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Showing posts from November, 2008

Facebook support from around the world for Bilingual Education in the NT

Last Tuesday, I heard that crack Helen Hughes talking rubbish on ABC radio about Indigenous Education. I got wild and channeled my energy by making a Facebook group called ' Supporters of Bilingual Education in the Northern Territory '. 9 days later, 1000 people have joined the group! I am quite amazed. Even better is that if you flick through the people that have joined the group, they are from all over the world - Scandinavia, South East Asia, America, Europe, South America, Middle East - I don't know how they came to join the group but I'm glad they have. It is very heartening to see the support, but at the same time disappointing that the NT Govt is out of step with so many others around the world that have no trouble accepting and using Bilingual Education as a good way to deliver education.

Words for 'language' in language - help needed!

Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education is putting together a poster to promote the Batchelor of Arts in Language and Linguistics degree. For the poster, they would like to have as many words for ‘language’ in Australian languages as possible. If you’re feeling generous and can think of some off the top of your head, your help would be appreciated. Here’s what I know off the top of my head… yang (Rembarrnga) matha (Yolngu matha) gun-wok (Mayali/Kunwinjku) jaru (Ngarinyman) liiny (Jaminjung) nanggaya (Alawa) daway (Marra) Any additions appreciated!

Some real media exposure in favour of Bilingual Education

Last night Tom Calma gave a talk in Darwin. He clearly put his support behind communities who want bilingual education in their schools and raised questions about rights abuses if communities aren't allowed to continue bilingual education. Marion Scrymgour was there at the talk but is still standing by her awful new policy for 4-hours-of-English-instruction in all NT schools. Today the story went to national media. Here's what The Age printed . To any linguists reading this (and others), please do what you can to support the cause. Don't let bilingual education fall by the wayside and not say anything about it. Educate people that bilingual education is actually aimed at assisting English acquisition (among other things) and that remote Indigenous education is not just a case of more English=better outcomes. Write letters. Talk to your MPs. Especially federal. Comment on blogs and websites. All help appreciated and needed! :-)

Crikey

Crikey.com has picked up on the NT-Government-kills-off-bilingual-education issue. Check out the article by clicking here . Note in the comments, the same old arguments keep resurfacing about 'they need English to be able to get on in the world'. From reading these comments and comments on other news forums, it seems that lots of people don't get the point of bilingual education. They seem to read 'bilingual' and think 'lack of English' or 'no English'. It is very frustrating that many people are simply overlooking the fact that 'bilingual' means two languages, and that one of the main goals of bilingual education is to improve English acquisition. Grrr... how frustrating... all you have to do is wikipedia 'bilingual education' and it's there plain as day what the point of it is and how good it can be.

workshopping

When I'm not moaning about the latest government policy that will have yet another negative effect on remote Aboriginal Australia, I'm actually doing some work. This week I'm running a workshop for my Ngarinyman and Jaminjung students. These languages are endangered and spoken around the Timber Creek area. I've only got five students this week but they're all doing well and are keen. This week, I'm trying to make sure they know their alphabet well (as well as know what an alphabet is!). I'm making sure they can all read a decent amount of basic words. And I'm trying to make sure they know what nouns, verbs and affixes are. Some of the students have no trouble with this stuff but for some it's hard work. What's great is that they're all trying and they're all learning, slowly but surely. And I'm enjoying learning a little bit more Jaminjung and Ngarinyman. Especially Jaminjung. I'd never really heard that language before

Letter writing

Well I finally sent off my letters to a bunch of politicians about this new English teaching policy that pretty much excludes Indigenous languages and bilingual education. It's the first time I've had a go at writing letters to pollies - don't know if it has any effect, but I'm glad I did. I also had a little letter-to-the-ed published in the Katherine Times yesterday which is good. Here are the letters I sent to the pollies - it's in English and Kriol (what better way to make a statement about Indigenous languages and bilingual education than to make your statement bilingual!). Ps. If anyone has any tips on better ways to get such messages to pollies, pls let me know. ---------------------------------------------------- Dear so-n-so, The Northern Territory Minister for Education and Training, Marion Scrymgour, recently issued a directive that the first four hours of education in all NT schools will be conducted in English in an attempt to improve English lite

Friends of Bilingual Learning

Earlier this eyar, an informal network sprung up in the Top End called 'Friends of Bilingual Learning'. This was thanks people who work for the excellent ARDS (Aboriginal Resource Development Services). Also related is Tim Trudgen's blog, found here . I like that the 'Friends of Bilingual Learning' group is about bilingual learning , not just bilingual education. In all my years at Ngukurr, I used the local lingua franca, Kriol, as much as possible while delivering on-the-job training to the language mob there. What better way to describe what orthography or transcription means than to give a Kriol definition! So with the NT Govt's recent implicit attack on Bilingual Education, budding networks like Friends of Bilingual Learning have become rather relevant and important. They've started a Google group which I encourage anyone in the NT (or elsewhere) who is an active supporter of Bilingual education to join. If you join the group, you'll find a b