1. Year 10 ESL Sudanese student: Working on academic writing and vocabulary

2. Focus: Can increased exposure of academic vocabulary improve the structure and expression of student’s writing? Can this exposure increase student’s enthusiasm on learning English language?

3. About the student This Sudanese Year 10 student has had some practice on academic writing, before entering Year 10. She has lived in Australia since 2004 and her parents do not speak English. She has little time to study at home as she has to help with house chores and her literacy level was considered as rather low at school.

4. English - Strategies implemented: Firstly, I worked with the student on the contextual understanding of the novel. At this stage, the goal is to gain understanding of the plot, main characters, themes, etc. Then, we analyse the text response question to pick out key words and ideas that might fit well with the response,. I used the academic word list as a tool to help the student access words that suits best to describe a character and express her point.

5. (Continued) The student is encouraged to include as many new vocabulary as possible in her writing. I also used the persuasive paragraph rubric whenever possible, e.g. I only asked the student to follow the TEEL method and include at least one new vocabulary in each paragraph.

6. Evidence What process / procedures or task have you planned for or will build into your investigation to track how your student is going? This might include: ◦Teacher’s feedback ◦Capturing conversations with the student ◦Ongoing follow-up sessions and feedback to the student

7. Conclusion The student’s work was much better structured and sophisticated. Her literacy, organisation and confidence level has improved. She still requires scaffolding and on-going support as she improves. The next step is to provide support with time management skills.