A frame: Language and the balance of rights. ... Queensland Indigenous language education policy: A case ..... NATIONAL PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKS.
STANDARD AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH LANGUAGES FOR QUEENSLAND ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER STUDENTS
Allan Luke, Ray Land, Pam Christie, Anne Kolatsis School of Education The University of Queensland and Geoff Noblett KPA Consulting
Report for the Indigenous Education Consultative Body, Brisbane, 2002
Brisbane: Indigenous Education Consultative Body, 2002.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors wish to thank the members of the IECB for their support, good faith and commitment to the project. We appreciate the trust that they have given us. Patricia Stroud of the IECB provided guidance and direction throughout the project, opening doors. Shane Williams provided expert advice and direction at key moments during the process. John Dwyer generously gave of his time, expertise and historical knowledge of Indigenous education and language issues. His institutional memory was invaluable. The report relied upon advice from an expert panel of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Teachers, who gave generously of their technical expertise and wisdom: Lloyd Appo (Bundaberg State School), Will Davis (Beenleigh State High School), Stephen Foster (Badu Island State School), Maureen Liddy (Hopevale State School), Professor Martin Nakata (University of South Australia), Chris Sara (Cherbourg State School), and Grace Sara (Cherbourg State School). We wish to thank Annette Woods for her advice, analysis and suggestions about reading and literacy pedagogy, Associate Professor Angel Lin, City University of Hong Kong, for her advice on issues of bilingualism and bilingual pedagogy. Kevin Sirris of Education Queensland provided valuable assistance. Pauline Taylor of the Indigenous Education Training Alliance provided critical and constructive support and advice at key junctures in the development of this report. Thanks to Pam Tupe for providing editorial support in the preparation of this manuscript. Finally, our special thanks must go to the staff, students and communities of the schools we visited as part of our research. For their persistence and generosity, we dedicate this project, and whatever difference it might make, to them.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgement
Executive Summary.................................................................................................
i
Key Findings ..........................................................................................................
i
Recommendations ..................................................................................................
ii
1. The task .........................................................................................................
1
2. The shape of this report .................................................................................
3
3. The problem: Indigenous English language and literacy achievement ...................................................................................................
4
4. A frame: Language and the balance of rights................................................
11
5. What we agree on: English as cultural capital...............................................
13
6. Where we’ve been: A genealogy of Indigenous language education........................................................................................................
16
7. Queensland Indigenous language education policy: A case Of unplanning ................................................................................................
28
8. A sociolinguistic alignment ...........................................................................
52
9. LOTE and the maintenance and support of Indigenous languages .......................................................................................................
61
10. The alignment of community capital.............................................................
63
References .................................................................................................................
76
Resources...................................................................................................................
82
TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONT.) Glossary of Terms ...................................................................................................
1
Case Studies Thursday Island State School .............................................................................
4
Thursday Island State High School ....................................................................
11
Malu Kiwai State School ....................................................................................
18
Mer State School ................................................................................................
20
Kubin Village State School, Mua Island ............................................................
22
Weipa North School ...........................................................................................
24
Koolkan Aurukun Community School ...............................................................
30
Cairns West State School ...................................................................................
39
Yarrabah State School ........................................................................................
45
Garbutt State School ...........................................................................................
52
The Marian School .............................................................................................
57
Cherbourg State School ......................................................................................
61
Mitchell Kindergarten and Creche .....................................................................
66
Murgon State School ..........................................................................................
70
St George State High School ..............................................................................
75
St James College .................................................................................................
81
Appendices ..............................................................................................................
88
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY KEY FINDINGS Finding 1: On underachievement – Despite limitations of the current assessment instruments and everyday problems in schools with interpreting and using assessment data, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander achievement gaps on mainstream measures of aspects of English literacy are significant, and require urgent action. Finding 2: On who is at risk – The performance data suggests that poverty and rural location are the two key factors of ‘at riskness’ for Aboriginal student achievement. We will argue that this is linked closely with EFL/ESL and ESD status. Additionally, health issues – particularly those associated with hearing status – can be predictors of ‘at riskness’, especially for their impact on the development of oracy in the early years. Finding 3: On Standard Australian English Literacy – There is a strong belief – shared across Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators, philosophical perspectives, local and central administrators and across educational systems – that the provision of powerful levels of competence with Standard Australian English in its written and spoken, print and digital forms, is of the highest priority for Indigenous education. Finding 4: On Indigenous multiliteracies – There is an urgent need for research and development activities to develop and generalise Indigenous ways of using digital technology. Multiliteracies are an essential part of the right to cultural capital and power in new economic conditions. Finding 5: Lack of systematic direction – While there are several examples of exemplary practice in effective classroom and whole-school blends of these strategies the approaches, consistency and coherence of English language and literacy instruction in schools with significant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student populations are extremely variable. There has been a lack of systemic guidance, policy direction and concentrated pre- and in-service teacher preparation across the system. These issues are confounded by high turnover rates for both teachers and principals, the presence of many inexperienced teachers, insufficient pre- and in-service training for both teachers and principals, and a lack of ‘institutional memory’ about what has been used and tried before and with what degrees of sustained success. Finding 6: On Indigenous ESL in Queensland – At present Queensland is the only State that has no systematic ESL policy in place that covers either migrant or Indigenous second language/dialect speakers. Relevant Commonwealth funds are allocated to schools and other agencies, but there appears to be no specific state-level mechanism for recognising and supporting Indigenous ESL/ESD speakers in systematic ways. Finding 7: Lack of LOTE data – There is no consolidated data base available on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander achievement in LOTE across Queensland schools. Our field studies indicate that the uptake of LOTE is extremely patchy. Most schools with significant Indigenous student populations have exercised exemptions from LOTE requirements, some substituting community languages, and others complying minimally. There is little evidence that the teaching of European or Asian languages has had a major impact – positive or negative – on the acquisition of English language and literacy in these schools.
