EAL Framework · 22636VIC to 22646VIC · Version 1
The EAL Framework is eleven accredited courses covering the whole distance from a learner who cannot yet decode the alphabet to one about to sit in a university lecture. We supply the training and assessment resources for all of them: learner guides, assessment tools, mapping matrices and assessor guides, written to the unit and built to survive validation.
Put the learner in the right course and half the work is already done.
There are no entry requirements anywhere in this Framework. Placement is a professional judgement about proficiency, prior schooling and where the learner is actually trying to get to. Everything below is arranged to make that judgement easier.
The Framework does not run as a single ladder. It branches, because a learner heading for a warehouse job and a learner heading for a nursing degree need different English even at the same proficiency level. Choose the stream by the destination, then the level by the proficiency.
Before a certificate
Two Courses in, for learners who are pre literate or have had little formal schooling. These sit below the AQF: they meet a real community need without the breadth, depth or volume of learning of an AQF level.
22636VIC 22637VIC
Living here
Four certificates, AQF 1 to 4. English for personal, social and settlement life, widening into community participation and, at Certificate IV, complex texts and potential leadership roles.
22638VIC 22639VIC 22640VIC 22641VIC
Working here
Three certificates, AQF 2 to 4. Workplace English, workplace culture and workplace safety, ending with a Certificate IV built for skilled and professional roles.
22642VIC 22643VIC 22644VIC
Studying here
Two certificates, AQF 3 and 4. English plus the study skills a learner needs to survive VET or higher education: researching, drafting, referencing, note taking.
22645VIC 22646VIC
The two Courses in sit below the AQF. They meet an identified community need without the breadth, depth or volume of learning of an AQF level, and that is deliberate rather than a gap. Everything else maps to AQF 1 through 4.
| Code | Course | Level | Nominal hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry2 courses | |||
| 22636VIC | Course in Initial EALFor pre literate learners, many with severely interrupted schooling. Builds an identity as a learner: letters and their sounds, copying, hand eye coordination and the routines of an Australian classroom. | Pre AQF | 445 hrs |
| 22637VIC | Course in EALInitial speaking, listening, reading, writing and numeracy in highly familiar contexts, for learners with little or disrupted prior education. | Pre AQF | 445 hrs |
| Access4 courses | |||
| 22638VIC | Certificate I in EAL (Access)English for immediate personal, social and settlement needs, with the numeracy that goes with them. The usual first certificate. | AQF 1 | 382 - 500 hrs |
| 22639VIC | Certificate II in EAL (Access)Simple everyday communication, transactions and community participation, opening into vocational training or work. | AQF 2 | 412 - 505 hrs |
| 22640VIC | Certificate III in EAL (Access)Consolidates straightforward English so a learner can access further education and vocational options that may require some specialisation. | AQF 3 | 420 - 500 hrs |
| 22641VIC | Certificate IV in EAL (Access)Complex English across transactional, advisory and creative texts, including the cultural knowledge behind contemporary issues. | AQF 4 | 480 - 515 hrs |
| Employment3 courses | |||
| 22642VIC | Certificate II in EAL (Employment)Simple workplace English: routine conversations and transactions, familiar workplace vocabulary, short written messages. | AQF 2 | 335 - 420 hrs |
| 22643VIC | Certificate III in EAL (Employment)Straightforward workplace English with the register, text structures and safety knowledge needed to participate in an Australian workplace. | AQF 3 | 340 - 440 hrs |
| 22644VIC | Certificate IV in EAL (Employment / Professional)For learners who already hold technical or professional expertise and need high level English to work in their field. | AQF 4 | 360 - 555 hrs |
| Further Study2 courses | |||
| 22645VIC | Certificate III in EAL (Further Study)Study skills alongside straightforward English, aimed squarely at entry to VET or higher education. | AQF 3 | 440 - 515 hrs |
| 22646VIC | Certificate IV in EAL (Further Study)Advanced English with research, referencing and note taking, prior to higher education or higher level VET. | AQF 4 | 480 - 555 hrs |
Units are shared across courses, which is why the two numbers differ: the same unit can be packaged into more than one qualification. Select a course to see exactly what it contains, core and elective, with nominal hours. Search runs across every unit in the Framework at once.
| Code | Unit of competency | Packaged as | Hours |
|---|
The Framework sets no entry requirement for any of the eleven courses. What it does set out is what you must weigh when you place someone, and getting this wrong is both an educational failure and an audit finding waiting to happen.
Assessed against a recognised scale such as the ACSF or the ISLPR. The Speaking and Listening and Reading and Writing units can themselves form the basis of initial assessment.
Formal schooling both overseas and in Australia, and any prior EAL learning. Two learners at the same spoken level can be years apart on paper.
Strong first language literacy is a foundation to build on. Its absence changes what the learner needs, not how capable they are.
Employability, digital and other literacies, and the further education or vocational pathway the learner is aiming at. This is what selects the stream.
Some learners in these courses are carrying refugee and pre migration experience, family separation and unresolved settlement issues. That affects how they engage with learning and what support they need to succeed. It belongs in your placement conversation and in your delivery plan, not in a footnote.
EAL assessment has a particular trap: it is easy to write a task that tests the learner's English comprehension of the instructions rather than the skill the unit is actually about. Our kits are written with that distinction held firmly in view.
Pitched at the language level of the unit itself, with activities that generate evidence rather than fill pages.
Speaking and listening observation tools, reading and writing tasks, portfolio guidance and third party reports, each matched to the text complexity the unit specifies.
Every performance criterion, knowledge and performance evidence item traced to where it is assessed.
Benchmark answers, marking guidance and reasonable adjustment notes written for EAL delivery specifically.
EAL Resources covers the EAL Framework. CAQA Resources holds audit ready training and assessment resources across every training package and accredited course, plus skill sets, learner guides, assessor guides and mapping matrices, in the world's largest library of its kind.
Most providers running EAL also run FSK, CHC or BSB alongside it. Resources for those come from the same library and to the same standard, so a validation panel sees one house style rather than four.