HSC Portuguese Continuers case studies
HSC Portuguese Continuers · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The HSC Portuguese Continuers course is a New South Wales senior secondary qualification for students who already have a working background in Portuguese - typically heritage speakers, students who have lived in a Portuguese-speaking country, or learners who have studied the language for several years before Year 11. It is not a beginner course: the syllabus assumes you can already hold a conversation, follow spoken texts at natural speed and write connected prose without translating word by word. The HSC Portuguese Continuers case studies are 5 cases and about 3,085 words.
1The Community Radio Interview Slot
You are a final-year HSC Portuguese Continuers student volunteering at a community radio station in Sydney. The station runs a weekly hour-long program in Portuguese.
653 words, about 3 min2The Two Notices About the Same Event
You are preparing for the HSC Portuguese Continuers reading section. Your teacher gives you two short Portuguese-language texts about the same community event: a festa junina organised by a Portuguese club in Melbourne.
580 words, about 3 min3The Letter That Has to Say No
You are writing a piece for the Personal and Imaginative Writing section. Your prompt is a situation: a 17-year-old narrator has been offered a place on a prestigious exchange to Brazil, but the departure date clashes with a family obligation - a grandmother's 80th birthday party in Sydney that the whole extended family will attend.
614 words, about 3 min4Choosing Between Two Past Tenses in a Narrative
You are drafting a narrative in Portuguese for the Personal and Imaginative Writing section. The scene: a narrator returns to the town in Portugal where they spent childhood summers.
640 words, about 3 min5Explaining a Regional Tradition to a Non-Portuguese Speaker
You are taking part in a school multicultural assembly. You have been asked to give a 3-minute talk in Portuguese to an audience that includes Portuguese-speaking family members, students learning Portuguese, and students who speak no Portuguese at all.
598 words, about 3 min