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RECOMMENDATIONS Recommendation 1: On Indigenous Multiliteracies – That EQ and other schooling systems review their strategies for ICT, digital technology use and virtual schooling services to assess distinctive Indigenous questions of access and power. Recommendation 2: On bilingual and Creole education – That given the complexity, costs and practical challenges affiliated with systematic bilingual or Creole-as-a-medium of instruction programs, that systems pursue a policy of ‘separate bilingual education’. That is, where trained teachers can be found, Indigenous languages be substituted for LOTE programs, and where community Elders can be engaged, that some teaching of Indigenous languages can be included in the school Indigenous culture programs. That, where community will and resources exist, after school and community-language programs can be established and supported by the State. A model scenario for the trial of a transitional bilingual program in schools is presented in this report. But, given the human and financial resource requirements and the complexities of running effective bilingual programs, this report argues that the principal focus of Indigenous language and literacy education in Queensland schools remain on the achievement of English language literacy. Recommendation 3: On a state language and literacy strategy for Indigenous learners – There is an immediate need for a state Indigenous language and literacy policy and strategy that sits in strategic and systemic complementarity with Literate Futures and Partners for Success and that is supported through systematic resourcing, in-service and advice for staff working in all schools where there are Indigenous learners enrolled. Recommendation 4: On teacher preparation and training – That all teachers who work with Indigenous children should have professional development and training in principles and practices of both first and second language teaching, understand the broad repertoire of possible second language approaches, and be able to choose and use linguistically and pedagogically appropriate and effective strategies. Recommendation 5: On LOTE for Indigenous students – that in terms of the current LOTE requirements, educational systems should provide: • In-service and pre-service training so that teachers can both recognise and value children’s bi and multi-lingualism as part of cultural programs and a general curriculum orientation. • Encouragement of community language and culture, through programs run by Elders as part of regular scheduled activities and events and valued cultural programs – as well as after-school community language programs, if appropriate to community context. • QSA guidelines and support for syllabus and curriculum development in Indigenous languages as LOTEs. • Replacement, where expertise and curriculum is available, of LOTE programs with Indigenous language programs. • Exemption from LOTE requirements in those schools with significant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations where students are working within the framework of the aforementioned EFL/ESL/ESD interventions.
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Recommendation 6: Members of our expert panels, community members and teachers raised for us the persistent problems of Otitis Media among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Estimates are that “30-80% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children experience significant hearing loss” (Education Queensland, 2001); there are well established research links between Otitis Media and early language and literacy development problems (e.g., Yont, Snow, & Vernon-Feagans, in press). This report endorses the findings and recommendations of the 2001 Education Queensland report, and renews calls for its full implementation and linkage to the proposed Indigenous language and literacy policy and strategy. Recommendation 7: On explicit teaching of coding – We believe there is a strong case for a consistent focus across speaking groups on instruction in coding, but not to the exclusion or isolation from semantic, pragmatic and critical practices. By coding, we do not refer simply to ‘phonics’ but refer to instruction in alphabetic knowledge, the conventions of print, phonemic awareness, rudimentary word attack skills, sight vocabulary, lexical and syntactic conventions of English texts, and where necessary and appropriate in contrastive analysis Recommendation 8: On whole-school language education plans – That schools with significant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations build whole-school language education plans – based on strong community audits and partnership agreements, on sociolinguistic alignments, and on principled and planned mixes of approaches drawn from first and second language teaching. These approaches should include a focus on explicit teaching of reading, recognition of the place of Indigenous languages in cultural and LOTE programs, and, where appropriate, a strong EFL/ESL/ESD component, as part of a balanced program using the ‘four resources’ model. Recommendation 9: On professional development – That three or four key regional support/training/learning networks of varied structures and specific orientations be established to enable and focus professional development, whole-school planning, induction training for teachers, pre-service and in-service credentialing and the exchange of relevant cultural and curriculum materials. These networks are to focus on the implementation of Literate Futures and the proposed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Language and Literacy Strategy. The networks should be encouraged to take varying forms, shapes and configurations as relevant in particular school/community clusters and regional areas for the key nominated areas of Queensland.
