Sixth Observation - Glen Eira College

The sixth school that we visited was Glen Eira English Language Centre. Like Blackburn, this school does provide new immigrants the change to brush their English Language for 20 weeks and then sent to mainstream secondary schools. In contrast, the school provides students to have the experience of what a typical Australian school is before going to a mainstream school. Facilities such as a large playground was included and a chance to study at the school after the 20 weeks of ‘training’. In addition, the school does provide students that are overage to go to a TAFE course upon the 20 weeks completion. The school also provides international secondary school students from other languages to take the English course at the school.

In class, the students were set into small class sizes and studies of different subjects were taught in order to widen their knowledge of Australian contexts. The teachers told us that they have to prepare their own materials and implemented free teaching as long as they are up the Victorian Education Learning Standard (VELS). Teachers in the college would give students more time to think about on what they are doing rather than giving those tasks that could be a serious challenge. Code switching could be used depending on situations. The teacher told us that they do encounter some culture issues and gender issues. There are also at times that the boys and girls could simply not work together and things were not going to their plan but they had to face the fact, hoping that the situation could change when time carries on.

There is one thing that is interesting that is that students at the school do not need to have any exams to get into the desirable school. All they need to do is to work hard and hopefully, be accepted into their desirable school. There is also a rule that schools are not allowed to decline any student under 18, in which their area of location of residency is closest to the specific school.

To conclude, I have seen two classes during the time there. The first one was useful as there are some challenges faced by the teacher and how she prepared the materials for her students taking Social studies. The second class was more or less similar to the ones at Blackburn and I think it would have been better if they had shown some speciality/strongest courses for us to observe.

Fifth Observation - Blackburn English Language Centre

The fifth school is, by all means, acts as an intermediary to handle students before they go to their primary or secondary schools. It can be said that the school handles screening and helps students to brush/develop their English Language so that they could get to the mainstream schools and Australian education system. The students in the school undergo a 20-week program to understand the English system and then sent to schools by random distribution. The students do not have a specific class according to age but they are classified by their language skills.

I have observed two classes. The first one was a Computer lesson with English contexts. The teacher told the students to look at the website 'Behind the News' from the ABC website. It did take the students some time to finish the job and answer the questions. The lesson took almost one lesson (40 minutes) to finish the whole process (worksheet, watching, and reading). The teacher did give some useful information on casual English language and told the students to look out for casual English used in 'Behind the News'.

The second one was rather a straightforward class - Maths in the Secondary section. By coincidence, they were having a Maths test therefore; I do not have the opportunity to observe much from it.

I have to be frank to say that I did not enjoy this comparing to the previous observations, as there is nothing special from it. Other than using ‘Behind the News’ from the ABC, there is basically nothing else that I could take something away from it. All I can say that the teaching was pretty average despite them being very approachable as well as showing their enthusiasm in teaching new immigrants on English Language in all subjects. They do have a mission to cater students needs in order that they would reach the mainstream schools after the second term.