McKinnon Secondary College

Languages Other Than English

VCE Assessment - Units 3 & 4

| Introduction | Unit 3 | Unit 4 | Detailed Study | External exams |

You will be doing classroom tasks and assessment tasks in order to achieve the Outcomes that enable you to pass each of the two Units. Your result for each of Units 3 and 4 are reported to the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) as S (Satisfactory), if you pass each assessment task, or N (Not Satisfactory). We shall also do vocab tests and other tests on a regular basis. Even though the score for small tests like those are not of interest to the VCAA, you will find them useful in order to concentrate on the necessary job of learning the vocab you come across. Your final ENTER score is affected by your performance in the school-assessed coursework (SACs) and two end-of-year examinations, in the following proportions:

During the year you will become comfortable with the typical style of the most important types of text that you may have to write for assessment tasks, eg, article, conversation, formal (eg business) letter, informal letter, interview script, postcard, short story, report.

You will understand the differences between the kinds of writing known as: personal, informative, persuasive, evaluative, and imaginative.

See assessment info at the VCAA website for French or German.

Unit Three

A total of three assessment tasks will be done, to show achievement of the three Outcomes for Unit Three.

Outcome 1:

  
  • a 250-word personal or imaginative written piece

Marks = 20

Outcome 2:

  
  • a response to specific questions, messages or instructions, extracting and using information requested (eg using that info in a short article)

Marks = 10

Outcome 3:

  
  • a three-to-four minute role-play, focusing on the resolution of an issue

Marks = 20
 

Total = 50

Unit Four

A total of three assessment tasks will be done, to show achievement of the two Outcomes for Unit Four.

Outcome 1:

  
  • a response to specific questions, messages or instructions, extracting and using information requested (eg using that info to write a review)

Marks = 10

Outcome 2:

  
  • a 250-300-word informative, persuasive or evaluative written response, for example, report, comparison or review.

Marks = 20

and

  
  • a three- to four-minute interview on an issue related to texts studied (texts might be short stories, autobiographical writings, newspaper articles, webpages, music, paintings, oral sources and more.) The interview is one-to-one with the teacher. The content of these two tasks will be related to the Detailed Study (see below).

Marks = 20

Detailed Study

The Detailed Study is intended to allow students to explore in some depth specific aspects of the language and culture of speakers of the LOTE (in other countries as well as here in Australia). Over the year, about 15 hours of class time will be devoted to the Detailed Study.

End-of-year examinations

  1. An oral exam
  2. A written exam

Oral Exam

About 15 minutes long, two sections.

Section One = General conversation (about 7 minutes) on areas like your school and home life, friends, interests, future plans.

Section Two = Discussion with the examiners, about your Detailed Study. Before it begins you briefly tell them what specific three (or more) texts and sources you have used/read in your research. You will discuss what you learnt from these texts and resources, giving your opinions on them and on aspects of your topic. You can bring in photos, maps etc. No notes or cue cards allowed.

Written Exam

2 hours long plus 15 minutes reading time, print dictionary only. The exam does not depend on your having studied all possible topics in great detail; it’s not content-based, more language-skills based.

The written exam has three sections:

Section One - Listening and Responding. 3-5 texts, 4.5 to 5 minutes in duration, each text played twice.

Part A
Questions given in English, answers in English.

Part B
Questions given both in the LOTE and in English, written answer in the LOTE.

Section Two - Reading and Responding. 2 to 3 texts.

Part A
One to two texts, short written responses in English.

Part B
One to two texts, short written responses in the LOTE.

Section Three (Writing)

Write one longer piece in the LOTE (200-300 words), tasks will be described both in the LOTE and in English.
The topics that you must choose from cover the five types of writing (personal, informative, persuasive, evaluative, and imaginative).

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