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3.1 Literature Review 3.2 Review of sector policies, reports and projects 3.31 Report on current ESL and language policies, programs and initiatives across all sectors 3.32 Report on current LOTE opportunities across all sectors 3.33 Report on cross sector data including ESL enrolments & distributions, literacy and numeracy outcomes 3.34 Report on case studies of schools with effective practices in second language pedagogies 3.4 Case studies of effective practice schools in second language pedagogies 3.5 Report on interviews and focus group meetings
13. Appendix
12. A beginning
11. Pedagogical / professional alignment
10. The Alignment of Community Capital
9. LOTE and the Maintenance and Support of Indigenous Languages
7. Qld Indigenous Language Education Policy: A Case of Unplanning 8. Sociolinguistic alignment
6. Where We’ve Been: A Genealogy of Indigenous Language Education
5. What We Agree On: English as Cultural Capital
4. A Frame: Language and the Balance of Rights
3. The problem: Indigenous English Language and Literacy
1. The Task
Key outputs
Executive Summary
Report sections
2. The Shape of this Report
Coverage of Key Outputs of Tender in Report
1. THE TASK Within the context of the strategic plan 2000-2001, the Queensland Indigenous Education Consultative Body (IECB) developed research consultative projects to examine key issues of inclusivity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners in diverse education systems. This approach ensured a balanced representation of education systems in the IECB’s advice to the State and Commonwealth. The School of Education, University of Queensland was successful in the bid to conduct the Standard Australian English and Languages project. This project is a research and development project. It provides an overview and reframing of language-in-education planning, policy and pedagogic strategies for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in state and non-state Queensland schools. The aim is to provide directions in language and literacy education, with specific attention to the place and possibilities of systematic English as a Second Language teaching (though we interpret this category to include a much broader field of possible interventions including: English as a Second Dialect, English for Academic Purposes, English as a Foreign Language, transitional and autonomous bilingual programs, and so forth), exemplars of current best policy and classroom best practice in English language and literacy teaching, and directions for the integration and improvement of current teaching of Languages Other than English (LOTE). Proficiency in Standard Australian English, competence with literate practice in all of its forms, Indigenous language rights and maintenance must be central components of the ‘trifecta’ of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language education policy. The IECB has commissioned the University of Queensland research team to report on: • Current ESL and language policies, programs and initiatives; • Effective practices in the adoption of second language pedagogies; • Current opportunities for LOTE studies including school based LOTE. In the following report, we have used three main sources for addressing these issues: • Analysis of policies and pracices – historical and current; • A literature review on Indigenous language issues and policies, on recent work on pedagogy and instruction, on bilingualism and bidialectalism in education; • Case studies to generate an overall but not comprehensive profile of language issues, language use, positive and negative examples of school and community practice. The primary purpose of this work is to: • Develop a state of the art perspective on the key factors which impact on the development of oral and written proficiencies in Standard Australian English for Indigenous learners. • Provide the Indigenous Education Consultative Body and educators of Indigenous students in Queensland with policy directions that can be forwarded to and advocated with the State and Commonwealth Ministers of Education.
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We are a team of non-Indigenous educational experts who have been involved in activism, educational research, and curriculum development in language and literacy education in Queensland, nationally and internationally for many decades. Collectively, we have worked together on language and education matters in many states in Australia, in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, the USA, and South Africa. We do not underestimate the seriousness of the task and the huge educational, moral and political responsibility it brings with it. Nor do we understate its difficulty. Our review of past and present attempts here show us again that there is no ‘single solution’ or ‘magic bullet’ to improve English language and literacy competence among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. But there is no room for cynicism or despair in the task. Our overview here has convinced us that there can be an alignment of different approaches and efforts – within schools and outside of schools, between communities and educators, teachers and teacher-educators – that can bring about substantial improvement. Such is the situation in the field that our case studies describe – highly variable practices in highly complex learning environments that are not sufficiently scaffolded and guided by practical frameworks and directions. Our argument here is that much of what we have done as educators and communities over the years makes up the ‘ingredients’ of a possible larger-scale, coordinated intervention. This is a recurrent theme in the 1999 Northern Territory review of Indigenous education, Learning Lessons (Northern Territory Department of Education, 1999), in the 1996 DEET study Desert Schools (National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia South Australian Teaching and Curriculum Centre, 1996), and in the 1999 ARC study in Western Australia by Ian Malcolm (Malcolm, 1999). While not of the comprehensive scope that it can provide definitive overviews of the state of Queensland Indigenous education, our fieldwork provides some examples of effective transitional bidialectal programs in place, of school-based ESL programs, of whole-school programs that include powerful and successful direct instructional models for English literacy, and of vibrant and culturally powerful Indigenous studies programs. Our findings here show us that there is some effective teaching and educational work occurring in communities and schools. But the achievements of teachers and students in these contexts are all too often piecemeal and ad hoc, the result of committed individuals or outstanding teams. There is the need for a much stronger framework that might guide and shape what is done in language and literacy education more systematically. Our task here, then, is more an exercise in policy analysis and development than a comprehensive sociolinguistic or pedagogic survey. It is about mobilising, coordinating and augmenting existing activities, strategies and policies. It is an effort to set up enabling local conditions, policy scaffolds, whole-school plans and ways of rethinking these interventions so that they can brought to bear in an aligned and focused way on the improvement of Indigenous language and literacy achievement.
