The Ongoing Saga of Bilingual Education in the NT

Lisa Waller, "Learning in both worlds," Inside Story, 27 October 2011

Three years ago, the Northern Territory's education minister, Marion Scrymgour, announced that Territory schools "would have a greater focus on teaching English."  This vaguely defined new approach mandated that "the first four hours of education in all Northern Territory schools will be conducted in English." Thus bringing in for the second time an effective end to the bilingual education program in the small number of community schools where it was operational.

No review or study of the effectiveness of the two-way programs was undertaken before the announcement.

Joe Lo Bianco, cites over 1200 international studies "that provide empirical evidence of the effectiveness of bilingual education for students who do not speak the dominant language when they start school". (Indigenous Languages in Education: What the Research Actually Shows).

Australian National University adjunct professor, Charles Grimes, cites 691 of them and concludes that. "It's easy to think that if you teach more English, students will learn more English. But that's not how it really works. ...," Professor Grimes says. Study after study shows that children learn best in the language they understand best. That should be obvious. Study after study also shows that where the primary language spoken in the home is not English, teaching them in both their own language plus English will improve their English far better than just teaching them in English alone".

Waller concludes that although the evidence is overwhelming, the government is not listening, in spite of "a rush of protest letters to both politicians and the media".

"In an open letter to then education minister Marion Scrymgour, educator Yalmay Yunupingu wrote: "We have been told we are not to use our students' first language, only English. Well, I already know that the children won't understand what I'm saying, they will laugh at me, and they may even misbehave because they'll be bored and won't know what the lessons are about. So perhaps I will cheat and use some Yolŋu matha - what will happen then? Will I have my mouth washed out with soap like in the mission times? Or will I have to stand on one leg outside the classroom? Or perhaps I will lose my job?"

However with the request from federal Indigenous affairs minister, Jenny Macklin, and her colleague, arts minister Simon Crean to the Parliamentary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Committee to investigate among other things the links between Indigenous languages and improving education in Indigenous communities, leaders are hopeful of a change.

Read more: http://inside.org.au/learning-in-both-worlds

Editor's note:  This inquiry has attracted a very large number of submissions - 129 to date.  To browse the submissions go to http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/atsia/languages/submissions.htm

I particularly recommend the following:

Submission No. 19 by Catherine Gayle

• This submission includes a summary of the evidence brought together by Charles Grimes who is referenced in the above article

Submission No. 20 by Dr William Fogarty and Dr Inge Kral from the CAEPER Institute at ANU

Fogarty and Kral are highly experienced researchers who specialize in working with Indigenous youth and communities on issues surrounding Indigenous languages, literacy, lifelong learning, education, enterprise, employment and development in remote contexts.

Their submission focuses on the role of Indigenous languages in emergent development activity in remote Australia, and the out-of-school language and literacy needs of Indigenous adolescents and young adults, with a focus on the digital economy.

However, they summarise the broad findings from their research in relation to bilingual education and the teaching of Indigenous languages in schools as follows:

• conceptual development in children is enhanced when students are taught in their first language;
• education of Indigenous students in their first language is a critical component of students well-being, self esteem and personal development at school;
• Indigenous communities, parents and teachers overwhelmingly support the teaching of Indigenous languages Indigenous schools. In part because this is a crucial factor in the engagement of Indigenous families in education generally and leads to improved school attendance;
• there is no evidence that learning in an Indigenous first language has a negative effect on English language acquisition;
• there is no credible evidence that 'English only' remote schools perform better than bilingual schools; and
• evidence of the benefits of Indigenous language programs for Indigenous students overwhelmingly supports their continuation and development.

Submission No. 80 from Michele Rowe who has extensive Australian and international experience in applied linguistics - including in the NT Community of Wadeye where she worked as a teacher linguist for some time.

