Gaps in Australia’s Indigenous Language Policy: Dismantling bilingual education in the Northern Territory

Gaps in Australia’s Indigenous Language Policy

• AIATSIS Discussion Paper Number 24 by Jane Simpson, Jo Caffery, and Patrick McConvell.
• Focuses on the dismantling of bilingual education in the Northern Territory (NT).

Abstract

• Children learn best when taught through their mother tongue.
• Bilingual education helps maintain Indigenous languages and honors Indigenous teachers.
• The NT government nearly closed bilingual education in 2008, mandating English for the first four hours of school.
• Argues for a national commitment to evidence-based policy and recognition of Indigenous language rights.

Introduction

• Highlights the gap between Yolngu and non-Aborigines in education and living standards.
• Advocates for constitutional recognition of Indigenous language rights.
• Focuses on the 2008 decision to abandon bilingual education in the NT.
• Australia's monolingualism has led to myths and confusions, disadvantaging Indigenous language speakers.
• Monolingualism myths and confusions:
  • Failure to recognize social and cognitive benefits of bilingualism.
  • Belief that nothing special needs to be done to teach Indigenous children English.
  • Confusion between learning to write and learning another language.
  • Belief that home languages and cultures are an add-on.
• Bilingualism enriches individuals and creates tolerant societies.
• It allows speakers of minority languages to maintain traditions and identity.
• Improves communication and provides cognitive advantages.
• Multilingualism is eroding in remote Indigenous communities due to poor living standards and pressure to learn the dominant language.
• Indigenous children need explicit SAE teaching at school.
• Traditional languages are endangered.
• Encouraging children to adapt to the majority society leads some Indigenous people to feelings of loss and despair.
• Some Indigenous people ensure that their languages and cultures have a place in local schools through bilingual education programs.

Bilingual Education

• The great majority of the education programs for Indigenous students have been solely in English.
• In the Northern Territory, the terms ‘bilingual education’ or ‘Two-Way’ learning are used for ‘mother tongue medium’ programs.
• Introduced in 1974 in line with Indigenous community calls for ‘Two-Way’, not ‘One-Way’, education.
• In 1982, the NT Government endorsed the continuation of these mother tongue medium programs under the name of ‘bilingual programs’.
• The present NT bilingual programs are labelled ‘Two-Way’ but in fact are ‘transitional’ ‘step’ models.
• Addresses three important issues:
  • The right of children to receive an education which gives them access to the dominant language, to literacy and to the wider society.
  • The right of communities to have a say in how their children are educated.
  • The right of communities, especially Indigenous communities, to keep and strengthen their Indigenous languages.

The Right to an Appropriate Education

• Children who do not speak the dominant language are at a disadvantage in classrooms where they are taught only in the dominant language.
• Bilingual education programs have been adopted in schools in minority communities as an effective way of teaching literacy and the dominant language.
• Bilingual education programs programs create a strong link between the community and its culture, and decrease the alienation felt by Indigenous students in schools where teaching is by members of the dominant community and takes place in a language which is not the students’ mother tongue.
• The first task is learning the dominant language if that is to become the language of instruction.
• In biliteracy programs, the children are taught to read and write in their mother tongue before developing literacy in the language of wider communication.
• Bilingual education programs of course are not magic bullets; they can be poorly designed and poorly implemented.
• For a bilingual education program to succeed, both the mother tongue and the dominant language must be taught well.
• In many communities, the teachers need training in the methods of English as a Foreign Language (EFL).

Dismantling Bilingual Education Programs

• The goal of NT bilingual education programs in the 1980s was to move from instruction in the mother tongue to instruction in English by year five.
• Bilingual programs have been used in Indigenous communities where the traditional language is the first language of the children
• Bilingual education programs have been shown to be good practice in this regard for children from minority groups who do not speak the dominant language.
• Australian policy-makers are now choosing to ignore the positive features of school-based Indigenous language programs and return to a strict ‘English-only’ policy reminiscent of the assimilationist era.

The right for communities to have a say in how their children are educated

• If community members want mother tongue instruction for their children, or want their children’s mother tongue to be strengthened at school, acceding to their request will probably create a better functioning school.
• Article 14.12 recognizes the right of Indigenous people to run their own education systems in their own languages.

The Right to Maintain Indigenous Languages

• Language programs in schools are recognized as an important part of effective strategies to maintain Indigenous languages.
• Language rights are only as strong as the implementation of relevant policies.
• The 2008 abandonment of bilingual education in the Northern Territory shows how policy is shaped by hostility towards Indigenous languages.

Policy Change in the Northern Territory

• October 14, 2008, the NT Minister for Employment, Education and Training announced a restructure of the Department of Education and Training.
• The first four hours of school must be English.
• The announcement contained no information explaining how this restructure was to take place and what resources would be put in place to improve attendance, literacy and numeracy.
• The 2008 dismantling of bilingual education is an instructive example as to why we need policy-makers to develop policies based on sound research and evidence in consultation with language communities.