Subject

Year

Year 1 (2009-10)

Year 2 (2010-11)

Year 3 (2011-12)

English

S2

S1, S2

S1, S2, S3

Mathematics (Maths)

S1

S1, S2

Integrated Science (IS)

S2

S1, S2

S1, S2, S3

Integrated Humanities (IH)

S1

S1, S2

Visual Arts (VA)

S1

S1, S2

Religious Studies (RS)

S1

Computer Literacy (CL)

S1

Concern

Action taken

• Lack of a clear direction for the development of LAC

Setting up a LAC task group

• In order to facilitate the planning and implementation of LAC with a whole school approach, an LAC task group was set up to conduct holistic curriculum mapping, promote cross-curricular collaboration among different KLAs and support teachers on the material design through giving advice and feedback.

Formulating a 3-year holistic plan

• A three year holistic plan was formulated to give teachers a clear direction on cross-curricular collaboration and planning of different KLAs. Detailed information such as levels, subjects, strategies adopted, expected outcomes, implementation stages and roles of different parties concerned was provided clearly as guidelines for teachers to follow.

• Lack of knowledge and skills to implement LAC

Adopting the “Train the trainer” approach

• The four teachers who were involved in last year’s pilot project on integrating English into IS were invited to be members of the LAC committee. In their role as trainers and advisors, they organised workshops and informal meetings to equip their colleagues with the required knowledge and skills. In addition to that, they supported teachers to design relevant materials and provided constructive feedback on the lessons observed.

Building up a sharing platform

• To increase teachers’ awareness and professional knowledge and skills on LAC, teachers of different KLAs exchanged ideas and experiences through co-planning, discussion, peer lesson observation and regular reporting of work in staff meetings.

• Different levels of teachers’ readiness
  
• Lack of time for English and subject teachers to plan together

Adopting different approaches
Both intensive and less intensive modes were adopted to support teachers with different levels of readiness and needs.

a) Cross-curricular collaboration (intensive mode)

• IS and VA teachers worked together with English teachers to develop pilot projects on integrating English into VA and IS in S1.
• Both subjects chose a topic on addressing a particular language focus / knowledge structure.
• Only 6 English periods, and 4 IS and VA periods were used in each term.
• The teaching periods of both subjects were synchronised to allow students to recycle the language learned.

b) Reading across the curriculum (less intensive mode)

With the support from the LAC committee members, S1 teachers of Maths, IH and IS used reading as an entry point to infuse English elements into their subjects. They:

• identified 4 topics to work on over the period of an academic year.
• designed topic-related reading texts for teaching purposes.
• identified related knowledge structures (e.g. compare and contrast) to be taught through the text.
• developed relevant materials for students to apply the relevant knowledge structures and language skills.