2nd L (F–10) 7-8
Achievement Standard


By the end of Year 8, students use Auslan to interact and to exchange information, experiences, interests and opinions with teachers, peers and others.

They initiate and maintain conversations and use strategies such as fingerspelling to replace unknown signs to support continued interaction, such as PRO2 MEAN [FINGERSPELL]?

They engage in different processes of collaborative learning, including planning, negotiating, and problem-solving, using familiar and some spontaneous language, for example PRO1 AGREE-NOT, PRO1 THINK DIFFERENT.

Students participate in class discussions, explaining and clarifying positions, asking follow-up questions, using non-manual features (NMFs) for topicalisation or negation.

They use appropriate protocols to join or leave conversations, for example, waiting for eye gaze or for the signer to finish, not asking for a full recount when arriving mid-conversation, and providing context for a new participant joining a conversation.

Students locate, interpret and analyse information from a variety of texts, such as signed announcements, interviews or media reports, using context and familiar language to work out unfamiliar meaning.

They demonstrate understanding of different types of signed texts by paraphrasing, summarising and explaining main ideas, key themes or sequences of events.

They interpret different types of creative and imaginative texts, such as Deaf performances or expressive art forms, describing and comparing their responses.

They plan, draft and present informative and imaginative texts, linking and sequencing ideas using connectives, such as BUT, WHEN or WELL, and strategies such as repetition, stress and pausing for emphasis.

They create bilingual texts to use in the wider school community, for example by captioning short stories, poems or interviews with members of the Deaf community.

Students reflect on how their own ways of communicating may be interpreted when interacting with deaf people; and they modify elements of their behaviour such as eye contact, facial expression or body language as appropriate.

Students identify and describe the different types of NMFs, and understand their function and how they interact with clause type.

They identify iconic signs and discuss how these match their referents, such as COMPUTER-MOUSE.

They understand how handshape and movement represent different things in each type of depicting sign (DS).

They identify and categorise instances of signers using spatial modifications to signs and know that signs can be iconic in a number of ways.

They analyse clauses to see where signers create composite utterances with elements of constructed action (CA), DSs, points and fully-lexical signs in the same utterance.

They recognise that Auslan is constantly evolving and changing, for example, by identifying changes to Auslan that reflect changes in social relationships, community attitudes and changing technology.

They understand that the most unifying factor of the Deaf community is the use of Auslan.

Students reflect on how all ways of language use are influenced by communities’ world views and identities, for example by comparing the cultural concept of Deaf identity with the medical model of deafness.