Jane Simpson [Update: in Crikey 14/11/08 there’s a good story by Samanti de Silva from the Areyonga community NT, on the community’s concern about the decision to abandon bilingual education. It links to a letter signed by around 35 community members saying among other things: “Learning in Pitjantjatjara first helps our children to learn better. It helps … Read more
Further on the decision of the NT Government to require schools to teach the first four hours of each day in English.. a media release from Misty Adoniou, President of the Australian Council of TESOL Assocations (ACTA), the peak body for professional associations for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.
Ignorant decisions exacerbate declining outcomes for Indigenous learners
Today on ABC Radio National there were two broadcasts of interest to TLC readers: Lingua Franca had Patrick McConvell talking about the need for a National Indigenous Languages policy, (MP3 here, transcript here). It’s a clear summary of the perilous state of Australian Indigenous languages and of the way present government policy is imperilling them … Read more
[ Update: David Wilkins has just published an article W(h)ither language, culture and education in remote Indigenous communities of the Northern Territory? in the Australian Review of Public Affairs (October 2008) on the topic which is well worth the read as it covers some of the research into bilingualism, bilingual education and the cognitive advantages. … Read more
PARADISEC’s director Linda Barwick has been raising the alarm for years about the way media are becoming obsolete because the machines to read them are dying. So it was very sad to hear the death-rattle on the CHILDES list in this message from Brian MacWhinney Dear Colleagues, It appears that we are now just about … Read more
Richard Trudgen of the Aboriginal Resource Development Service Inc (ARDS, working with Yolngu people of north-eastern Arnhem Land) has an interesting discussion paper on the Federal Intervention in the Northern Territory.
It’s called ‘Are We Heading in the Right Direction? “Closing the Gap” or “Making it Bigger”?[.pdf] [Thanks Greg for pointing it out!] He gave the paper [1] just before the NT Minister for Education, Marion Scrymgour, announced the plan to make all schools teach in English for the first four hours every day (see posts by Inge Kral and Felicity Meakins), but much of what he says is directly relevant to that policy.
One of his basic arguments is that in places like Arnhem Land much of the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in areas such as education, health, etc stems from a failure of communication. Yolngu often don’t understand what non-Indigenous people are telling them, and vice versa. But the consequences are much worse for the Yolngu who, so Trudgen says, are living in nightmarish confusion. Bureaucrats/teachers/police etc. are irritated by communication breakdown, but it doesn’t affect their day-to-day lives so much.
The Minister’s response to this breakdown is to tell Indigenous people “Learn English”. That’s what Governor George Gawler told the Indigenous inhabitants of Adelaide in 1840. Trudgen’s response is to tell the non-Indigenous people who go to work in Arnhem Land “Learn Yolngu Matha” [or the relevant local language].
“All teachers, police officers, health personnel, administrators, miners, and contractors entering Aboriginal lands, should attempt to learn the language of the people, as does the Australian Army before sending soldiers into East Timor, Afghanistan and other non-English speaking places”. [2]
Learning a language is difficult, hard work and takes time, so that it is unlikely that many non-Indigenous people will adopt Trudgen’s approach. The Minister’s approach,has behind it a kind of realism (for access to information the Yolngu must learn English), and above all the weight of the mass media (predominantly English-speaking) and the concerned but ill-informed opinionati (such as Helen Hughes). Unfortunately they mostly fail to recognise that the same reasons why the average Darwin journalist/NT teacher/bureaucrat doesn’t bother learning Indigenous languages (difficult, hard work and takes time) apply to Indigenous people.
[from Eva Schultze-Berndt, School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, University of Manchester]
This is to remind you of the upcoming Australianist workshop at the University of Manchester. As the interest seems to be high and 12 December was a better date for some participants, the workshop will start on Friday 12 December around noon and continue for all or most of the day on Saturday 13 December.