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2. THE SHAPE OF THIS REPORT This is not your average report format. The standard report information (fieldnotes, methodology, timelines) is located in the back of the report in the Appendix. The case study stories of the 16 schools we visited for one or two days each are at the back of the report, and most make for quite interesting reading. Our report is an argument, a tour and an expedition through the question that leads somewhere: towards a proposal of a way forward. To address this task, our report includes, in this sequence: • A set of ‘premises’ to guide the Indigenous language and education plan that are based on an emergent consensus in communities, schools and government. • A selective overview of the historical policies and provisions in Queensland for language and literacy education for Indigenous students, with an eye for learning from and using previous attempts to develop new ways forward. • A contrastive view of current and recent policies nationally and in other states that raises the question of ‘interlocking’ policies. • A discussion of the current ‘language in education planning’ situation in Queensland, with the proposal for differentiated interventions that recognise the linguistic and spatial/locational diversity of different Indigenous communities. • A discussion of what recent and current research studies on language change and policy, bilingual education, second language acquisition theory, Australian Indigenous education and our case studies of current practice tell us about ‘what works’ and how this can be generalised or made more effective. • A proposal of an ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language and literacy education framework’ to guide new Queensland policy and intervention, and to bring together elements of the current systems activities in ESL, with Literate Futures and Partners for Success, in ways that have the power to improve the outcomes of students in schools and of the futures of the communities they serve.
We end with a framework for policy, with a summary of key findings and recommendations. This format is designed to make a strong argument for a new Queensland policy direction. Its other features are that: • Findings and recommendations appear throughout the text at key points in the argument. These are listed in the Executive summary and drawn together in the conclusion. • Examples and illustrations from our case studies appear throughout the report in textboxes. • Explanations of methodology and processes, school selection criteria (already negotiated with IECB at progress report meetings) and case study narratives on schools are provided in the Appendix.
We are aware that this report will have a diverse readership – ranging from community members and parents, to senior educational bureaucrats, educational researchers and disciplinary experts. We have tried, wherever possible, to present the report in as clear non-technical language as possible. However, some sections by necessity engage directly with educational, sociological and sociolinguistic debates, requiring technical vocabulary and extensive referencing.
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3. THE PROBLEM: INDIGENOUS ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERACY ACHIEVEMENT Language and literacy education in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities is the Gordian Knot for Queensland schools. The equitable and fair provision of powerful language and literacy practices to all children, regardless of their location, socio-economic status or cultural or linguistic background has been the objective of language and literacy educators for the past three decades. Our surveys took us back to the prototypical work of Betty Watts and her colleagues at the University of Queensland in the 1960s, through the statements and efforts of several Directors-General and Ministers – through ongoing survey and analysis work by statutory bodies and public servants. Improved educational outcomes have been the objective of educators working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities for many years, and this aligns with Commonwealth and State initiatives in literacy and in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators of the last decade. As we turn to continuing debates over Reconciliation and Indigenous futures in the new millennium, there has been a renewed focus on the need for immediate gains and improvements in the quality of life, life pathways and educational futures of Indigenous youth. This report does not provide a ‘new’ or original direction. But it provides a way of combining, joining and linking many current practices, arguing strongly for some on new grounds. It also argues that individual schools and teachers should no longer be ‘reinventing the wheel’ and ‘starting from scratch’ when we have some generalisable approaches and answers. The problem of loss of expertise, of diminished institutional memory in Indigenous language and literacy education is likely to become even more acute with the projected generational change in the teaching workforce unless action is taken. We hope that this Report provides a model for looking at the redesign of wholeschool/community language and literacy programs for the next decade in Queensland schools with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. The relationships of literacy and power are, of course, complex – involving questions of power in a range of social institutions, Indigenous and mainstream. Each one of these institutions that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children move through and experience is a “linguistic market” (Bourdieu, 1992; Luke, 1996) where different languages, Indigenous and migrant, Creoles and Aboriginal English, different literate and textual practices, different discourses and knowledges are exchanged, valued and used. Hence, even where there appear to be simple answers about what to teach – there are complex, local, community decisions about what schools should value and encourage. Taxonomies of the various kinds of educational and policy strategies for enhancing, maintaining and extending migrant bilingualism, for language maintenance, for protecting Indigenous language rights have been developed in the USA, UK and Europe for some time (Hornberger, 1991). Indeed, Australia’s National Languages Policy (Lo Bianco, 1987) set international benchmarks in the advocacy of linguistic diversity and multiculturalism. But as the policy debates in Learning Lessons (Northern Territory Department of Education, 1999) amply illustrate, and despite developmental work that has continued through three decades, there is far from a clear theoretical, empirical or policy consensus on what might count as bilingual education, and, to make matters even more complicated, there are persistent questions about whether and how the models developed