She makes the following observations, which help to explain why the bilingual program is not as successful as it should/could be:

Following my sabbatical, I returned to Australia to work at Wadeye, to try and support educational developments and address the huge gap in Indigenous student achievement that had widened since I left Australia in the 1970‟s. After four and a half years, one of the biggest problems I had found was not only the high turnover of non-Indigenous teachers that affected continuity and development, but also the lack of understanding of first and second language acquisition. An expectation for students to achieve national benchmarks in English through numerous initiatives in short time, scales of "stop and start" programs, provided little scope for continuity and progression for generational change. Furthermore, the Indigenous language program, in comparison to English was marginalized. Where English had a range of outside experts and school based coordinators, the Indigenous language program in comparison received limited support and had had periods without being supported at all.  

The understanding that supporting language learning in first language bridges learning in a second language, is something that is understood internationally, but from my experience, not by most teachers recruited to teach in remote Indigenous communities.

In prioritizing the learning of English, with the best of intentions, for Indigenous students to access the same opportunities as other Australians; this results unfortunately in compromising Indigenous language programs and not acknowledging the importance of linking student's first language to learn English as an additional language. 

Unfortunately, too many teachers that work on remote communities, do not have the training or experience of teaching in high ESL schools, and using first language to strengthen the transition to second language learning as well as the links between family and community learning. This not only ignores children's wealth of language learning and cognitive development before coming to school but also results in a void in linking home-school learning, learning for continuity and strengthening students cultural heritages and identity.

Submission No. 81 from Dr Brian Devlin from Charles Darwin University, an active ACE member who has worked extensively with remote schools in the NT.

His submission is collaboration with colleagues in academia and from schools across the NT.  This gave voice to those who felt that they could not speak out in their own names.

One of his contributors, a principal from a two way school points out the ridiculousness of assessing the success of the bilingual program using year 3 or even year 5 NAPLAN scores:

The foremost indicator that is used to measure the educational gap is the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests.

These tests are designed to test the literacy and numeracy skills of mainstream Australian students who speak English as their first language [editor's note - children who are ESL 1 or 2 stage learners in schools in other states are excluded from sitting the NAPLAN tests based on their new arrival status]. There is a great deal of focus that the NT Department of Education has placed on improving the Year 3 NAPLAN results of indigenous students. 

However, for students who begin school not speaking English, achieving theYear 3 NAPLAN benchmarks is not a realistic goal. They must read and understand the content of the test and then respond in writing or by selecting the correct answer from multiple choices. International research in to language learning shows that it takes three to five years to gain basic interpersonal communicative skills in a second language (where face-to-face contextual support and props are required to assist in meaning) and five to seven years to gain cognitive/academic language proficiency, where higher order thinking skills are required, such as for analysing, synthesising, evaluating and classifying (Hakuta et al., 2000). The Year 3 NAPLAN tests require cognitive/academic proficiency. Year 3 students (8 years of age) from non-English speaking communities have simply not had sufficient time to acquire the level of English required to read, understand and respond to questions in the NAPLAN tests, given that they begin learning English when they are five years old. It is not an indication of a shortcoming in their learning. It is frustrating and disheartening for my Year 3 students who attend school daily and work hard in class to be forced to sit a test, without any support, which is well beyond their level of English.  

Aiming at Year 3 NAPLAN benchmarks is a reason why bilingual programs are not supported by the NT Department of Education, as it has made a commitment that 75% of NT students will meet the Year 3 NAPLAN benchmarks by 2012/13. 

Submission No 31 from the Human Rights Commission (Mick Gooda) which reminded Governments of Australia's commitments under human rights, in particular, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

This instrument interprets how Australia's existing human rights obligations apply to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, especially articles 13.1 which explicitly includes the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures.... And 14.1 which commits States to, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, take effective measures, in order for indigenous individuals, particularly children, including those living outside their communities, to have access, when possible, to an education in their own culture and provided in their own language. 

The controversy has also been profiled in the Guardian UK thanks to the publicity provided by Jack Thompson who after attending the annual Garma Festival in August this year joined the campaign against the NT Government's position.

To read this article go to http://www.cpa.org.au/z-archive/g1999/966ling.htm