Bilingual Education debate hots up

The NT Stateline program on ABC did a segment on the bilingual education debate that is just getting hotter and hotter. The transcript is good reading.

I'm pleased to say that me and others who are supporting and raising awareness about bilingual education are being heard and maybe even making minor progress. However the Education Minister Marion Scrymgour is still being stubborn and choosing to ignore national and international research that supports bilingual education programs and choosing to deny the rights of remote Indigenous people to determine or influence their own education delivery in their own communities. Shame on her.

She doesn't seem to like me and fellow bilingual education supporters one bit. She's gone on the record saying we are misrepresenting her and off the record she calls us the 'bilingual mafia'. I prefer the term 'people that actually know something about bilingual education (even education in general?)'.

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A conference, language policy and Aboriginal languages in Federal Parliament

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The Oscar-winning Coda and its (mis)representation of interpreting (or, why I almost walked out of the cinema)

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 -...

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that munanga linguist

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