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in other national, ethnic and community contexts are generalisable to Australian Indigenous communities and state education systems. There is a long history of language and literacy educators working on methods, approaches and curriculum to improve the educational outcomes of linguistic minorities and Indigenous language speakers (Gee, 1995). There is also, as we will show here, a history of Queensland and Australian educators attempting to develop systematic strategies for the improvement of Indigenous literacy, dating back to the prototypical Van Leer programs in the 1970s (Dwyer, 1976) and extending through recent studies in Western Australia, South Australia and Northern Territory. The work of Ian Malcolm and colleagues alone spans over three decades and has led to intervention projects for bidialectal language and literacy programs in most States. These efforts continue, and our case studies here document the diverse efforts of educational systems, curriculum development and professional development agencies, researchers and teachers. But for them to work, we need to reframe and resituate them. And despite the publication of studies like What Works (McRae et al., 2002), an overt attempt by the Commonwealth to draw together expertise in the field, we were surprised at the degree to which Queensland teachers and schools lack an overview of the field, of competing approaches and interventions available. It is our position that what is needed is more a matter of synergies of existing activities and strategies, of filling gaps in areas which have been neglected, and of aligning our efforts across systems, of developing and bringing together shared vocabulary and expertise – than searching for a universal ‘cure all’ for poor language and literacy achievement. Early intervention in phonemic awareness and ‘alphabetics’ in itself won’t suffice. Direct and explicit instruction in the code in itself won’t suffice. Language experience and ‘writing one’s own stories’ aren’t the answer. Community partnerships and close work with the Department of Health and other government service-providers in themselves won’t solve the problem. Indigenous cultural studies and recognition by teachers of the validity of Indigenous languages and Creoles won’t do the job. Nor will adding ‘ESL’ to our interventions. But taken together, and in locally powerful mixes, these do hold the seeds for turning the situation around. It is a matter, as we will argue here, of a systematic set of alignments, of policy, of resources, of pedagogy, of language/literacy that each school and its community aims for. The problem of poor Indigenous achievement in school language arts, English, and literacy courses persists – reviews by the Commonwealth and other States tell, by degrees, similar stories. There is national data which indicates that over a ten-year period, from the mid1980s to mid-1990s, that the gap between the reading comprehension levels of Aboriginal and Torres Strait adolescents and ‘mainstream’ Australian adolescents with English as a First Language nominally closed (Marks & Ainley, 1997). Recent DEST data indicates that the Years 3 and 5 test score achievement for 2000 in literacy among Queensland Aborigines and Torres Strait Islander children improved marginally on the previous year. Further, despite having a lower level of exclusions than other States and Territories, this same data provides very rough comparative evidence that the overall performance of Queensland Aboriginal and Islander children in Year 3 reading is marginally better than in other States with large Indigenous populations (DEST, 2001) But none of this even approaches a satisfactory situation.
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NATIONAL PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKS National benchmarks for Year 3 and 5 student literacy, based on The Australian Council for Education Research (ACER) study of literacy performance (Masters & Foster, 1997), identify (among other things) five categories of students at risk of under-achieving in literacy performance: • Indigenous Australian Students; • Students for whom English is not their first language; • Socioeconomically disadvantaged students; • Groups of students with sensory, physical, emotional or intellectual disabilities; and • Students who live in remote or isolated areas. Although these categories are based on a comprehensive sample of Australian students generally, they are of particular interest here as these categories profile the situation of many Indigenous students on a national scale. It is also worth noting that many children – Indigenous and non-Indigenous fall under multiple ‘at risk’ group categorisations, at times and in some situations warranting targeted funding and in others not. These results provide a clearer understanding of performance when intersected by gender, indicating that there are complex interactions among the demographic predictors typically used to describe levels of literacy performance. For example, female students at both Years 3 and 5 achieve better (on average) on most performance indicators than male students. This disparity widens when socio-economic status is factored into the analysis: … the gender difference in achievement does not widen significantly between the Year 3 and Year 5. The difference between boys’ and girls’ levels of literacy achievement are greater among students from low socio-economic backgrounds than students from other socio-economic groups (p.vii). In another study by the ACER (Marks & Ainley, 1997), the reading comprehension gap between males and females is shown to have increased during the 1990’s, but for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students the report concludes: In 1975 the reading achievement of Aboriginal students and Torres Strait Islander students was some 20 scale points lower than for other students. Multi-variate analyses suggest that much of this difference was due to socio-economic, language and school differences since the net differences were only 8 scale points. By 1995 the gross difference in achievement had declined to approximately 10 scale points. Multivariate analyses suggest this reduction is probably due to socio-economic and other differences between the Aboriginal and TSI samples, rather than a real improvement in reading comprehension among Indigenous Australians. Mastery levels among Aboriginal and TSI students remain the lowest of (all) the social groups (p.9, emphasis added). Marks and Ainley’s position, then, is that marginal gains in achievement over the past two decades are probably more indicative of change in socio-economic class and locations of students than to their Indigenous cultural status per se.
