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English
Connect in 2013. Better lectures than ever before.
Meet our presenters.
Vincent Chiang (vincent@connecteducation.com.au) graduated from Melbourne Grammar School in 2010 with an
ATAR of 99.85, and is currently enrolled in ANUs prestigious Bachelor of Philosophy (Hons) program, majoring in
English. He has had two years worth of private English tutoring, and has seen consistently excellent results from his
students, including a large number of study scores above 45. Vincent has also volunteered at the VCE Summer School,
and is Connect Educations current Head of Humanities.
Emily Haw (emily@connecteducation.com.au) graduated McKinnon Secondary College in 2012. She achieved a study
score of 48 in VCE English and an overall ATAR score of 99.65. Emily was Vice-School Captain, and was a recipient of
the Australian Defence Force Long Tan Leadership and Teamwork Prize.
Lachlan Hegarty (lachlan@connecteducation.com.au) graduated from Melbourne Grammar School in 2012 with a
remarkable ATAR of 99.75. This included study scores of 48 in English, 47 in Literature, and 45 in Classical Studies.
Lachlan also serves as an international ambassador for the Fred Hollows Foundation and as a Red Cross National
Youth Blood Ambassador.
Joshua Yuvaraj (joshua@connecteducation.com.au) graduated from Melbourne High School in 2010 with an ATAR of
99.30. He achieved study scores of 50 in English and 49 in Literature. He has been tutoring for several years, whilst
simultaneously studying a joint Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws degree at Monash University.
The English lecture is unique within Connect Educations lecture series, in that it combines lecturing with smaller tutorial
discussions, which are designed to help stimulate students individual interests in the Context study designs. The
lectures will also be particularly useful to students in that they will equip students with fundamental skills in a clear and
concise fashion, with specific essay structures being taught and explained both in the lecture and in the 100+ page long
notes package.
Three tips to succeed at English.
1. For language analysis dont feel like you have to analyse every single technique or even the most obvious
techniques. Often, the best students will stand out by finding bits of language to analyse which arent as
immediately obvious, or which are a bit more difficult to understand or explain. Aim for the advanced if you want
your analysis to stand out.

2. For text response make sure you engage with the entirety of the text, and not just one section of it. The best
essays will look at how a particular theme or character develops across the entire narrative, as this will give a more
complete sense of engagement with the essay question. Also try not to restrict yourself to analysing one character
or even just main characters often, minor characters are the most important to the text!

3. For context make sure that you dont make your response too text-centric. A common error students make is
that they think of their response (whether creative or expository or anything else) as a response to the text, rather
than as a response to the actual philosophical ideas behind the context. Your text is used as a basis or as evidence
for the response, and is not the goal of the response itself.

Website.
View more great resources, read
our exciting blog, and learn more
about our lectures.

connecteducation.com.au

Answers.
Find guided solutions to this
exercise on Facebook. Theres
even more to like too.

Search for Connect Education.
Exclusives.
Join our mailing list for news,
special offers, and alerts for new
lectures and resources.

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Heres a language analysis task.

Learning to Speak to the World

From our perspective in the land down under, Europe and Asia can often seem strange
and exotic. What many might imagine, taking a walk down Europe and Asia in their minds,
are lands filled with exciting new cultures, fascinating new people, and of course, untasted
and yet delicious foods.

What is perhaps more strange and exotic in reality, however, is that in Europe and Asia, it is often compulsory for
students to learn a second language all the way through to the end of year 12. Not only this, but in these faraway lands,
it is very common to find that language proficiency acquired through high school is excellent. Many people are at least
bilingual, as a result of nothing but their education.
Back to the land down under, we are floundering. Though many of us grow up in bilingual households, we are not
expected to acquire complete and complex foreign language skills in schools. Moreover, even those who choose to
undertake a language all the way until year 12 are often unable to use said language effectively: our year 12 LOTE
studies, in the current education system, are spent memorizing answers for oral exams, or performing similarly unhelpful
tasks.
It is time we, as a country, took a stand on this. Unless Australians are willing to pursue the study of foreign languages
to a more rigorous degree, then we will be left floundering. The world of the 21
st
century is a globalised one, and we
cannot rely on biological lottery to determine which countries we can now engage with, or which cultures we can
appreciate and understand. We need to become active leaders and active participants in the global village, and to do
this, we need to be more willing to actively extend our ability to communicate.
Those who take up LOTE studies will also agree that understanding another language is also a beautiful end in and of
itself. Our ability to think is tied to our language the more we can appreciate another language, the more we can
appreciate the various human cultures, and the multifarious and powerful ideas which have accumulated across a global
history. Learning languages is actualizing our humanity.
So let us therefore embrace the need for language reform. Let us accept that we are behind, and that we need to
challenge the way we interact with language education in Australia. Let us challenge the system, and lobby our
governments to be more proactive with encouraging the learning of LOTEs. This is the way forward for us forward,
and outward, into the wonderful, global village of planet Earth.
1

Image retrieved from http://www.schoolofthinking.org/2009/thought-experiment-global-village/.