Incorporating Indigenous language perspectives in the new Australian curriculum

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Incorporating Indigenous language perspectives in
the new Australian curriculum

• Presentation to
• By Dr Jaky Troy
• Education, University of Canberra
• 18 September 2010, 9.30-12.30
• National Museum of Australia

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• How can we make a difference for Aboriginal and
  Torres Strait Islander students? By...

http//www.reconciliationsa.org.au/learn20map.htm
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Languages and the National Curriculum ACARA

• I am co-writing the National Languages
  Curriculum Shape Paper for the Australian
  Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Authority
  (ACARA).
• It includes a central focus on inclusion of
  Australian languages, ie Aboriginal and Torres
  Strait Islander languages in the curriculum.
  Australian languages are understood in the
  document as including contact languages,
  including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
  Englishes.
• ACARA will develop a national framework for
  teaching Australian languages from this paper.

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Shape of the Australian curriculum languages

• The development of the initial advice paper for
  Languages has commenced. This paper provides
  advice on curriculum design and will be the
  subject of consultation at a national forum to be
  held in August. The initial advice will inform
  the Shape of the Australian Curriculum Languages
  that, following a broad-based consultation, will
  be used to guide curriculum writers in the
  languages learning area.
• Associate Professor Angela Scarino was appointed
  as lead writer to complete this work. Dr Jakelin
  Troy has been recently appointed to assist her by
  writing the sections relating to Aboriginal and
  Torres Strait Islander Languages. Dr Troy holds
  the position of Assistant Professor, Curriculum
  Studies, Faculty of Education, University of
  Canberra. Associate Professor Angela Scarino and
  Dr Jakelin Troy will draft the initial advice
  with the support of an advisory group.
  http//www.acara.edu.au/acara_update_30032010.html
  

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cross curriculum perspectives

• In developing the Australian curriculum, ACARA
  has identified three cross-curriculum
  perspectives which are to be represented in the
  learning areas in ways that are appropriate to
  that area. These perspectives are (as outlined
  in The Shape of the Australian Curriculum p. 13)
•  
• Indigenous perspectives, which will be written
  into the national curriculum to ensure that all
  young Australians have the opportunity to learn
  about, acknowledge and respect the history and
  culture of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait
  Islanders
• a commitment to sustainable patterns of living
  which will be reflected in curriculum documents
• skills, knowledge and understandings related to
  Asia and Australias engagement with Asia.
• The curriculum documents will be explicit on how
  the perspectives are to be dealt with in each
  learning area and how links can be made between
  learning areas.

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Language is an essential part of being Aboriginal

• On the Dharug language website
  http//www.dharug.dalang.com.au created by
  Richard Green, traditional owner of the language,
  you can hear Aboriginal people in Redfern talking
  passionately about the critical importance of
  language to them as Aboriginal people.

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What are the Indigenous languages of Australia?
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Ecology of the languages

• Linguists estimate that there are about 250
  Australian languages and many more dialects of
  these languages
• Of these there are now a small number, maybe even
  less than 30, which are still used as the first
  languages of everyday communication for their
  communities or language owners. Most of these
  languages are in the northern territory, South
  Australia, north western Australia, north
  Queensland and the Torres Straits.
• However, all over Australia the owners of the
  other languages are working to revitalise their
  languages and reclaim them as languages of
  everyday communication.
• Languages that seemed to have no speakers only a
  few years ago now have active speaker/revitaliser
  communities.
• For example, when I was researching Dharug, in
  the 1980s, that language seemed to be completely
  moribund. Now it has its own website that you
  saw above (actually 2 websites because the
  historical documents for the language are also
  online see http//williamdawes.org/), schools
  programs, you can download the language onto your
  phone and Richard Green and others regularly give
  public addresses in the language (and this is
  just a quick survey of its recent ecology)

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The other Indigenous languages of Australia
deadly lingo, unna

• Often put down, even by their own speakers, as
  being inferior to the vernacular languages the
  contact languages are the other Indigenous
  languages of Australia.
• These languages are the pidgins, creoles and
  Aboriginal Englishes that developed first in the
  colonial period of Australia history and
  continued to develop into the first or part of
  the repertoire of first languages of Aboriginal
  and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
• Far from being inferior languages these are
  dynamic and exciting communicative responses to
  the mix of languages and peoples that have made
  Australia the culturally diverse and
  linguistically rich environment in which we now
  live.