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The Literate Futures Report of the Review of Literacy in Queensland State Schools summarises the overall pattern of systemic performance data on aspects of literacy and numeracy in Queensland over the past five years (Luke, Freebody & Land, 2000, pp.1532), drawing on data from the Australian Council of Education Research, Queensland School Curriculum Council and Education Queensland and in particular drawing conclusions regarding persistent patterns of underperformance by Indigenous students, particularly in rural and remote settings. The main database related to the systemic performance patterns of students in Queensland focuses on information supplied through the Year 2 Diagnostic Net and the Years 3, 5 and 7 tests. Within EQ, the results for each school contrast the performances of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. On aspects of literacy measured in these instruments (i.e., reading, viewing, writing and spelling), performance levels for rural and remote Indigenous students have been consistently much lower than both State averages and likeschool averages for non-Indigenous students over many years. The scale of this difference is approximately as follows: • On the year 2 Diagnostic Net, an urban Indigenous student is roughly 2 times more likely to be identified in phase A (i.e., caught ‘in the net’) for reading and writing; with this ratio increasing to 3 or 4 times for rural and remote Indigenous students; • For the Years 3, 5 and 7 tests, rural and remote Indigenous students are roughly twice as likely to be below State averages on all four aspects of literacy measured (reading, viewing, writing and spelling) than their urban Indigenous peers. For example, on the 2000 Year 3 Benchmark Test Data the percentage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children reaching the normative benchmark in reading was 81%, or 11.6% below the state average. While Queensland scores improved considerably from 1999 (from 85.8% to 92.6%) the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children increased marginally from 11.5 to 11.6%. While we need to bear in mind that the Year 3 benchmark is a notional cut-off only, perhaps indicative of achievement of rudimentary functional decoding by the completion of Year 3 (with students in different States at different chronological ages), the data is telling. Generally speaking, Queensland Year 3 Indigenous children score better than their Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia counterparts, with lower exemption and absentee rates for point-in-time standardised testing. Yet the overall performance on this, and its Year 5 counterpart is not satisfactory (for discussion of the issues of culture and language on current Year 5 literacy and numeracy testing, see the IECB report by Luke, Woods, Land, Bahr & McFarland, 2002). The gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous achievement increases by 29.5% for the Year 5 benchmark, with barely 54.4% of Indigenous students reaching the benchmark. Nor does the data show noticeable upward trends across time. While the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous performance in Queensland is less than the national average gap at Year 3, it has worsened to fall below that average by Year 5. While there have been some improvements to these patterns for urban Indigenous students in recent years, perhaps reflecting the emergence of a larger cohort of middle class Indigenous students, there is little apparent improvement for Indigenous students in most rural and remote contexts.
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Finding 1: On underachievement – Despite limitations of the current assessment instruments and everyday problems in schools with interpreting and using assessment data, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander achievement gaps on mainstream measures of aspects of English literacy are significant, and require urgent action. Finding 2: On who is at risk – The performance data suggests that poverty and rural location are the two key factors of ‘at riskness’ for Aboriginal student achievement. We will argue that this is linked closely with EFL/ESL and ESD status. Additionally, health issues – particularly those associated with hearing status – can be predictors of ‘at riskness’, especially for their impact on the development of oracy in the early years. While the literacy outcomes for Indigenous students were considerably lower than the whole student group, and the difference between the genders has been indicated as significant in its own right, the demographic factor of rurality also bears significantly on outcomes (Luke, Woods, Land, Bahr & McFarland, 2002). This has been illustrated in Queensland School Curriculum Council documentation of statewide testing undertaken in 1995 and 1996 on Year 6 students in Queensland. Their analyses indicate that poor outcomes were further exacerbated by rurality: Performance on both reading and viewing and on writing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students who also have NESB was more than extremely below those of the whole group and wider gaps were recorded for those students in rural locations (Luke, Freebody & Land, 2000, p.19). The report observes that the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students needing additional support is much greater than that of all other students and that urban students (particularly those of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander background) tend to be less at risk than those in rural areas. When these results were analysed with SES as a factor, it was noted that: “for Year 2 students, as the SES level increases, the extent of risk decreases” (p.21). Again, there appears to be evidence that Aboriginality intersects powerfully with distance from urban centre and with socio-economic disadvantage to compound as negative risk factors. The authors of the report are careful to place a caveat on the results of these various tests, noting the potential danger of schools’ and parents ‘over-interpreting and over-valuing’ the findings: Those groups showing consistently low levels of performance on these literacy tests are boys, Aboriginal students and Torres Strait Islander students, students for whom English is not a first language, students living in socioeconomically disadvantaged circumstances, and in some cases, non-urban students (p. 30). Key variables such as gender, SES status, location and Indigenous identification and language background intersect in complex ways and this makes valid and fair interpretation of Net and Test results for schools and groups of Indigenous students a much more difficult task – certainly a more sophisticated one that the current provision of statutory authority data and EQ school database information allows for.
