ESOL

The Covid-19 pandemic brought a different type of atmosphere to the ESOL department in 2021. Gone were the lockdowns and, instead, ‘locked in’ was a feeling that added to many of our students’ stress levels. For a large proportion of our students (both international and resident), this was another year they could not travel home to see their families during the holidays. Our students are to be commended for their resilience during a very worrying and unsettling time.

On this page, we have presented some of our students’ written work from the various courses we provide.

For English language learning students, ESOL courses replace English courses in the English department.

Our foundation-reception students were outstanding this year. All the teachers in the FRELL programme spoke very highly of the focus and rapid progress this group of students made.

Our students in ESOLPR and ESOLIN build their knowledge about language and literature at a simple level. Both courses use a type of assessment known as English Language (EL) unit standards. This year’s ESOLIN students undertook a new speaking unit standard and all the EL standards give students credits towards Level 1 or Level 2 NCEA.

In ESOLPR, students studied written verse to build their knowledge about the importance of language techniques for specific text types. The focus was on the poetic text type known as haiku. Here are some examples of our students’ writing.

A Summer haiku Pretty butterflies Seagulls flying overheadSunshine on the beach. Jenny Fang

An Autumn Haiku Do you see that leaf Falling down slowly and freeLives a pretty life. Ellie Yu

A Spring Haiku Flower is blooming Little seed to make it growSay hi! Spring today. Ailex Aragon

A Winter Haiku The weather is cold, Some white flowers on the treesEverywhere there’s snow. Junlin Yang

Students in our 1ESOL and UE courses study for English achievement standards. For students in 1ESOL and UEL, these assess their knowledge of language in authentic written literature and film. In the case of UER, students also read authentic literature of their choice and carry out assessed research. Many parents don’t realise that at Rangitoto College, students in 1ESOL and our UEL and UER courses are actually attempting regular English achievement standards. Our UER and UEL students can gain up to 20 Level 2 English credits and 17 of those give them university entrance literacy.

Here is a response to a text for the wide-reading assessment in the level 1 ESOL course. The issues the student read about and responded to became current events again this year, emphasising the relevance of literature to real life.

After reading Parvana, written by Deborah Ellis, I was impressed. Parvana’s family shows us the miserable life of the Afghan people under the control of the Taliban. It makes me think deeply about gender equality, courage, and life which are the three main themes in the story. Parvana lives in Afghanistan with her family. Life there is controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban had ordered all the girls and women in Afghanistan to stay inside their homes. They even forbade the girls to go to school. Women must wear a burqa and only their eyes can be seen. At first, I thought it was made up by the writer because it doesn’t seem like it can happen in 1996. The truth is this is real and [lasted] until 2001 [when] the Taliban failed. Females can go outside again.

In my opinion it’s against human rights. We are all born as equal[s] you can’t treat anyone as an object because of your religious beliefs. I feel sad about what the females were suffering at that time in Afghanistan.

Parvana makes me think about Mulan. Both of them pretend to be boys [and] they fight for their family. However Mulan was chosen to replace her father to join the army, whereas Parvana was forced by war and life. Mulan became a hero in the end but Parvana did all of the things to just keep her family alive, which I think makes her the greatest kid in the world.

Zhenni Liu 11PT

As this year’s Panorama was being prepared, we once again went into a Covid-19 Level 4 lockdown. Our students and teachers must be praised for impressively rising to the challenges lockdowns bring and their ability to continue teaching and learning under trying circumstances.