A gift for languages improves class results

Posted May 09, 2012 18:11:08

Next time your child gets 50 per cent on a test at school, you may want to count your blessings.

For many Australian children, even being able to write an answer in the test is an achievement because the tests are conducted in English, not in their first language or in one of about 20 surviving Indigenous languages.

A parliamentary inquiry has been travelling around the country aiming to determine the potential impacts of including Indigenous languages in early education.

Labor MP Shayne Neumann, who chaired the committee, says Aboriginal children are disadvantaged because they are not tested in their first language, the one they learn at home.

"They go to school and all of a sudden they're taught in English and they're not used to it so by the age of six or seven they're often quite disadvantaged in school and they fall behind and have to catch up," he said.

"One of the things we're concentrating on is how can we make sure there are better outcomes for these kids?

"What can we do to empower and equip teachers who go into these communities?"

A Tjupan woman born in Leonora, Barbara McGillivray, who is also the chair of the Federation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages and Culture, spoke at the inquiry hearing in Broome.

"Without our languages we haven't got our true identity," she said.

"I believe sincerely that the reasons why some of our people have problems, and people in other cultures too, is that if you've lost your language, you've lost your cultural identity."


Ms McGillivray says it should be mandatory to teach Aboriginal languages in school and they should be introduced early.

"Having that language in kindy and taught as part of the curriculum and not in the fourth term, and not on the okay of the principal being able to make the decision," she said.

In her former teaching days, she says the option proved popular.

"I've taught in the school system and when they had the opportunity to do the Wangatha language, the kids couldn't wait to do it," she said.

"They jumped at the chance and once they got into it they didn't want to stop but they had to because we were only allowed to do it for that five weeks.

"It proved that the parents were quite excited too about the kids coming home and teaching them words that they might've learnt from their buddies at school."

Ms McGillivray says Aboriginal languages should be offered as a subject as regularly as Italian, Indonesian or French.

"I believe it should be taught; if we go to another country, we've got to learn about their country," she said.

"People come to Australia, why not learn about the first people of this country?"

There are a number of WA schools teaching Aboriginal languages.

A principal consultant with the state's education department, Wendy Hewitt, says schools are making headway to increase their offerings.

"At the moment we have about 17 Aboriginal languages being taught across 48 Western Australian public schools in remote, urban, rural and metropolitan regions," she said.

"It's a co-operative effort between the school and the Aboriginal community to decide what Aboriginal language will be taught in that school and then a speaker needs to be identified who can actually teach that language.

"Some of our programs start for kindy and pre-primary students and they run right through to the high schools.

"It really does depend on the school's capacity to provide a language teacher."

Mr Neumann says, however, not enough is being done.

"What we've seen so far is that programs are fragmented, underfunded, siloed and often there are too many pilot programs," he said.

"So, I think there are some big challenges."

Fluent speakers

Ms Hewitt says one of the main challenges is the availability of fluent Aboriginal language speakers.

"Many of the Aboriginal languages we have in the schools are in what we call a revitalisation stage so we need to find people in the communities who can speak the languages and then train them up so they can work in our schools," she said.

It's a problem not just confined to schools.

Barbara McGillivray points out many more Aboriginal languages used to exist.

"There used to be so many more and it's not spoken as fluently and it's a matter of trying to encourage our young people to work with the old people to want to learn their languages," she said.

She is one of those doing her bit to pass on her childhood language to her grandkids.

"We speak Wangai at home, not fluently, but we use words every day and then they've got to go and find out what the words mean through the dictionary.

"And, if kids speak their own language, if they grew up like that, they'd have a better learning outcome."

Shayne Neumann says attempts are being made to revive Indigenous languages.

"In a lot of places the local language has actually lay dormant but there's effort being made in schools and community groups to actually resuscitate that and revive it," he said.

"Kids need, for their vocational and financial security, to understand English but one of the sad things about Australia [is] that at the time of white settlement we had about 250 viable languages.

"Now, there's only about 20 that are continually spoken in various areas so we've seen a loss in those languages and I think, as a country, we've had a disconnect from that and we've suffered as a result."

Lighting up

Ms McGillivray says groundwork is being done to promote Indigenous languages.

"There's a lot of good people, especially in the Perth region, that are heavily involved in language work and I'm sure they'd love to go into the other schools to be able to teach those languages," she said.

"I do know in Broome they teach the Yawuru language and it's absolutely fantastic because it's just a young person."

Ms Hewitt says teachers see the children light up.

"The benefits the Aboriginal kids get from learning their own languages are the self esteem they get because they're doing something they're proud of, they're doing something to engage in their culture," she said.

The kids are also keen to come to school as a result.

Shayne Neumann says there are also other encouraging signs.

"We've got evidence where people are walking down the street and have heard local young Indigenous and non-Indigenous people using the language they'd learnt as a child, in say, daily life and talking and singing songs in it," he said.

"It brings back a sense of the culture, the heritage of our indigenous people and it's just so important."

The national school curriculum, which is due to be fully implemented in WA by the end of 2014, is also expected to contain a focus on teaching Indigenous languages.

While the inquiry and the curriculum may make changes, people like Barbara McGillivray will continue their hard work on the ground and in communities to revive Aboriginal languages.

"It's important that we stand up for our rights, that our languages need to be heard and need to be saved in this country."

Topics: indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, parliament, broome-6725, perth-6000, kalgoorlie-6430, karratha-6714, geraldton-6530