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Indeed, improvements in performance by some sub-groups of Indigenous students in many schools and some community school contexts are often being masked in the overall lower pattern of Indigenous performance consistently being noted. In almost all districts and regional areas there are some positive examples of schools successfully serving significant proportions of Indigenous students, at least in terms of their measured performance on systemic tests. This is as true for the more remote islands in the Torres Strait, as it is for community settlements in Cape York, the North-West and the South-West. To be sure, the relative extent of success with Indigenous students appears greatest in urban and sub-urban centres on the coast and in the greater South-East corner. Overall, these examples of successful English literacy performance for Indigenous students appear to generate their biggest impact with younger students during the early language acquisition phase in primary schools. We will show in this report that location correlates strongly with local EFL and ESL language learning issues to place a diverse set of challenges for school administrators and teachers. There needs to be a powerful set of strategic and practical alignments between languages and literacies, between communities and schools, and between students and teachers in classrooms to turn the typical pattern of under-performance of Indigenous students around in the majority of schools. It is insufficient and unsustainable to leave the challenges to individual schools without more systematic advice and support.
UNDER-PROVISION AND INTERVENTION While it provides us with baseline information for the description of the educational problem, the current model of common statewide ‘diagnosis, testing and intervention’ runs the risk of reinforcing the different and marginalised status of Indigenous students in a wide variety of settings. As we demonstrate elsewhere in another report on accountability and assessment for the IECB (Luke, Woods, Land, Bahr & McFarland, 2002), this current state model conveniently overlooks issues of differential language demands, experience with testing patterns and conditions, and appropriateness of materials and intervention in reporting the performance patterns of Indigenous students. It was concluded in the Literate Futures report (Luke, Freebody & Land, 2000, p. 31) that the real point here is that the system can’t deliver and sustain quality programs of literacy development and intervention, particularly in rural and remote settings, and has not done so for many years: There is systematic under-provision of literacy education to certain categories of students and communities, rather than that these kinds of students from these kinds of backgrounds are under-achieving [emphasis added]. But the exact nature of what should be provided, in what blends and for which segments of the complex, linguistically and culturally heterogeneous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities is the issue. This report will provide some frameworks, models and ‘first cuts’ at answers. Reading Recovery is generally the most sought-after early intervention option available to Queensland primary schools. Yet partly because of the way it has historically been implemented, it does not provide an adequate coverage or service for the most needy Indigenous students in remote community settings. Its design is based on identifying those students most in need of early reading intervention and development. Issues such as
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staffing difficulties, intermittent or poor student attendance, inadequate quality control over procedures, inappropriate resources are frequently cited reasons for this systemic under-provision. Yet the pattern of distribution of Reading Recovery resources remains biased towards non-Indigenous students in need, often in more conveniently located centres. Despite the extent of State government investment in this and other methods, including assistance with learning support, speech pathology and ESL, the language and literacy support needs of such rural and remote Indigenous students in particular remain largely unmet, partly through lack of an overall coordination and ‘dovetailing’ of such resources and expertise (Luke, Land, Woods & Freebody, 2002).
