as speech pathologists or other professionals
• specialised materials
• teacher professional development and learning
• LSP assistants
• targeted teaching methods.

Best-practice funding models for Language Support Programs attempt to ensure that:

• resources are best directed to build teacher capacity to support students
• embedded funding can lead to certainty for schools in developing a program
• funding targets those students with the greatest need.
  
  

Professional learning activities

• Locate, gather and interpret resources

If you are a school leader or coordinator, you might like to collect data relating to your school. This might include student family occupation data, the extent of existing funding for language support, and the names and contact details of speech pathologists and other relevant professionals used in your school.

Note: The ‘characteristics of effective schools’ in relation to improving student outcomes in literacy are explored in Module 5.1.