Languages Overview
Carine Senior High School is one of the few schools in the Perth metropolitan area which proudly offers three foreign languages to year 12 level. These are French, German and Japanese.
LOTE (Languages Other Than English) is compulsory from year 8 to year 10, after which students may elect to continue their chosen language into Upper School. Prospective year 8 students may continue with the language they have studied in primary school or choose to begin afresh with a new language. Therefore, both beginners and continuing students are catered for.
Students are advised that Edith Cowan University offers ALL students, whether they intend studying a language at university or not, a 10% bonus mark based on their TEE LOTE mark. This could lift the student's TEE aggregate and allow them entry into courses from which they would otherwise be excluded.
The LOTE Learning Area boasts an extremely experienced and talented staff who are all fluent in their respective languages. Several are past or present TEE Syllabus Committee members and also TEE examiners.
LOTE is an area of the curriculum in which students:
- Develop knowledge, skills and understandings to communicate effectively in languages other than English,
- Extend their English vocabulary, and improve their English literacy and communication skills.
- Gain a higher level of awareness, understanding and tolerance of other cultures,
- Enhance interpersonal skills,
- Develop skills through language study which promotes effective learning across all subject areas,
- Enhance employment prospects particularly in:
- Interpreting and translating
- Fashion industry
- Journalism / publishing
- Public relations
- Travel consultancy / tourism
- Diplomatic corps
- Hotel management
- Intelligence / defence
- Hospitality (waitressing / catering)
- Welfare / social work
- Trade and commerce
- Customs
- Banking and finance
- Market research
- Air hostessing / stewarding
- International relations
- Teaching
- Management
- Media
- Sales
- Private secretarial work
- Music
- Office reception / clerical
LOTE students have the opportunity to take part in cultural exchanges to Germany, Japan and Reunion Island (a French speaking island off the coast of Africa). The annual tour of Japan is a highlight of the Japanese calendar. Our students travel to Japan in April, while we host students from our Japanese sister school in August. This year we were privileged to host two groups of Japanese students in August. While in Japan our students stay with host families, attend school, visit Disneyland and soak up the culture and language in general.
Over the past few years several of our students have profited from their two month exchange to Germany, held over the Christmas holidays.
This year, students from year 10, 11 and 12 participated in the exchange to Reunion, a tropical island paradise in the Indian Ocean. Here students live in this small DOM (overseas French Department), experiencing French with a Creole flavour, visiting the live volcano, lazing on the superb beaches, revelling in the rugged tropical splendour of the mountainous island and interacting with the local people. Our students host their Reunionais counterparts over the January summer holidays.
The LOTE learning area has six learning outcomes:
Communication
- Listening and Responding, Speaking
- Viewing, Reading and Responding
- Writing
Knowledge and Skills
- Cultural understandings
- The System of the target language
- Language learning strategies
These six Learning Outcomes are inter-related and cannot be achieved in isolation.
The lower school LOTE courses support the achievement of the school-wide Curriculum Framework’s Overarching Outcomes in addition to those Outcomes that are the particular responsibility of this Learning Area.
Common topics studied in all three languages include:
- Personal information/details
- Holidays
- Weather
- Appearance/description
- Towns, buildings, giving and receiving directions
- Cultural studies
- Sports, leisure and past-times
- Shopping
- TV, cinema, entertainment
- Travel and transport
- Hotels and camping
- Christmas, festivals, customs
- Food and drink
- Clothes and fashion
- Family and pets
- Numbers, date, time
- Health and illness
- Making plans
- Likes and dislikes
- Home and daily routine
- School