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Pidgin

• Pidgins are languages that develop when there is
  a population of people speaking between them 3 or
  more mother tongues but not sharing any in
  common and who are unexpectedly thrown
  together. Typically this happens in, for
  example, an early colonial or a trading
  situation.
• At first people respond with idiosyncratic
  linguistic responses such as speaking in unstable
  jargon.
• However, when a jargon begins to stabilise and
  regular grammatical features and vocabulary are
  distinguishable this is the beginning
  pidginisation and a new language.
• For my doctoral thesis I investigated the
  development of the first pidgin language in the
  Pacific which had its inception in Sydney, the
  first European (British) colony in the Pacific.
  A pidgin language appears to have developed very
  quickly, within the first decade of the colony.
  The mix was, at least, English, Irish and
  Australian languages.
• This first pidgin in Australia, indeed the
  Pacific, I called NSW Pidgin.
• NSW Pidgin appears to be the base for all other
  Australian pidgins and possibly all other Pacific
  pidgins.
• It is also the basis for all Australian creole
  languages and Aboriginal Englishes.

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Creole

• When children grow up speaking a pidgin as their
  first or one of their first languages and it
  becomes a mother tongue the pidgin then
  creolises.
• The word creole was adapted by linguists from
  the same word which was coined to refer to people
  of French origin born in colonial French
  countries. These creoles are French but with
  local adaptations.
• As successive generations grow up speaking a
  creolising pidgin the communicative repertoire
  and complexity of the language expands. It
  becomes a natural language in the sense that
  all languages with long linguistic history are
  complex and able to be used for all communicative
  purposes.
• In Australia it is unlikely that any contact
  languages are still pidgins, all the pidgins
  have creolised. Their names reflect this fact,
  so we have, for example, Kriol of the Northern
  Territory and Broken or Torres Strait Creole.

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Englishes

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Englishes
  are usually described as varying from heavy to
  light.
• The heaviest forms are so far removed from
  Standard Australian English (SAE) that they might
  be unintelligible to an English speaker, calling
  into question their status as dialects or
  varieties of English.
• The lightest forms are so close to SAE that
  they call into question what is it about them
  that sets them apart.
• A recent study of Aboriginal Englishes in
  Canberra preschools found that children were not
  operating in an obviously Aboriginal or Torres
  Strait Islander variety of English. However,
  they were affected by the lack of program content
  specific to their cultural background. So
  children might sound like any other preschool
  child but what they are thinking and talking
  about is different and is based on their own
  cultural background. (University of New
  Englands Dr Liz Ellis led the research ACTAE
  Review and research the impact of Aboriginal
  English (or Torres Strait Creole) on learning
  outcomes for Indigenous children in ACT
  preschools and preschool programs. Funded by the
  ACT Department of Education and Training.
  http//www.une.edu.au/staff/eellis4.php)

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Engaging Aboriginal children with language they
understand and use everyday

• Yirra and her deadly dog, Demon by Anita Heiss
  and the students of La Perouse Public School
  (2007, Sydney Allen and Unwin) is of the best
  books I have seen lately that uses lingo.
• Dr Anita Heiss is a member of the Wiradjuri
• nation of central NSW and is a high profile
  author, Kids at La Perouse Public School
• poet, social commentator and cultural
  activist. http//www.laperouse-p.schools.nsw.edu.
  au/sws/view/36302.node

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Language as cultural expression

• Even more importantly, in this book Anita uses
  language and cultural context as a basis for
  engaging Aboriginal children with reading, as a
  springboard for their own writing and as a great
  starting point for discussion and exploring their
  own communities.
• This book could be read by Aboriginal or Torres
  Strait Islander children anywhere in Australia
  and it would resonate with them on many counts
  for its connections between people, between
  people and country, the style of the language,
  the pace of life and the cultural knowledge that
  is continuously and easily being passed between
  adults and children.
• Its a quick walk across the Mission to her own
  home in Goolagong Place. As she walks, Yirra
  thinks about the stories her grandparents have
  told her about how Koories were forced to live on
  the Mission in the old days because the
  government said so. Now the Mish is home and
  they wouldnt live anywhere else its so close
  to the beach and all their friends. (Heiss et
  al 200714) People and country what else do we
  need?!
• For us as educators the school gets good press
  too, which is always positive in building
  student, teacher and school relationships.
• Yirra wakes up on Thursday and springs out of
  bed...its the day of her class excursion to
  Botany Bay National Park. Yirras in such a rush
  to get to school she almost forgets her cap and
  she doesnt even stop to look for her missing
  iPod. ...When the old bus finally pulls in to
  Botany Bay, Rodney, an Aboriginal Discovery
  Ranger and David the Sites Officer from the local
  Aboriginal Land Council are waiting for them.
  They show them heaps of important cultural sites.
  The kids get pretty excited when Rodney and
  David show them where the local Koories used to
  sharpen their axes. The boys all jostle each
  other to get a good view of the axe-grinding
  grooves. Yirras more interested in the middins.
  ...How was the excursion, Yirra? Too
  deadly, we had a great time. (pp61-62)

