Stage 2 English as an Additional Language (2EAL20, 20 credits) is for students who speak English as a second or additional language or dialect and have been approved as eligible by their school. It builds four sets of skills and strategies — communication, comprehension, language and text analysis, and text creation — through spoken, written and multimodal texts. This original revision resource concentrates on the 160-minute examination: listening for information, analysing persuasive and multimodal texts, and writing a referenced extended response from related texts, with the grammar, register and cohesion that run through every criterion. It is not affiliated with the SACE Board or SATAC, all practice texts and transcripts are original, and it does not cover the school-assessed Academic Literacy Study or Responses to Texts beyond the skills they share with the exam.
Stage 2 English as an Additional Language Subject Outline (2EAL20, 20 credits; current version with changes from 2025) · guide last reviewed . Always check the current subject outline on the SACE Board site ↗.
School assessment is 70% of the result: Assessment Type 1 Academic Literacy Study (30%: a written report of up to 1500 words with headings, consistent referencing and at least one listening or multimodal source, plus an individual oral interaction of up to 10 minutes) and Assessment Type 2 Responses to Texts (40%: three or four responses, at least one oral and two written, including a theme or issue response, a creative response and an analysis of a persuasive or emotive text). Assessment Type 3 Examination is the external 30%: one 160-minute e-exam. Section 1, Comprehending Multimodal Texts, has Part A (one listening text heard twice, with tasks such as note-taking, completing a table or summarising) and Part B (two texts, at least one aural or audio-visual, analysed for purpose, audience, reliability and persuasive language, usually ending with a comparison of which text is more convincing). Section 2, Extended Response, asks students to read related texts and write an essay, a persuasive piece or a report that develops a point of view, paraphrases and references the texts. The exam is judged against the performance standards (communication, comprehension, analysis, application) and the subject result is a grade from A+ to E−. SACE publishes no mark total; this hub's 60-mark paper is a stated practice model. Stage 2 EAL with a C− or better meets the SACE literacy requirement.
Past papers on this subject span more than one subject outline. Papers written under an older one still work as practice, but the topics they test have changed — the index labels every paper with the subject outline it was set under.
Each area below lists the concepts named in the subject outline, what the SACE Board exam asks of them, and the mistake that most often costs marks.
Hearing a lecture, talk or information session twice and recording precise information: keywords, numbers, lists, definitions, table entries, summaries and plans for an extended response, matched to the marks available.
Identifying purpose and a specific audience, judging reliability and fact versus opinion, explaining persuasive, emotive and visual techniques with examples and effects, and comparing which of two texts is more convincing.
Reading three related texts, choosing and sustaining a text type (essay, persuasive piece or report), synthesising evidence from all texts, paraphrasing rather than copying, referencing consistently and evaluating perspectives to develop a clear point of view.
Clarity, coherence and grammatical control: academic register, nominalisation, passive voice and hedging, subject–verb agreement, tense, sentence boundaries, cohesive connectives, vocabulary range and proofreading in the e-exam.
It is one 160-minute e-exam worth 30% of the subject. The 2026 SACE timetable lists English as an Additional Language [2EAL20] on Wednesday 11 November 2026 at 1.30 pm Adelaide time, in blue (electronic examination), with no additional reading time.
SACE does not publish a mark total: the exam is judged against the performance standards and your result is a grade. The 2022 and 2023 Subject Assessment Advice show Section 1 part marks (Part A 10 in 2022; Part B 20 in both years). This hub's 60-mark papers add a 30-mark practice score for Section 2 so you can track progress; it is a model, not an official figure.
Yes. The subject outline says the Part A text and the Part B listening text(s) are heard twice, with no set pause times. Marker feedback recommends listening for overall meaning first and for specific details second. In this hub the listening texts are printed as original transcripts because the site cannot play audio.
The outline allows an essay, a persuasive piece or a report. Marker feedback says the strongest responses made their text type clear from the start and kept its conventions, and that an academic-style exposition or discursive essay lets you show every criterion; formal letters made several criteria harder to demonstrate.
No official word limit is printed in the outline, but the 2022 and 2023 Subject Assessment Advice criticise responses written significantly under 500 words because they limit comprehension and analysis. Aim for a complete, well-developed response of at least that length with time left to proofread.
Use one consistent in-text style, such as Harvard author-year, e.g. Nguyen (2024) argues that… or …(Nguyen, 2024). Do not reference by text number, first name or website URL, avoid referencing every sentence, and vary how you integrate authors into your sentences.
Copying from the texts instead of paraphrasing, using only one text in Section 2, naming techniques without examples or effects in Section 1, giving personal opinions instead of evidence from the texts, and avoidable grammar and typing errors.
Knowing the subject outline is the first half. The other half is seeing how SACE Board actually asks it — every official paper for English as an Additional Language is indexed by the same areas above.
Past papers by topic →English as an Additional Language practice exams →