So far I received two abstracts (thank you!). I still welcome abstracts on the theme of “Prosody and information structure” but it looks as if many contributions will be on other topics, so feel free to offer a presentation on any topic of interest to Australianists (and possibly others!).
Please let me know as soon as possible if you are interested in presenting, or just attending as a participant. If you would like to present a paper, please send me a title and abstract ASAP. I will then get back to you with a preliminary program and accommodation information by the end of October.
I’m looking forward to seeing many of you in Manchester soon.
Eva Schultze-Berndt
E-mail: eva.schultze-berndt AT manchester.ac.uk
[From our kartiya in Washington, Barry Alpher]
In a query to David Nash’s posting (4 October) on munanga ‘white person’ in languages of Arnhem Land, Joe Blythe asks “So what about kartiya [the term for ‘white person’ in a number of Ngumpin-Yapa languages]? Any ideas?”
Here are a couple.
At least three languages attest kartiya: Walmajarri, Gurindji, and Warlpiri (in the form kardiya). Mudburra attests kardiba in the same meaning, and Gurindji attests kartipa as a variant of kartiya. (Note that in view of the Gurindji change *rt > r [Pat McConvell, pers. comm.; see under *kartu below], both of these Gurindji variants must be reckoned as loans.)
[ from Inge Kral, Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, The Australian National University ]
On Tuesday October 14 Marion Scrymgour, the Northern Territory Minister for Education and Training, announced a greater emphasis on teaching English in NT DET remote community schools. Why? Because she is “committed to making the changes needed to improve attendance rates and lift the literacy and numeracy results in our remote schools” as the literacy results in remote schools are still “unacceptable” while the results being achieved in Darwin, Alice Springs are comparable to schools in similar parts of Australia. So what is the aim here? To improve English oracy, literacy and numeracy, and to increase the employability of Indigenous youth in the real economy, one assumes.
For those of us who have worked in Indigenous education on the ground in remote areas over the past few decades, it is clear that these policy decisions are not evidence-based. Yes, English is important, however a critical flaw in the argument is that more “teaching” in English will not necessarily equate to better “learning” of English. Rather, the best path to increasing remote Indigenous students’ English involves increasing the relevance of what is offered to students and communities, and paying more attention to the provision of meaningful post-school contexts that allow for application of the learning. To assume that increasing the requirement in remote schools to spend more hours of the day teaching English, in English, by non-Indigenous teachers who speak English only will increase school attendance and lift literacy and numeracy rates is way off the mark. Furthermore, literacy levels are comparable whether a school teaches in English or the children’s own language for the first four hours of the day – only 10 out of 55 remote schools are bilingual, and there is considerably more community commitment to the children’s education in the bilingual schools than in non-bilingual. Communities want bilingual education [1] – why is this government not listening to them?
[From Andrea L. Berez, University of California, Santa Barbara]
A few weeks ago in Uppsala, Nick Thieberger and I gave a talk on the need for digital standards and training in language documentation. During the Q-and-A, a distinguished member of the audience asked us, “How do you suggest we go about making communities do all the things you’ve been talking about?”
He was referring to the examples I had just been discussing regarding Alaska, where local (i.e., non-university) efforts at documentation and archiving are underway in several villages. He wanted to know how we, as linguists, can convince speaker community members to take up arms in the race for documentation and revitalization. After a moment’s consideration, I could only reply, “I’ve never had any luck making the community do anything.”
Although it may have seemed like a flippant response at the time, it was also a true one: any time I have been involved in proactively bringing technological standards and digital language-related activities to Alaskan communities, the result has always been different from what I expected.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge proponent of local training in language technology, and I’ve actively participated some of that training myself. I believe knowledge is power, and I don’t subscribe to the notion that technology is somehow harmful or hegemonic. I consider it my responsibility to pass on my technical skills to anyone who wants to know. What I’m saying is that in my experience, attempts to introduce academic ideals about the “proper” way to do language documentation into the speaker community when nobody’s asked for it has led to frustration.
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