Bilingual Education in Australia (original) (raw)
Bilingual Education vs English-only Approach at Australia’s Northern Territory Schools
REiLA : Journal of Research and Innovation in Language
The present library research highlights the “English-only” approach used in the Aboriginal classrooms in Northern Territory (NT) schools, Australia. This library study collects its data from five decades (1968-2018) of research and theorisation on the implementation of English instruction at Indigenous classrooms in Australia by referring to the changes of approaches from bilingual instruction policy to the current “English-only” approach. The writer then reports the problems occurred in the implementation of this approach in the specific classroom interaction. Factors like socio-cultural gap and dysfunctional discourse were found to be influencing the ineffective English-only classroom in the NT schools. What alternatives may have been tried in the Northern territory schools and to what degree of success?
History of Bilingual Education in the Northern Territory
Language policy, 2017
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International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 2005
This paper deals with the author's recent work on political, sociolinguistic and educational aspects of bilingual and immersion education in Australia. Among the cases considered are: the development of a professional position statement on bilingual and immersion education, to be disseminated to policy makers; advising on an Auslan (Australian language of the Deaf) bilingual programme; and a proposed investigation of why there are no Italian late immersion programmes in Victoria, despite the importance of Italian as a community language of long standing. Several aspects of heritage/community language education in Australia will be discussed: political issues of programme staffing and funding; the impact of sociolinguistic factors, relating to a particular community language and how it is viewed by its own and other communities, on the types of programmes that will be undertaken; and the effect of educational decisions taken by school administrators on the language learning experiences of children in immersion programmes.
Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 2011
This article analyses the status and future of bilingual education programs using Indigenous languages and English in remote Northern Territory schools. It explains why this educational approach is so contested at present, resulting in an unresolved situation which can best be regarded as an uneasy compromise on the ground and a stalemate at higher levels of political decision making. If the bilingual education approach was better understood by the current NT Government, there would a strong impetus now to refine and effectively implement a model of schooling that is appropriate for students in remote areas. Instead, current politicians debunk the bilingual approach, thereby robbing schools and literacy plans of any momentum and distracting attention away from the work that needs to be done. Meanwhile, student attendance rates have fallen away to worryingly low levels (Dickson, 2010). The current regime may well resolve the impasse, but in the absence of any meaningful, open negotiation the future looks uncertain. It is too soon to judge the cost of this uncertainty, but it may well result in further alienation and the emergence of non-government alternatives.
Second languages and Australian schooling
Journal of Educational Studies, 2009
S e c t i o n 1 Society and education Context and scope First and second languages Compulsory schooling Language competency of Australians and its sources Community and foreign Policy energy in second language learning Policy effects General social effects of existing second language policy Human capital and rankings School and post-school effects The problem of the dominance of English English as first-choice foreign language Bilingualism in other societies Our region Concluding comments S e c t i o n 2 Policy and programming Language ideologies Comfortably British Assertively Australian Ambitiously multicultural Energetically Asian Fundamentally economic The policy parade Languages 'available' for policy attention Policy as text, discourse and practice Community languages In the schools and universities Whitlam-Fraser-Hawke National curriculum moves Hobart Declaration Adelaide Declaration Language planning declarations Melbourne Declaration Comments on recent developments Policy voices and policy interests Concluding comments http://research.acer.edu.au/aer/8 viii S e c t i o n 3 Teaching and learning: Choice, pedagogy, rationale and goals Effecting change Languages provision Ecology of policy influences Pedagogy The teacher as the ultimate resting point Progress in pedagogy and program design Audiolingualism Second language acquisition (SLA) Communicative language teaching (CLT) Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) Intercultural language teaching and learning (ILT) Immersion Research into immersion Two-Way Immersion Immersion, explicit teaching and out-of-school use Conclusion to immersion research Rationale and goals in teaching and learning Cultural and intellectual benefits of bilingualism Concluding comments References
Australian Indigenous and migrant language education policy: Some parallels.
A great deal of research has been conducted into Indigenous and migrant Australians, with education and language shift often key issues. As well as significant differences, there are notable similarities between these two broad groups, such as minority status; a high level of language attrition; and significant language variation across the groups. Yet comparatively little attention has been paid to these similarities or to the possible implications of these similarities for language education policy development. As a result, these two Australian minority language groups are often treated separately: they have different language rights and are subject to largely unrelated language policies. This means that the potential for sharing educational and other resources is often unrecognised, leading in turn to inefficient and often ineffective language education policy. These issues are particularly urgent in light of the diminishing number of Indigenous languages being spoken in Australia, combined with the continuing increase in migrant language speakers. A more developed awareness of the parallels, as well as the differences, between Australian Indigenous and migrant groups could have many benefits, such as more effective design and implementation of language policy within Australia, and more efficient use of available resources.
The evaluation of bilingual programs in the Northern Territory, Australia, 1973–1993
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 1995
This paper provides the first published account of how bilingual programs in Aboriginal Community schools have been evaluated in the Northern Territory of Australia from their inception in 1973 to the present day. It comprises five main sections: (1) an introductory review of the literature on the evaluation of bilingual education; (2) a brief account of the first phase of evaluation in the NT, 1973 to 1978, when advice from technical experts was actively sought; (3) a report on the second phase, the accreditation of programs by central-office staff, 1979 to 1987, when groups of students from selected schools were comparatively assessed; (4) an analysis of the third phase, community-based appraisal, which commenced in 1988, and (5) some reflections and a conclusion. It is noted that this three-phase shift over the last two decades-from centralized decisionmaking reliant on outside technical advice, to an ambitious assessment and accreditation model, to community-based school appraisal-is in line with trends reported elsewhere by Fitzpatrick (1988) and Sanders (1988). 1. The evaluation of bilingual programs: a brief review of the literature The literature on the evaluation of bilingual programs is large and diverse. Although it would be inappropriate in this article to attempt any comprehensive or searching review, a brief sketch might be of value in framing the present study and thereby complementing some of the findings presented here. One of the most striking features of the available research literature is that, despite the quantity of evaluation reports on bilingual programs, much of it is of dubious quality. With respect to the United States, for example, Lam (1992: 198) has drawn attention to "serious methodological flaws in bilingual education evaluation and research reports," despite