Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Adriano said…
What gets me is hearing it from some teachers. And many people adamantly argue over this, refusing to listen to reason, research and most of all....the RIGHT to be educated your home lingo. By nature, we all assume so much in our lives and take things for granted, but this neo-assimilationist move is glaringly obvious and so very important. To all these people who believe that the quickest path to SAE literacy (functional and the rest) and social 'improvement' is by denying people their right to at least bilingual ed., I ask... please: prove it.

Popular posts from this blog

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

The pitiful state of Recommendation 11.6 of the NT Fracking (Pepper) Inquiry

Today the NT Government announced that it's ok to start fracking the Beetaloo Basin, claiming that all 135 recommendations from the 2018 Pepper Inquiry report have been met and, therefore, fracking can proceed.  Most of the recommendations - and you can go through them all here:  Action items | Hydraulic Fracturing in the Northern Territory  - are outside my field of expertise as a linguist. There's a lot of regulatory stuff, things about the mining industry, stuff about land and water management that others know much more about than me.  However, as a linguist working in the Katherine Region for 20 years, there is one recommendation that sits in my wheelhouse so, after today's announcement, I wanted to take a look at it. It's Recommendation 11.6, which says: That in collaboration with the Government, Land Councils and AAPA, an independent, third-party designs and implements an information program to ensure that reliable, accessible, trusted and accurate information ab

Subtle features of Aboriginal English that I love: agreeing or confirming by copying

Linguists aren't supposed to play favourites, but I love Aboriginal English. Maybe because it's what the love of my life speaks and separating language from people and society isn't a realistic prospect. I'm lucky to regularly be around Aboriginal people speaking English in all sorts of ways and privileged to have insights into some of the more subtle ways in which Aboriginal ways of using English differ from the suburban white English I grew up speaking.  I want to share some of these more subtle features. Not just because I am fond of them but also because they seem to be features that escape the attention of most academic discussions of Aboriginal English / Aboriginal ways of using English. I'm going to skip over the complexities of what Aboriginal English is (and isn't) and also if/why that label is worth using at all (a chapter I wrote on Aboriginal English(es) dips into some of that discussion - email me if you want a copy). For brevity's sake, let