Conference presentation
Professional constraints and contemporary trends in curriculum: Exacerbating language education challenges in Queensland senior schooling
Applied Linguistics Association of Australia Conference, 2025 (Darwin, Australia, 17-Nov-2025–19-Nov-2025)
2025
Abstract
Language education in Australian schools is in crisis, neglected in policy and facing stubbornly low participation and retention rates. It is imperative that language teachers are afforded conditions and resources that enable them to achieve agency in their work in order to produce quality programmes that are responsive to local contexts and capable of challenging prevalent monolingual mindsets. However, Australia is caught up in a global policy trend of increasing accountability practices and outcomes steering in education that has had a constraining effect upon teacher professional practice. This can be seen in Queensland, where a new senior education system and suite of supporting syllabuses have been strongly criticised by language teachers in the state for their impact upon the profession. Curriculum documents and their formal features play a central but under-acknowledged role in these processes. This presentation will present the findings of an analysis of Queensland senior Japanese curriculum documents that draws on Systemic Functional Linguistics to illustrate how the formal features of these documents and their use in systems of educational governance can constrain or enable teachers’ professional practice. Findings include the significant contribution of interpersonal language resources in accountability practices, the use of intertextual links to constrain curriculum interpretation, and the function of language choices in establishing a balance between teacher professionalism and central prescription. Given the current challenges facing language education in Australia, and the place of educational reform and teacher pedagogy in proposed solutions, this research has practical implications for curriculum development and enactment.
Details
- Title
- Professional constraints and contemporary trends in curriculum: Exacerbating language education challenges in Queensland senior schooling
- Authors
- Luke Beck - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Education and Tertiary Access
- Conference details
- Applied Linguistics Association of Australia Conference, 2025 (Darwin, Australia, 17-Nov-2025–19-Nov-2025)
- Date published
- 2025
- Organisation Unit
- School of Business and Creative Industries; School of Education and Tertiary Access
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991155040002621
- Output Type
- Conference presentation
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