Gruma
Member
who here thinks that english should be a compulsory subject, or that at least the marks in english can be discluded if you have enough units.
The English Poll (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Gruma
- Start date
Nah, I still reckon it should be compulsory.
Even though it doesn't seem like it, it does develop skills in communicating effectively through writing, which everyone needs to do in life, whatever job you get.
You shouldn't fail the HSC because of it, if you aren't so good then do standard or ESL or something.
And if you're talking about units in English being included for the UAI not only the HSC, then you must be going to go on to uni, where you really will need to be able to analyse and express yourself clearly.
Even though it doesn't seem like it, it does develop skills in communicating effectively through writing, which everyone needs to do in life, whatever job you get.
You shouldn't fail the HSC because of it, if you aren't so good then do standard or ESL or something.
And if you're talking about units in English being included for the UAI not only the HSC, then you must be going to go on to uni, where you really will need to be able to analyse and express yourself clearly.
smittenkitten
Poopinator
English should be compulsory but not the marks. English is a load of junk after yr 10 imo....all that analysing and junk...and then we have to remember decent quotes for exams...what's an English exam testing anyway? Super excellent memory or actual understanding. What a load of crock! Analysing is not going to help anyone write a decent resume. Discussing textual integrity is not going to help us get anything. All those arty, farty English skills should be taught in Extension 1 where people might actually use them.
Yeah, what was with that ? I was looking forward to doing 3 unit Eco. I had to take up extra English instead (that part is kinda on topic 
) But now I'm enjoying that, so I would have had a crisis if I had the choice.
) But now I'm enjoying that, so I would have had a crisis if I had the choice.
Rahul
Dead Member
english is alrite......not really
adv sucks, but ext1 is not bad.
adv sucks, but ext1 is not bad.
InfiniteQ
Solitary
What would be the point of making english compulsory but marks not? What a waste of time spending a whole year working for it, getting nothing back in return. That would completely demotivate me and I'd wag the class every chance I got... I'm sure others would too. Either have it at or don't ...
tooheyz
- kmart supervisor -
yeah thats just like doing the australian history/geocgrphy in year 10 for the sc. we're were the pigs and our marks for that exam didnt go towards anything.
well, i think english should b complusory n marks counted... it gets really annoying when people cant talk properly... u know with the proper grammar and stuff.
like... 'her life was stole'
smittenkitten
Poopinator
English should be compulsory because you're living in an English speaking nation and we don't want to have illiterate people in society.
i do 4 units, so I believe it shud be a compulsory subject, however, I reckon standard should NOT b capped, this seriously stresses students who arent that gr8 at english but may b math geniuses
funnily enuf 3 and 4 unit eng are waay easier than adv. Adv is a load of crap, techniques, change, bah!
funnily enuf 3 and 4 unit eng are waay easier than adv. Adv is a load of crap, techniques, change, bah!
kini mini
Active Member
I think that there is a very strong case for ensuring that students leave high school with decent oral and written communication skills. The question for me is whether forcing people to count two units of English in their UAI is an appropriate way of achieving this.
I think that the current English course is quite unsuitable for achieving this goal. The course is focused, as you'd expect an English course to be, on textual analysis. This creates the possibility that a student may be judged to be a poor communicator, when in fact the student may be perfectly fluent in English but not be skilled in the type of close analysis needed in a literature course.
English literacy is implicit to some degree in all HSC exams, and some people think that this is sufficient to say that a suitable standard for literacy has been set. I don't agree with that either - I think there needs to be an explicit test of literacy, and this can usefully be combined with the idea of developing "citizenship". I think a general essay paper with questions on contemporary issues would be a good way of testing literacy - it is reasonable to expect that people think about current affairs and discuss them.
As far as using the marks from the general paper goes - I think that if you fail you should not receive a UAI until you can pass it, and different uni courses should be able to set a required literacy level at their own discretion. IMO putting a so-called measure of literacy in the UAI is a very crude, even ridiculous, method of ensuring a high literacy rate.
I think that the current English course is quite unsuitable for achieving this goal. The course is focused, as you'd expect an English course to be, on textual analysis. This creates the possibility that a student may be judged to be a poor communicator, when in fact the student may be perfectly fluent in English but not be skilled in the type of close analysis needed in a literature course.
English literacy is implicit to some degree in all HSC exams, and some people think that this is sufficient to say that a suitable standard for literacy has been set. I don't agree with that either - I think there needs to be an explicit test of literacy, and this can usefully be combined with the idea of developing "citizenship". I think a general essay paper with questions on contemporary issues would be a good way of testing literacy - it is reasonable to expect that people think about current affairs and discuss them.
As far as using the marks from the general paper goes - I think that if you fail you should not receive a UAI until you can pass it, and different uni courses should be able to set a required literacy level at their own discretion. IMO putting a so-called measure of literacy in the UAI is a very crude, even ridiculous, method of ensuring a high literacy rate.
InfiniteQ
Solitary
Ok I don't understand what the point of quoting me was...
Anyway you say english should be compulsory but marks not... my argument is that it's really stupid to do that because it makes studying for it completely pointless. As if 90% of the students wouldn't wag english classes if there were no exams and it didn't count towards your UAI. That's silly.
Beaky
You can read minds?
I think its good its compulsary because of a number of reasons
- English is our language so therefore we should learn it
- People good at 4 unit, phys, chem and how suck at english are kinda even rather than getting a ridiculosly high UAI
- However... it should be like grammatical and spelling rather than dreamy essays...
- English is our language so therefore we should learn it
- People good at 4 unit, phys, chem and how suck at english are kinda even rather than getting a ridiculosly high UAI
- However... it should be like grammatical and spelling rather than dreamy essays...
kini mini
Active Member
Nice idea, but as I said before the English course is not primarily a test of literacy...as you allude to in your last point
. That is the kind of statement that fuels the theory that the Board is discriminating against Asian students. Actually, it's verging on WKA (well-known fact) status now.
Trying to "pull back" people who happen to be stronger in some areas than others is clearly inequitable, and would be illegal under Australian law. You won't find any Education ministers saying what you just said. The rationale is that a higher standard of English must be encouraged, academics in some areas such as law complianed that they were getting people whose English skills were not up to the demanding standards of the course.
I think that such schemes are unfair and doomed to failure. Unfair because the English course is not really a test of proficiency in the language, and doomed to failure because in my experience the law course is full of people whose English is totally inadequate. For example, the other day I was sitting in the common room witha big group talking about the case, and this girl asked me a very basic question about the case. I gave her what I thought was a clear answer, everyone else understood, but from the look on her face I could have been speaking Latin!