By Adrienne Francis
Intercultural training for teachers, teaching assistants and principals is vital, research finds.
New research has found the performance of Indigenous students could be significantly improved by ensuring all teachers, teaching assistants and principals receive thorough intercultural training.
The inter-cultural training being suggested aims to ensure all parties understand and respect the differences between cultures.
Associate Professor Lyn Fasoliof the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education led a four year collaborative study that has produced a report titled, “Linking Worlds – Strengthening the Leadership Capacity of Indigenous Educational Leaders.”
“Nearly 40 per cent of our kids are Indigenous and many of them are in those remote communities.
“And yet we have a fairly mainstream leadership approach.
“We basically said a different form of leadership is needed to address the cultural differences and the cultural contexts of these remote Indigenous schools.”
On the 9th of August the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts together with the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs released media statement and policy document on Indigenous Languages.
Nicolas Rothwell reviews Nicolas Evans new book Dying Languages.
Languages are dying with startling rapidity. Linguist Nicholas Evans explains why it matters, writes Nicolas Rothwell.
Courier Mail article by Peter Michael and Natalie Gregg
He is a living relic and an ancient linguistic treasure.Kuku Thaypan elder Tommy George, 82, is the sole surviving fluent speaker of his language.
Kuku Thaypan elder Tommy George. Picture: Brian Cassey Photography
“I’m the last of them,” said the son of an Aboriginal king. “Everybody knows that.”
When the famed tracker dies, 48,000 years of oral history – from beyond the Dreamtime – dies with him.
Kuku Thaypan, one of four Aboriginal languages spoken in Quinkan country on Cape York, is destined for extinction like 120 other dialects lost across Australia since European settlement.
Despite efforts of academics, the primordial tongue and ancient secrets of the old healer handed down from generation to generation will likely vanish.
It is estimated that of more than 300 specific Aboriginal languages in use pre-British arrival, there will be fewer than 100 left by 2050.
The United Nations cultural agency UNESCO says more than 100 languages in Australia are in danger of extinction.
The latest edition of UNESCO’s atlas of world languages in danger was launched in Paris yesterday and shows almost half the 6,700 languages spoken worldwide could disappear.
Sarah Cutfield from the Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies says the map is a great resource for those working to preserve traditional languages.
Unesco Endangered languages Worldmap (9M PDF)
Putting the hope into Hopevale
Greg Sheridan, Foreign editor, The Australian | November 15, 2008
THREE little boys, aged about eight or nine, are sitting in front of a computer. One is manipulating the mouse, one operating the keyboard and one is half-reading a picture book while he also looks at the computer. What are they looking at?
The Fraser Coast Chronicle’s major win in the 2008 United Nations Association Media Peace Awards turned into the triumph of the evening.
The packed room at Melbourne’s Arts Centre burst into spontaneous and prolonged applause, even with cheers, when ABC TV’s Kerry O’Brien announced the Fraser Coast Chronicle, the Butchulla people and the sponsors of the paper’s weekly series “Let’s Learn Butchulla: Hands in Time, Journeying Together” had won the Promotion of Aboriginal Reconciliation award.
Cooktown Local News, Wednesday, October 22, 2008. Page 7.
By Sarah Martin
EFFORTS are being made to save the Waymburr area’s ancient Aboriginal dialect before it disappears forever.
“We are fast losing words and older speakers and the young people aren’t fluent in the language,” warned Guugu Yimidhirr elder Eric Deeral.
“There was once about 600 fluent speakers, mainly at Hope Vale, but today the number has dwindled.”
Traditional owners have joined the State Library of Queensland in a bid to preserve the language before it is too late – and they want the community’s help.
Read the full article: Bid to Save Ancient Languange
From Government News Magazine.
The Alice Springs-based group who created Ngapartji Ngapartji (a play which has sold out to national audiences and is a 2008 nominee for a prestigious Deadly Award), are calling on the Federal Government to urgently introduce a National Indigenous Languages policy.
The group released a discussion paper to Government in late July and are concerned that they haven’t yet heard a response.
People from language communities around Queensland came together at a forum in Brisbane recently. The meeting at the State Library of Queensland was coordinated as part of the Queensland Indigenous Languages Advisory Committee 2008 planning workshop, and allowed those who came to see and hear a range of ideas for reviving and teaching languages.
While in Brisbane some of the team were invited to 98.9fm to record the morning “Lets Talk” program with Friday morning presenter Karen Durante. The one hour interview can be heard from the 98.9fm website.
Pictured at the 98.9fm studio are Jedda Priman, Bridget Priman, William Holden and Christopher Kennedy with presenter Karen Durante.