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Home » 2020 Ideas Forum » Indigenous Australia » Effective education - use local languages
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Allison
Apr 16, 2008 10:48 AM  4  0 |
literacy and language
I agree with Timothy Trudgen. As a literacy teacher, I know that literacy builds on language. It is all but impossible to teach children to read and write language which is unfamiliar to them. I think several options need to be considered, especially bi-lingual education and acceptance of "Aboriginal English" especially during the early years. However, if Indigenous people are to be able to participate to the extent of their choosing in mainstream Australian life, and especially its economic life, at some point children will need to become competent in speaking, reading and writing "Standard English." Perhaps it would be best to start concentrating on this in the middle or later primary years (Years 3-4 or 5-6). That way, children could learn to read and write the language they bring to school and once literate, learn to master the language and literacy of mainstream Australian life.
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Terry Chesher
Apr 17, 2008 01:07 PM 6 0 |
training interpreters
Trained interpreters can enable true communication in community settings such as law courts, hospitals and other between speakers of indigenous languages and lawyers, doctors teachers etc. Teaching indigenous languages at school opens the door to a future career as an interpreter at the same time promoting and preserving indigenous culture and languages. There could be scholarships for training linked to future jobs. Initiatives like government follow-up to the Intervention will only be successful if more interpreters are trained to work in the major indigenous languages and employment prospects are guaranteed.
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brenda
Apr 17, 2008 01:45 PM 2 0 |
language loss ignored
the teaching of indigenous languages within any school system within australia is problematic. it requires a huge shift in the thinking of policy makers who will be quick to point out the failed attempts at bi-lingual ed over the years. unfortunately our remaining indigenous languages are being actively removed from within our schools, at a time when internationally the preservation and rejuvenation of the worlds remaining languages is building momentum. the federal government's indigenous education policy is being made up on the run. all to eager to find solutions, they are easy prey to snake oil merchants who are busy building their own empires at the expense of the language, the culture and the futures of our indigenous peoples. i don't hold much optimism for the future.
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Marilyn McLellan
Apr 17, 2008 04:02 PM 2 0 |
Do we really want the kids to learn?
There needs to be recognition that English is not just a second language, it is a foreign language to most remote indigenous children. They do not hear English except from visitors to the community. Therefore every teacher is an ESL teacher - so wouldn't it be good if they were trained as such? But with the best of ESL teaching, it will still be years before the children are conversant enough in English for academic understanding. We need to make sure these kids are learning in all domains, while they are learning English. In other words, learning needs to be going on in their own language as well. It is important that the cognitive development of the children progresses according to their age and abilities and is not limited by their lack of English. When the semantic domains are in place in their own language, they will have something the English can "hook into". Therefore, the teachers being sent to these schools need orientation into language and culture, ESL training, and the local indigenous adults need training as teachers to be able to teach in language in all semantic domains.
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Marilyn McLellan
Apr 17, 2008 04:21 PM 3 0 |
Further on training interpreters
Aboriginal people are overrepresented in the courts, and in hospitals in the Northern Territory. Those of us who are first language English speakers know how difficult it is to understand legal jargon and medical terms. How much more so for people who do not have English as a first language. There is now an interpreter service for some indigenous languages, but not one of these interpreters are above para-professional level (which means they are qualified to interpret informal conversations.) Yet these people are being asked to translate difficult technical terms and jargon specific to courts and medicine which in the wider world requires NAATI level 4 (2 to 3 levels above what they are deemed to be.) Yet there is no formal training program, or funding to be training these interpreters to higher levels. They want to learn, and have shown the desire to better themselves, but there is no suitable pathway to achieve this, and very little funding. Let's push for this also, so that indigenous people actually can have the same rights we enjoy.
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Jan
Apr 18, 2008 10:37 AM 1 0 |
adult education
As there is a large proportion of the indigenous population in the NT whose literacy skills can be as low as a 7 year old I see the need for education facilities to allow teenagers and adults to attempt to achieve some literacy skills. I think that it is a adults they then find difficulties in participating in broader society without these skills. I have a personal experience of having fostered on and off an aboriginal baby girl/infant. I have tried to keep track of her and have been disappointed to find a lovely but aimless young lady. She finds herself unable to go to TAFE as her literacy skills are that of around 10. This happens when children are taken bush by their relatives for lengthy perios of time and school is attended infrequently. They are learning liffe skills out bush but are unable to avail themselves of advantages broader sosciety offers. I feel that there are many who, as adults with desires for their future, would take up the opportunity if it was given to learn these basics so that might have some some view of themselves with an active future.
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Chae Patersn
Apr 19, 2008 10:12 AM 1 0  |
Language is part of the fabric of our belonging and place in the world.
Researching a Masters concerned with Australias' mono-cultural outlook towards its very diverse population of peoples and languages, I was very troubled at the ignorance and void surrounding our diverse histories shared and unshared - disturbed by how unintegrated historical realities that remains denied and mostly unacknowledged. This remains active historically throughout white settlement and within our contemporary ideology and response to race relations. At the time I came across an article written by a local indigenous women in Brisbane, Queensland. The value in her statements provides the crucial reminder to recall the everyday indigenous names and languages for the many living things in our local worlds; such as, our towns names, wildlife, rivers and meeting places, etc., we therefore could encompass an imbricated history between black and white citizens. Most importantly allow a cultural space for a dominant and mainstream culture to integrate that very imbricated history in their own sense of meaning of the landscape and country. Literacy is not just a skill it is a sense of belonging in the everyday life - a sense of self-empowerment in our lives.
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Elliott Forsyth
Apr 19, 2008 06:09 PM 2 0 |
Bilingual education for Aboriginal children
Your comment I support strongly the comments made above concerning the need for bilingual education for Aboriginal children. Those who speak an Aboriginal language in their family will develop much more positively and adapt much more fully to the general culture if they start their education in their own language and move gradually to English as they learn basic concepts.
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