Cognition

Some will have good English and most will have little or no English. All teachers are expected to reach high standards of English capability now very fast indeed, and this is a huge demand on them – and us - especially in the curriculum areas of maths and science. The language of instruction has been deemed as English. The curriculum has been developed in New South Wales and is in English, as are the text books. The language of classroom instruction will however in reality be largely in Arabic, especially to start with.

We do have a translator in every school to assist in both written and verbal areas. New Zealanders tend to talk very fast, and we need to slow down. We also need to be aware of the use of NZ education terminology and colloquialisms. We suggest electronically stored resources (flash drives, CDs) will assist you in the first weeks (see also last page).