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A few more links

It's my last day at work before my Christmas break and I feel slack. If you want something to procrastinate, here are some things to look at (thanks to Claire for these links): AIATSIS has launched 'AUSTLANG' - a comprehensive database with every Aboriginal and TSI Language. You can find out basic stuff like where each language is, how many speakers there are, how well it's been documented and by who etc. You can also update the info if you're a clever chicken with more info to add. Have a look at AUSTLANG . Jangari is another clever chicken who has been involved in developing Aboriginal language applications for mobile phones. Having already starred on SBS news, he's now in the Sydney Morning Herald . Good work. Speaking of good work, the lobbying and awareness-raising about the effects of the awful four-hours-of-English-instruction-in-NT-schools policy is beginning to pay. The Education Minister has softened a little and is giving schools a year to 

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?)'.

Facebook support from around the world for Bilingual Education in the NT

Last Tuesday, I heard that crack Helen Hughes talking rubbish on ABC radio about Indigenous Education. I got wild and channeled my energy by making a Facebook group called ' Supporters of Bilingual Education in the Northern Territory '. 9 days later, 1000 people have joined the group! I am quite amazed. Even better is that if you flick through the people that have joined the group, they are from all over the world - Scandinavia, South East Asia, America, Europe, South America, Middle East - I don't know how they came to join the group but I'm glad they have. It is very heartening to see the support, but at the same time disappointing that the NT Govt is out of step with so many others around the world that have no trouble accepting and using Bilingual Education as a good way to deliver education.

Words for 'language' in language - help needed!

Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education is putting together a poster to promote the Batchelor of Arts in Language and Linguistics degree. For the poster, they would like to have as many words for ‘language’ in Australian languages as possible. If you’re feeling generous and can think of some off the top of your head, your help would be appreciated. Here’s what I know off the top of my head… yang (Rembarrnga) matha (Yolngu matha) gun-wok (Mayali/Kunwinjku) jaru (Ngarinyman) liiny (Jaminjung) nanggaya (Alawa) daway (Marra) Any additions appreciated!

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! :-)

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.

workshopping

When I'm not moaning about the latest government policy that will have yet another negative effect on remote Aboriginal Australia, I'm actually doing some work. This week I'm running a workshop for my Ngarinyman and Jaminjung students. These languages are endangered and spoken around the Timber Creek area. I've only got five students this week but they're all doing well and are keen. This week, I'm trying to make sure they know their alphabet well (as well as know what an alphabet is!). I'm making sure they can all read a decent amount of basic words. And I'm trying to make sure they know what nouns, verbs and affixes are. Some of the students have no trouble with this stuff but for some it's hard work. What's great is that they're all trying and they're all learning, slowly but surely. And I'm enjoying learning a little bit more Jaminjung and Ngarinyman. Especially Jaminjung. I'd never really heard that language before

Letter writing

Well I finally sent off my letters to a bunch of politicians about this new English teaching policy that pretty much excludes Indigenous languages and bilingual education. It's the first time I've had a go at writing letters to pollies - don't know if it has any effect, but I'm glad I did. I also had a little letter-to-the-ed published in the Katherine Times yesterday which is good. Here are the letters I sent to the pollies - it's in English and Kriol (what better way to make a statement about Indigenous languages and bilingual education than to make your statement bilingual!). Ps. If anyone has any tips on better ways to get such messages to pollies, pls let me know. ---------------------------------------------------- Dear so-n-so, The Northern Territory Minister for Education and Training, Marion Scrymgour, recently issued a directive that the first four hours of education in all NT schools will be conducted in English in an attempt to improve English lite

Friends of Bilingual Learning

Earlier this eyar, an informal network sprung up in the Top End called 'Friends of Bilingual Learning'. This was thanks people who work for the excellent ARDS (Aboriginal Resource Development Services). Also related is Tim Trudgen's blog, found here . I like that the 'Friends of Bilingual Learning' group is about bilingual learning , not just bilingual education. In all my years at Ngukurr, I used the local lingua franca, Kriol, as much as possible while delivering on-the-job training to the language mob there. What better way to describe what orthography or transcription means than to give a Kriol definition! So with the NT Govt's recent implicit attack on Bilingual Education, budding networks like Friends of Bilingual Learning have become rather relevant and important. They've started a Google group which I encourage anyone in the NT (or elsewhere) who is an active supporter of Bilingual education to join. If you join the group, you'll find a b

What is bilingual education?