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Aboriginal English features of the text

• The text is largely in standard English but
  throughout the book the characters use typically
  Aboriginal English address forms such as Aunty
  and Uncle, Nan and Pop as extended respect
  terms. Uncle Laddie throws the boomerang...
  The crowd gathered around the stall clap at Uncle
  Laddies throwing style and one of the local
  Elders, Aunty Beryl, says, He throws it just
  like World Champion Boomerang Thrower Uncle Joe
  Timbery used to. (Heiss et all 200723)
• We all live in mobs and things are grouped in
  mobs, Our mob originally came from Wreck Bay,
  down the south coast near Jervis Bay, Pop Eddy
  tells the class. (p32)
• Anything that is of value and loved is deadly
  and we are all fellas. So Yirra and her
  friends exchange the following - Im staying
  at Grandma Trishs tonight, you fellas wanna stay
  too? Yirra asks... Is she making her deadly
  chocolate-chip cookies? Theyre the best. Mary
  looks at Yirra and they both say Mmmmmmm at the
  same time and then laugh. (pp11-12)
• The names in the book are all typically
  Aboriginal typical now. So the kids are
  Yirra, Jarrod, and Kilarlia... etc (p41) and
  Yirras name means sun.
• At the end of the book Anita kindly includes a
  glossary with further insight into Lingo and
  cultural terms.

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Strategies for including contact languages into
teaching programs

• Neil Harrisons Teaching and learning in
  Indigenous education (2010, Melbourne Oxford
  University Press) is full of wisdom on all
  aspects of education for and about Aboriginal and
  Torres Strait Islander peoples.

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Wisdom from Neil Harrison

• Aboriginal English is the language spoken at
  home by many Aboriginal students. It is also the
  first language for most Aboriginal people in
  Australia (Eades 2004). Aboriginal English is
  not just a way of talking among Aboriginal
  people it is a way of thinking and behaving.
  Aboriginal English helps Aboriginal people to
  pass on their culture from adult to child. The
  words carry the culture. The dialect is often
  used by its speakers as a way of maintaining a
  group identity. Speaking Aboriginal English
  brings like-minded people together, but it also
  excludes others. (Harrison, 201085)
• I agree with Harrison that there are many
  benefits in learning two dialects together, and
  it is well demonstrated that learning two
  languages together is an advantage for life for
  all students. So learning a creole or a dialect
  of and Indigenous English and SAE can only
  benefit Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
  students and their fellow students.
• Harrison quotes Jeff Siegel (a pidgin-creolist I
  have known throughout my career and partner of
  Diana Eades who is famous for her work on
  Aboriginal Englishes is writing that when
  students learn two dialects together, they are in
  a position to examine the patterns of speech,
  rules of grammar, vocabulary, sounds, and tonal
  features of their own dialect and observe how
  they differ from those of the second dialect (or
  the dialect of other students). A discussion of
  these differences can allow students to separate
  the two dialects, rather than confuse them
  because the dialects are perceived to be similar.
  Students first dialects would provide them with
  a metalanguage, a way of talking about and
  analysing standard English). This would help
  students to reduce the interference from
  Aboriginal English in the acquisition of Standard
  English, rather than increase the interference,
  as is sometimes feared. (p92)

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Recognise and teach Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Englishes and creoles

• Harrison works through four strategies for
  incorporating Aboriginal English into teaching
  programs (see pp92-96).
• My personal preference is for the bold and
  inclusive fourth strategy that advocates for
  schools recognising Aboriginal English through
  the whole school in all contexts and teaching the
  differences between Aboriginal English dialects
  and SAE to all students.
• This strategy bestows a dignity and value to the
  English dialects used by Aboriginal students and
  mitigates against the endless deficit models
  applied to so many aspects of Aboriginal
  students performance at school.
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Englishes
  and creoles are not deficit dialects or languages
  they are rich communicative systems that if
  treated as such within the school context can
  assist your students to develop proficiency in
  spoken and written SAE.