3L: Language and literacy for learning

Overview

Transformative and evidence-based PD to improve student literacy outcomes.

3L puts language and literacy at the heart of every teacher’s toolkit. Whether you are teaching Science, English, Mathematics or Art, this course can transform your work.

3L promotes an integrated, whole-school approach that allows all teachers to become effective teachers of literacy, by implementing an explicit pedagogy centered around language. The course has been shown to achieve significant improvement in students’ writing across all learning and literacy areas.

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Who is it for?

Language and Literacy for Learning (3L) is designed for all classrooms teachers in all school contexts. It is particularly suited to teachers who:

  • teach students aged between 8 and 18 years
  • want to better understand how language impacts learning across all subject areas, not just English.

What will I learn?

In this course, you will develop a deeper understanding of:

  • how literacy is a capacity for making meaning across the whole curriculum
  • the ways in which language underpins all learning, regardless of subject area.

You will also learn to:

  • design and implement teaching practices that explicitly and holistically address students’ language and learning needs
  • build students’ language and visual resources so they can access, engage with, and demonstrate learning across the curriculum
  • use positive strategies for self-reflection and self-appraisal to strengthen your professional practice
  • develop collaborative working relationships with teachers across subject areas
  • share your learning and leadership by supporting language-informed teaching practices across your whole school.

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

  • confidently identify the language demands of your subject area
  • plan and teach lessons that make learning accessible for all students
  • support students to use language and visuals effectively to show what they know
  • work collaboratively with colleagues to strengthen whole-school approaches to literacy.

How does it work?

When you do a course with Lexis Education, you learn the skills you need in the classroom, but you also learn how to be a tutor for other teachers. This train-the-trainer method ensures that schools can benefit from our professional development in a cost-effective way that is school-managed.

We refer to the courses we deliver as the Tutor Training, and the courses you then deliver as the Teacher Course.

Tutor Training

We deliver the 3L Tutor Training in intensive multi-day courses to small groups of up to 10 teachers online, or up to about 15 teachers at host venues around the world. 3L is structured as a 4-day tutor course (not necessarily consecutive).

Teacher Course

Once you have successfully completed the Tutor Training course, you will be a Certified Tutor. This allows you to deliver the 3L Teacher Course as many times as you would like, for as many years as the course is in existence, making it a highly sustainable and cost-effective option for high-quality, continuous staff professional development.

The Teacher Course incorporates group workshops, classroom-based activities and highly practical readings. The course entails 20 hours of face-to-face learning, which, when combined with between-module readings and activities, is equivalent to more than 45 hours of professional development for teachers.

Our courses provide schools with PL that can be easily presented within scheduled school PL allocations, such as Student free days, staff twilights, faculty meetings and staff PL meetings, heavily reducing the need for relief teachers.

What does it cost?

The cost of the 3L Tutor Training (per Certified Tutor) is:

  • Remote: AU$4,190
  • Face to face, early bird: AUD$4,350
  • Face to face, full fee: AUD$4,850

GST will be added for participants based in Australia. The cost covers the training, training materials and, where it is delivered face to face, lunches and refreshments on the training days. Other costs, such as for transport or accommodation, are not covered.

We do offer significant discounts for schools wanting to train more than 4 Certified Tutors.

Ready to lead your school’s literacy improvement?

Get in touch to book a free consultation with one of our experts, so that we can better understand your context and needs.

Course Content

Module 1: Language and literacy in teaching and learning

In the first module, participants:

  • explore how we can make meaning though a range of meaning-making systems, principally language but also through other means such as visuals and music
  • consider the notion of literacy and how it links to meaning-making and discuss the implications for our teaching practices
  • focus on the literacy demands that are inherent in curriculum statements.

Module 2: The role of language in learning and scaffolding

In this module, participants are introduced to the major underpinnings of the course. They consider:

  • the model of language that underpins the course
  • scaffolding at three levels: macro-scaffolding, meso-scaffolding and micro-scaffolding
  • cycles of teaching and learning that allow for language to be considered in an integrated approach.