This thing that came from the Education Minister about having the first four hours of schooling delivered in English has got me really wound up. (Apologies to those who don't want to hear me go on about political stuff again, but I'm seriously on the bandwagon... I'll chill out one day). One thing that winds me up is that when most people hear the new policy they go 'oh great, of course that will improve English outcomes... why have we been stuffing around with Bilingual education'? Too many people I've spoken to over the past few days just haven't understood what the point of Bilingual education is. I've taken it for granted that people know what it is and what it's for. It's not about teaching Indigenous language at the expense of English. A really nice summary of Bilingual Education is found on good old Wikipedia. If you or anyone you know doesn't quite know what Bilingual Education education is about, point them here . Just that si

Bad and ridiculous news from the NT Minister for Education

Anyone involved in NT Education or Aboriginal languages has probably heard this already, but a couple of weeks ago the NT Minister for Education released this , which says that the first four hours of education in all NT Schools will be conducted in English. Obviously this is bad news for any communities who want to maintain or revitalise their own Indigenous language in their own school (before lunch, that is). It is particularly appalling for all those involved in bilingual education - programs that help students engage with their education, including English, by delivering it in their first language (while they are young and haven't learned much English yet). The bilingual programs actually produce better-than-average results in terms of English literacy, especially when they're done well. So does the Minister invest in them further? No. It looks she wants to scrap the whole thing. How ridiculous to think that non-English speakers will learn English purely by immersion

Indigenous TV back on line ... nearly

When they launched NITV (National Indigenous Television) a lot of people were happy but a loud minority were upset because it coincided with the end of years of ICTV (Indigenous Community Television) which did heaps of remote broadcasting, provided training and employment for community mob and provided heaps of broadcasting in Indigenous Languages. Here's a bit of discussion from last year about ICTV's closure. So now we have NITV which is alright (the highlight is seeing familiar faces pop up regularly... especially good when it's 80s footage of ppl very close to you... hehehe), but NITV is very low on Indigenous language content, heavy on urban-based stuff and does little for remote Aboriginal Australia especially in terms of training and employment. The good news is I was sent an email telling me that ICTV is online ... or at least the radio part. Fingers crossed and there'll be lots of deadly language video content online soon.

Unnecessary death - 7:30 report

Check out this story from last night's 7:30 report . (Thanks Maia for the link). It's about a young guy from Bulman who shot himself while being hunted down by police. I know of most of the people quoted in the report. Reading it made me very sad and angry. Awful stuff like this happens far too much around here. I only heard a bit about this story when it happened so I'm glad it's come to light a little. I really hope we learn to do things better one day. Sorry to the family.

more languages!

I'm starting to get ready for next week's week of teaching which involves students from Timber Creek area who speak Ngarinyman and Jaminjung - two languages I know very little about! (Which is fine - I have a tutor and as long as I know the alphabet of those languages, I can put together a workshop). Yesterday when my tutor was telling me a bit about Ngarinyman I freaked out. It's all Pama-Nyungan and weird. Give me pronominal prefixes anyday. heheheheheh.

i'm a bit excited

I'm a bit excited. I have a new job which I'm enjoying quite a bit. It's only my fourth week, but all signs are good. When I started, I had to go to Alice Springs where I had a week of teaching the basics of phonology to 12 Indigenous students from all over Qld and NSW. It was daunting, challenging, exciting, exhausting and best of all - it went well. Since then, I've been settling into my new office in Katherine and preparing for a semester of teaching. I'll be running weeklong workshops about every second week to different groups, but the training I'll be delivering is not too different from what I used to do at Ngukurr - a lot of Indigenous Language Literacy training. Which I enjoy a lot. And I'm excited for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I'm excited because I get to deliver workshops at Ngukurr with all the language mob I used to work with there. It will be so nice going back and it will be so nice to work with that mob while I'm all fres

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

Showing people that the message isn't quite getting through

The other day an interesting message came through the Australian Linguistic Society email server. It's from Gavan Breen and talks about the problem of miscommunication between Aboriginal people who have English as a second language and English speakers, especially public servants. It's a huge problem that I'm well aware of and Gavan is talking about getting the issue out there or doing some research. Here's a copy of Gavan's post: I and some others here at the Institute for Aboriginal Development think there is a need for a study to be done of how well Aboriginal English speakers, especially those who speak it as a second or later language, understand the English of whitefellows, especially public servants and politicians and the like. The latest inspiration for this is a news item: Report finds NT Aboriginal group doesn't understand legal terms However, there was an earlier discussion of this sort of thing, related to the inability of public servants to exp

Floating around

Since finishing from the language centre I've managed to do a few things apart from sitting on the couch (which is where I am now as I write this... I can't help it, Wimbledon's on). I've been floating around doing a few jobs here n there but i've also been taking it easy and slowly figuring out which way to go next. I did some casual work at an art gallery in Katherine - just menial tasks but it was really enjoyable. The art is pretty and I got to hang out with two Warlpiri speakers who taught me a few things. The downside - looking at the horrible spelling of language words all over the gallery. How do you convince ordinary ppl that it's important to get these things right? I tried the 'there are lots of people that can read and write Warlpiri' but it seems that the demands of getting through daily workloads wins over making time to consider Indigenous language spelling conventions. Buhu. I also got myself an ABN (a bit exciting) and lots of info

