Master of Teaching

There are three streams in the graduate Master of Teaching program: Early Childhood; Primary and Secondary. In each of these streams there is a strong emphasis on literacy and communication, with early childhood and primary graduates requiring a specialised knowledge of literacy teaching, and with secondary teachers needing an understanding of the language and literacy demands of the two disciplines they are qualified to teach. This emphasis is important, given the strong focus on early years literacy in early childhood settings and the primary school and the advanced forms of literacy introduced in the middle years of schooling (Years 5-8) and further developed in the senior years of secondary school.  

The literacy-based subjects of the Secondary stream include:

Language and teaching

This subject introduces all secondary teachers to the centrality of oral language to all learning and to the literate demands of the different subject areas taught in the secondary school. The focus is on studies of classroom discourse and the teacher’s use of language to support student learning; the reciprocal relationship between oral language and literacy; and the multiple modes of communication, print-based, visual and electronic that students need to comprehend, to compose and create.

Learning Area Studies: English and English Language and Literacy

The English Learning Area study is offered to graduate teachers who wish to specialise in English teaching. The subject familiarises graduates with the key English curriculum policy statements and guidelines and how to plan and evaluate English lessons from Years 7-12 around these policies. This will involve consideration of issues to do with the teaching of young adult fiction, poetry, drama, film as text, approaches to writing, knowledge about language and the media. It will also involve considerations of the role of computers in English teaching, the evaluation of teaching resources and the development of a personal philosophy of English teaching.

The English Language and Literacy Learning Area Study offers practical and theoretical perspectives on literacy and language studies beyond those that are covered in the English Learning Area subject. Topics include: the teaching of knowledge about language within the secondary English program, from both a year 7-10 perspective and a VCE perspective (encompassing the teaching of the VCE subject 'English Language'); language and literacy across the curriculum; theoretical underpinnings of literacy programs; and a critical examination of a range of school-based, state-based and national literacy initiatives. Across both semesters, students will develop their own knowledge about language, examining language as a system at the phonological, lexical, syntactic, and discourse levels and looking broadly at the sociolinguistics of English in Australia.

Learning Area Study: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages [TESOL].

This subject is a study of the theory and practice of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). With an emphasis on the nature of TESOL within the Victorian education system, and Australian schools more broadly, the subject examines the needs of English second language (ESL) learners in the middle and senior years of schooling. The subject not only focuses on the skills and knowledge necessary to develop students’ communicative competence in English, but also an understanding of how TESOL teachers can effectively support students of non-English speaking backgrounds to become active and valued members of their schools’ wider social and academic community. In addition to core studies on second language pedagogy, assessment, and curriculum, the subject also considers contemporary issues facing Australian teachers of TESOL, including the needs of new arrivals and migrants, refugees with disrupted or no prior schooling, and international students.

Learning Area Study: Languages Other than English [LOTE].

This subject focuses on the study of concepts and practices in modern language teaching and learning, with emphasis on developing teachers as reflective practitioners, capable of fostering in their students communicative competence in a new language and culture, and of making the experience of language learning an educational one. Students will be introduced to commonly used texts and materials and will be taught a range of techniques for employing them.

Elective: Literacy and Numeracy Intervention

This elective provides those graduates in the secondary stream with the opportunity to further their understanding of strategies and approaches to meet the personalised learning needs of students. The focus here is on the completion of a case study of one child. The aim of this case study is for the graduate teacher to collect and analyse data about one student’s particular learning needs in literacy, using a range of assessment and diagnostic tools, and to design a targeted intervention appropriate to these needs.

Primary Stream

There are three compulsory literacy subjects in the primary stream. These compulsory subjects build on each other and so assist graduate teachers to develop breadth and depth in their knowledge and application of the theories, approaches and strategies that best meet the individual literacy learning needs of students in the primary school.

Foundation Literacy

This subject focuses on the foundational literacy skills required in the early years of schooling (Prep-Year 4). Graduate teachers learn about and investigate the role of oral language in all learning; the reciprocal relationship between oral language, reading and writing; the need for young children to hear and discern the sounds of English; the need to move students from a casual or conversational register in spoken language, to a formal, academic register, and the impact of vocabulary development on this process. They also learn about and apply theories of reading and writing acquisition; the approaches and strategies that support young children to develop skills in decoding and comprehending print-based texts; the significance of phonemic awareness for both reading and writing; the development of early writing skills, which include the move from speech to writing, a knowledge of the structures and linguistic features of simple written genres; and the application of spelling strategies and handwriting skills.

Advanced English Literacies

In this subject, graduate teachers learn about the advanced forms of literacy necessary for the comprehension of, and engagement with, print and multimodal texts in the middle years of schooling (Years 5-9). They study the academic language required for understanding the more complex content and concepts that underpin all areas of the curriculum. The focus is also on the approaches and strategies that support all students to develop and master the technical language, vocabulary and grammatical structures of academic reading, writing and oral language in the middle years, and the multimodal forms of communication that feature strongly in print, visual and electronic texts. These approaches and strategies include those which assist students to use oral language to talk through their understanding of content and concepts, as well as the formal register required for presentations, debates, and performances; to read and comprehend more complex literary, information, visual and multimodal texts; and to compose written genres across different forms of text.

In addition, the cultural and linguistic diversity of the student population in Victorian schools necessitates that teachers value the linguistic richness and variation of their students’ home backgrounds, and support all students in acquiring and developing English language literacy necessary for school education. Therefore, there is a strong emphasis across the four years of the Bachelor of Education degree on the impact of social factors -  such as language backgrounds other than English, socio-economic status, Indigenous status, and gender - on literacy acquisition and development.

Early Childhood Stream

Early Years Literacy

This subject focuses on the foundational literacy skills acquired and developed in the pre-school and the early years of schooling (in this case, Prep- Year 2). Graduate teachers learn about and investigate the role of oral language in all learning; the reciprocal relationship between oral language, reading and writing; the need for young children to hear and discern the sounds of English; the need to move students from a casual or conversational register in spoken language, to a formal, academic register, and the impact of vocabulary development on this process. They also learn about and apply theories of reading and writing acquisition; the approaches and strategies that support young children to develop skills in decoding and comprehending print-based texts; the significance of phonemic awareness for both reading and writing; the development of early writing skills, which include the move from speech to writing, a knowledge of the structures and linguistic features of simple written genres; and the application of spelling strategies and handwriting skills.