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! :-)

Comments

Perez said…

Another article on bilingual education in Crikey today:
http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20081120-The-fate-of-Aboriginal-languages.html

12:16 pm

A conference, language policy and Aboriginal languages in Federal Parliament

The other day, I was priveleged in attending a TESOL symposium about 'Keeping Language Diversity Alive'. One of the speakers, Joseph Lo Bianco was excellent and discussed Language Policy. He gave a handout at one of his sessions that I'm going to type out in full here, because it was a real eye-opener. It's from the Official Hansard of the Federal Parliament from a debate that happened on 10/12/98. Here's how it went: Mr SNOWDON: My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware of the decision by the Northern Territory government to phase out bilingual education in Aboriginal schools? Is the Prime Minister also aware that his government funds bilingual education programs in Papua New Guinea and Vietnam? Prime Minister, given that article 26(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children, will you take a direct approach to the Norther

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Ok so I'm a linguist not a movie critic but I am an avid movie-goer - part of the generation of Australians raised by Margaret and David to appreciate cinema and think critically about it. (I've even reviewed a few things on this blog: Short-doco Queen of the Desert , short film Lärr and some discussion of the brilliant Croker Island Exodus here ). At this years Oscars, the film Coda surprised many by taking out Best Picture. It seems like few people have even had a chance to see it. Here in little ol' Katherine, we have a brilliant film society at our local Katherine 3 cinema, where each fortnight we get to watch something a bit different. In late 2021, I had the chance to see Coda there, long before it was thought of as an Oscar contender. Now that Coda is being talked about more than ever before, I wanted to share my experience of watching the film - especially because in one scene in particular, I was so angry that I genuinely considered walking out of the cinema -

Luk mowa >>

that munanga linguist

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