Module 3: Learning about language: supporting students to comprehend texts (part 1)

This third module has a strong focus on ways to build a student’s capacity to comprehend a range of texts expected of them across the curriculum. Participants:

  • explore the different language choices we make at different points along the Register continuum and the demands this makes on students
  • appreciate the challenges school contexts make on students and the need to support students to comprehend and compose texts across this range of contexts
  • explore the language patterns of simple Procedures and Recounts
  • consider the function of active and passive voice, and the implications for their teaching practice
  • consider how the relationship between the visuals and language of any text impacts on a student’s capacity to comprehend that text
  • are introduced to a series of metalinguistic strategies that will allow all students to access the meanings in any given text.

Module 4: Learning about language: supporting students to comprehend texts (part 2)

In this module, participants continue to focus on the comprehending side of meaning making but now with a focus on the resources that make a text a cohesive whole. Participants consider:

  • the role of different kinds of conjunctions
  • two key resources that build the cohesion of a text: the reference system and word chains
  • practical ways they can help students understand the causal relationships holding within a given text, which will be critical in comprehending more complex texts
  • the role of modality, a crucial resource in English for expressing both how certain we are about something and how often some phenomenon occurs, as well as meanings to do with obligation and necessity.

Module 5: Developing students’ vocabulary

This module is comprised of two options that are based on the age of the students.

In Option 1, participants consider:

  • key language resources for expressing the content of any text, both fiction and non-fiction
  • the range of resources needed by a student writer in constructing the imagined worlds of stories.

In Option 2, participants consider:

  • how students can develop their knowledge while expanding their vocabulary
  • how to support students to express more abstract and technical meanings.

Module 6: Supporting writing

The focus of this module is on three main strategies that support writing. Participants:

  • use the notion that the content of texts can be set up through guiding questions, and that this process can be modelled for student writers
  • experience a dictogloss activity, which is a key strategy for supporting students in maintaining the appropriate Register in their writing
  • explore the various resources available for joining clauses to make longer stretches of text and use this knowledge for understanding how students can control how a text unfolds by varying sentence beginnings.

Module 7: Supporting listening and assessing language development

In this module, participants consider how:

  • students can be supported when they are listening to and viewing extended, dense texts, such as speeches and documentaries
  • we can evaluate language development in students and see what their learning looks like on a continuum where language and learning are interdependent.

Module 8: Programming and assessing: setting up successful frameworks

In this final module, participants:

  • draw together all the understandings they have built over the course to inform their programming and assessment practices
  • explore some of the key issues related to programming and assessment by reflecting on one of their own teaching and learning programs using the notion of ‘backward planning’
  • evaluate how their school is addressing the needs of students
  • consider some of the ways the setting up of successful whole-school frameworks can be achieved over timeframes that are manageable and sustainable.
  • “Even better than I had imagined. The impact this can have for GEMS schools is huge. So relevant and applicable immediately. Looking forward to taking this forward!”
    Niamh Drysdale Allen, Corporate Head of EAL, GEMS Education
  • “Great course! Loved the very practical and organized approach to supporting the language development for MLLS.”
    Mats Haaland, Strategic Learning and EAL Coordinator, Hong Kong Academy
  • "Fantastic – exactly what our school was looking for. Full of practical strategies to effectively teach language."
    Thomas Hawkey, EAL/D Teacher, Mabel Park State High School
  • “Absolutely loved the course. It has had a major impact on me as an EAL teacher."
    Caroline Delhommeau – EAL Specialist, Bali Island School
  • “A very valuable course which has helped me a great deal and prepared me well to help others to help their students.”
    Jacob Huckle, Head of Multilingual Learning and Language Development, Dulwich College Suzhou

Upcoming Venues

Teaching in English in multilingual classrooms

Location: Remote (Asia, Australia), via Zoom
Date: 20/02/2026 - 03/03/2026

3L: Language and literacy for learning

Location: Remote (Australia), via Zoom
Date: 26/02/2026 - 06/03/2026

3L: Language and literacy for learning

Location: Adelaide, Australia
Date: 24/03/2026 - 27/03/2026

Teaching in English in multilingual classrooms

Location: Remote (Europe, via Zoom
Date: 11/05/2026 - 22/05/2026

3L: Language and literacy for learning

Location: Melbourne, Australia
Date: 18/08/2026 - 21/08/2026

Teaching in English in multilingual classrooms

Location: Remote (Asia, Australia), via Zoom
Date: 30/06/2026 - 08/07/2026
All Upcoming Venues