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NSW Curriculum
NSW Education Standards Authority

K–10Auslan K–10 Syllabus

Record of changes
Implementation from 2026
Expand for detailed implementation advice

Content

Stage 1

Creating texts in Auslan

Content is provided for:

  • Additional: students learning Auslan as an additional language
  • Prior learning/experience: students learning Auslan with knowledge and/or experience from in or outside the classroom
  • First: students learning Auslan as their first language.
Vocabulary, grammar and text structures
Additional
  • Communicate about self, family, friends and immediate environment when given prompts

  • Recognise that Auslan has nouns, adjectives, verbs and clauses

  • Identify what can be represented in a depicting sign by a particular handshape

  • Recognise that some signs represent a single word in English or Aboriginal English while others represent more than one word

  • Recognise that signs can be located in space to be referred to later

  • Recognise that meaning can be expressed using signs or fingerspelling

  • Use simple constructed action to represent the characteristics of an animal, themselves or another

  • Produce statements and questions with appropriate non-manual features

First
  • Communicate about self, family, friends and immediate environment

  • Produce simple clauses in Auslan which use nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs

  • Notice that Auslan pronouns do not show gender but can show location and a specific number of referents

  • Observe and discuss the way English expressions or Aboriginal English expressions are translated into Auslan and vice versa

  • Compare the iconicity of simple signs in terms of their similarity to the object/referent

  • Use constructed action, non-manual features and marking manner to integrate multiple viewpoints in longer signed texts

Creating texts to communicate
Additional
  • Depict the movement of people, animals or transportation using an appropriate entity depicting sign

  • Express ideas using high-frequency signs, mime and gestures

  • Create simple bilingual texts for the classroom

First
  • Categorise signs according to their handshape and record new signs in a handshape dictionary

  • Describe an object, animal or person using lexical adjectives or size and shape specifier depicting signs

  • Express imaginative ideas by telling with lexical signs, showing by marking manner, or using depicting signs and constructed action

  • Create simple bilingual print or digital texts

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