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NSW Curriculum
NSW Education Standards Authority

11–12English Studies 11–12 Syllabus

Record of changes
Implementation from 2026
Expand for detailed implementation advice

Content

Year 12

Elective focus areas

The following elective focus areas can be selected for Year 11 or Year 12.

Elective D: Playing the game

Through the study of texts in this focus area, students develop an understanding of the power of language in the world of sport. Students develop their understanding of the ways that language is used in sport to enthuse, motivate, report on and analyse team and individual performances. They broaden their understanding of the power of language and the role of storytelling to represent the experiences of success and failure, building resilience, facing challenges, controversy, fairness and ambition. They also explore how language and storytelling is used to discuss controversy, fairness and personal ambition. Students appreciate how language is used to sustain interest in sporting stories and construct particular points of view.

Students engage with a range of literary and other texts that are used to describe, analyse and reflect on sporting events and issues, such as feature articles, news reports, speeches, online blogs, biographies, autobiographies, advertisements, documentaries, films, short stories and novels. They consider how language is used purposefully and creatively by a range of people, such as coaches, players, journalists, sports writers, fiction writers and makers of films and documentaries. Students examine how texts can reflect on and challenge particular perspectives on issues in recreational and professional sport.

Understanding
  • The ways language forms and features are used to communicate ideas and shape meaning

  • Explicit and implicit meaning is created in texts

  • The ways mode and medium can influence language and structure

  • The ways that audience, purpose and context shape meaning in a variety of social, community and workplace texts

  • The connection between texts

Responding
  • Compose a variety of texts that use language forms and features to present particular attitudes, values and perspectives

  • Compose critical texts that use appropriate evidence to support a clear point of view

  • Use complex sentences to communicate the relationship between ideas in a range of texts

  • Use appropriate textual forms and structures to communicate information and ideas

  • Compose texts that reflect on their choices in the writing process

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