Course Outline

Language is a primary instrument of thought and the most powerful tool learners have for developing skills, ideas, and insights; for giving significance to their experiences, and for making sense of the world and the possibilities within it. Language is learned through purposeful and powerful language processes designed around stimulating ideas and issues that are meaningful to learners. Language processes are:

• listening
• speaking
• reading
• viewing
• writing
• representing

The language processes, embedded in the outcomes, are interrelated and interdependent in that the use of one strengthens, supports, and extends the others. These processes are most effective as interdependent rather than discrete processes. The ability to respond to reading, listening, or viewing, is a lifelong process. The complexity, sophistication, and depth of response as well as the type of material to which learners are able to respond changes over time.

Learning in Context:

Language learning is most effective when it is learned in context rather than isolation. It is personal and intimately connected to individuality, developing out of learners’ home language and their social and cultural experiences. Language learning is an active process of making meaning, that draws on all sources and ways of knowing that helps learners to understand cultures and express cultural identity. It is developmental in that learners continue to grow in flexibility and fluency in their language use over time. Thus, the design of the English language arts curriculum is structured using processes that support learners in developing and practising strategies in relation to comprehension and communication.

English Language Arts:

English language arts encompass the experiences, studies, and appreciation of language, literature, media, and communication. English language arts is taught through an integrated approach so that the interrelationship between, in, and among the (language) processes will be understood and applied by the learners to communicate, and to comprehend in a range of communication forms. Learners learn best when they are aware of the processes and strategies they use to communicate and make meaning to come to new understandings through inquiry-based learning. Adolescent learners must have opportunities to communicate their learning through various communication forms for specific audiences and purposes, and to consider their learning, strengths, and needs (metacognition). This approach is best addressed through careful planning that meets learners where they are with their language learning. This approach uses explicit instruction to scaffold learning opportunities that are meaningful, stimulating, and accessible to keep every learner engaged, challenged, and inspired. Through learning opportunities and experiences, learners develop language fluency, and become confident and competent language users in their learning environment, communities, cultures, and wider world.

Grade 7 and 8 renewed curriculum has been fully implemented across the province. 

Updated March 25, 2024