ACT Bilingual Education Alliance Update January 2013

The January Update is now available on the Alliance website    It contains information about:

•  Language related activities at the Children’s Sanctuary at the Multicultural Festival in Canberra on Saturday 9 February.
• The ACTBEA languages information stall at the Multicultural Festival on Sunday 10 February
• Multicultural Story Time and Stories from China at Gungahlin Library, 7 and 14 February 2013
• Lantern Festival in Commonwealth Park, Canberra, Saturday 23 February, 6pm to 9pm, and a Lantern-making workshop the previous week
• Preliminary announcement: Seminar for families raising children in more than one language, Saturday 23 March, 2pm-5pm, University of Canberra
• Where to find free children’s books and other resources in many languages  
• ‘Snippets for Bilingual Families’, a free newsletter from Dr Susanne Döpke, Melbourne-based consultant in bilingualism and speech pathologist.
• A range of exciting German Language programs for children in the ACT in 2013
• The draft national curriculum for Italian and Mandarin in Australian schools

Draft Curriculum for Italian and Mandarin Languages in Australian Schools 

The draft national curriculum for Mandarin and Italian languages from Reception (i.e. Kindergarten) level to Year 10 is now available online. ACARA (the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority) is seeking feedback and comments by Friday 12 April 2013.

ACARA also welcomes feedback on the overarching aspects of the Languages Learning Area that apply to all languages, and encourages all stakeholders with an interest in languages to contact them during this consultation period.

See http://consultation.australiancurriculum.edu.au/for information on how to access the curriculum and how to provide comments and feedback.

Draft curricula in other languages should be available after April 2013, and comments on these will be sought by July 2013.