Ngurrju

Now that I'm in Katherine, I'm around different languages. I've started to learn a little bit of Warlpiri and couple of words of Gurindji. With Warlpiri I've gone back to my learning style I used when I was a kakabum learning Icelandic. I carry around a bit of paper and each day my job is get one English sentence translated into Warlpiri. Forget analysing data and systematic approaches, I'm just learning functional words and sentences. (Well, it's more that I don't have any references that I can look at to analyse my data with!). So last week I learned Nyapara ngaju-nyangu coffee-yiji? (Where's my coffee?). And one of yesterday's sentences was Ngaju karna yani ngurra-kurra (I'm going home). Again, these are all unchecked and just done the best way I could on the spot so don't growl me if I've got something wrong. Although yesterday I cheated and was treated to an excellent 1.5 hour practice of a Warlpiri language training sessio

Now what do i do?

Put your thinking caps on... I need help. I'm an experienced linguist with lots of skills to offer but no job (my employment status is by choice because I'd almost worked myself into the ground). I want to stay in Katherine but I don't know what to do next. Where should I invest my time and energy? Career guidance needed... all suggestions considered! :-)

mela ola munanga linggwismob

Over at Transient Languages and Cultures , there was a bit of discussion in the comments about doing language work in communities. Jane Simpson gave this excellent summation that I thought I'd share (thanks Jane): "It's a balancing act. Scientific researchers are nosy parkers - sometimes that can be good and cause good things to happen with documentation that would not otherwise have happened. Sometimes it can be bad and reduce the quality of the material that might otherwise have been collected. Community researchers almost always have a much better understanding of attitudes and relationships and uses of language, as well as of what their friends and family are hoping for from language work. They may have native speaker intuitions about languages. And it is they who will be working with their communities to keep talking the languages. A damaging situation that can arise is when an outsider linguist comes to be seen as the main source of knowledge about the language. Tha

Nonsense

Today one of my staff came into my office and asked a question that made me laugh. It was funny because the question on the surface makes no sense, but to us two, and a handful of others, it makes perfect sense. Can you figure out what it means? Q: "Wägilak and Rembarrnga... I mean Ritharrŋu... are blue?" A: "Yes." Tee hee.

One-stop shop

I hate the phrase 'one-stop shop'. I don't know why but it makes me want to stab my eardrums and eyeballs with sharp scissors. It's at the top of a list of political/commerce cliches that also features 'touch base' and 'flick me an email'. Oh well, I better get ready for work. I have some 'capacity building' to do.

My old lecturer on Compass

Hey, when I was at Uni I had the acest lecturer who had been learning from Yanyuwa people at Borroloola for a couple of decades. Borroloola and Yanyuwa country are just down the track from Ngukurr. My old lecturer's name is John Bradley and he's being featured on Compass this sunday night (ABC at 9:25pm). Should be worth watching.

Facebook

Poor neglected blog. I blame Facebook. This blog used to be a good way for ppl I know to find out what I'm doing. Now facebook has taken that role and my blog is sadly neglected. That and I'm not being much of a linguist these days. How exciting can it be blogging about reporting to funding bodies or replying to emails. But I'm still here. :-)

good job

Good job to Kevin Rudd for saying sorry. I thought it was a great speech - decisive, clear, honest, to the point and all very reasonable. In the end, it seemed like he was stating the obvious and that apologising was the obvious thing to do. It made me wonder what all the fuss was about with the last government being so stubborn. Seems straightforward to me. Something bad happens, saying sorry can help make it better. Easy. (And I reckon it worked too). Linguistic notes: Did Kevin Rudd say Yabarrah instead of Yarrabah?? When Brendan Nelson talked about 'involuntary sacrifices', is there such a thing? Is a sacrifice something that can only be made under your own volition?

bunyu

I'm still here and still in Katherine being bossy. Thesedays I find myself surrounded by things such as funding applications, budgets, meetings, emails, reports etc. etc. I'm enjoying the change althought it's a lot of work. And I miss the Ngukurr mob and miss being a linguist. But I can't complain because I was really starting to burn out after spending most of the past three years working hard in a remote community. And I'll be going back there before I know it anyway. So hello to anyone still reading this. Today I remembered this classic tidbit I read in the Guardian: Talking about gaffs with interpreters and translators... when Bob Hawke was PM and addressing some important crowd in Japan he used the term 'playing funny buggers'. Apparently this caused a bit of a dilemma with the interpreters who ultimately decided to translate the term 'funny buggers' as 'laughing homosexuals'. hehe.