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4. A FRAME: LANGUAGE AND THE BALANCE OF RIGHTS None of this is good enough. Overall performance by any measure that we have looked at and reported here is poor, from 10 to 30% below non-Indigenous performance. The reasons, of course, are complex – and in part contingent on the cultural and linguistic limitations of assessment instruments (see the parallel IECB study by Luke et al., 2002). How do we frame the problem? This is a problem where everybody is an expert and to which significant financial and intellectual efforts have been put for some time. Is it a question of low expectations, poor pedagogy, lowered standards in schools and other institutions? Of more, or less, focus on mainstream English? Of better pre- and in-service teacher training? Of culturally-inappropriate or linguistically-unresponsive pedagogy? Of more, or less, focus on basic skills? Of larger issues of community infrastructure, institutions, social and economic capital? What of the pedagogic and educational solutions on offer: More bilingual education? Mandatory systematic ESL provision? Direct instruction in phonics and alphabetics? Two-way schooling models? More explicit genre and grammar instruction? How and on what grounds should whole-school literacy programs be built? From our view, any solution must meet two key ‘rights’, recognisable across our studies: • The Right to Mainstream Cultural Capital: that Indigenous children are entitled to equitable access and comparable outcomes in the attainment of English language proficiency and reading and writing competences and their affiliated curriculum knowledges and practices as forms of mainstream cultural capital requisite for access, mobility, status, power and influence in Australian society and economy (Luke in press a; Freebody & LoBianco, 2000; Cummins, 2000). • The Right to Your Own Languages: that Indigenous children are entitled to access to and fluency with Indigenous languages, Creoles, non-standard dialects and accents for purposes of cultural identity and social relations, community membership and political power, and to participate in the complex local societies and economies of Indigenous communities (May, 2001; LoBianco, 1987). In some ways, the task for Queensland schools, and for Australian society and Indigenous communities, can be reframed as a balance of rights hypothesis: that any educational way forward proposed will only be adequate if it balances both rights. It must enable Indigenous students improved access to mainstream Australian social and cultural institutions, and it must enable a critical and informed engagement with contemporary globalised capitalist economy and culture. At the same time it must encourage local community involvement and enable local cultures and languages, as these communities engage with issues of cultural maintenance, change and blending in the face of powerful economic and social forces. As a goal, schools would enable and empower Indigenous students to actively and critically engage in overlapping “linguistic markets”, to work simultaneously in multiple markets, with different values, different expectations and roles, relationships and rules of exchange. This has proven a tough ask for educational systems across Australia, as the
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policy review appended here shows. The aforementioned educational performance data shows that Indigenous achievement of English language and literacy as mainstream cultural capital is not at anything approaching equitable levels that might impact on overall economic, social and political participation. At the same time the descriptive linguistic and sociolinguistic literature on language diversity and ecology makes two very telling points: that Indigenous languages are being lost (e.g., Dorian, 1989); and, that language maintenance and retention involves a complex interplay of cultural, economic and sociodemographic forces, of which education is but one aligning social and cultural factor (e.g., Bavin, 1989; May, 2001). In sum, the emergent implied goals of equitable Indigenous language and literacy education were very much in the focus of the IECB brief, and they were confirmed by Indigenous and non-Indigenous informants across this study: how to improve achievement in English language and literacy, while maintaining, consolidating, expanding and respecting Indigenous languages, Creoles and non-standard dialect and accent proficiency. We make the balance of rights proposal here with eyes open, attempting to set up a policy and practice environment for Indigenous children that does not pursue ‘romantic’ or ‘ideal’ scenarios. Nor is this analysis an ambit claim for more resources from any particular sector, though there are clearly implications for levels, coordination and distribution of resources to Schools, regions and support infrastructure of the recommendations advanced here. Our aim here is strongly aligned with the overall goals of Education 2010 (Education Queensland, 2000), New Basics (Luke et al., 2000b), Literate Futures (Luke, Freebody & Land, 2000) and Partners for Success (Education Queensland, 2000) – to give every Indigenous Queensland student a fair and equitable pathway to and through the complex economies, communities and futures of the new Queensland.
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5. WHAT WE AGREE ON: ENGLISH AS CULTURAL CAPITAL There is a strong consensus that has emerged in the case studies of schools, interviews with Indigenous Elders, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educational leaders, and with systems stakeholders. This new consensus spans Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators, community stakeholders, and works across the political spectrum. It is at the heart of approaches such as the Cape York Strategy and the Commonwealth What Works materials and national planning initiatives (McRae et al., 2000). The focus on improved Indigenous student access and achievement in English language and literacy has had bipartisan political support nationally, and is the object of statements of principle by major teacher unions and professional organisations. We should not take for granted the significance of this historical moment, where diverse and often argumentative forces have reached such a consensus. Finding 3: On Standard Australian English Literacy – There is a strong belief – shared across Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators, philosophical perspectives, local and central administrators and across educational systems – that the provision of powerful levels of competence with Standard Australian English in its written and spoken, print and digital forms, is of the highest priority for Indigenous education. As the following review of policy and historical approaches to Indigenous education indicates – there has not always been a consensus on what is to be done. At different times over the past three decades, some Indigenous Elders and Anglo/Australian experts have argued against English as a form of cultural imperialism. Others have argued that it is overvalued in formal education or used as an arbitrary and unfair gatekeeper, others have argued that students “rights to their own language” are incompatible with the strong emphasis on English language and literacy, and that the latter is a holdover from missionary and colonialist education. These arguments persist and are unresolved in many contexts, particularly in Maori educational contexts in New Zealand and among some educational researchers and linguists in the Northern Territory. We found that in Queensland communities there is a stronger consensus around this issue than there has been for the past three decades. The question is – exactly how we move forward. This is where the picture gets a bit harder and more complex, with contending approaches to teaching and learning, contending views on the relative emphasis that should be placed on culture, on language, on testing, and on direct instruction. The current situation is one of overall poor English language and literacy achievement and continued loss of Indigenous language proficiency among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and students. The question is how to improve the development of students’ and communities’ actual literate practices and discourse resources without further accelerating language loss? Note here that we have taken the step beyond arguing that it’s simply a matter of ‘more English’. It’s a matter of developing individuals’ and communities’ repertoires of text practices, skills and competences. As recent work in critical approaches to TESOL suggests, the matter also is not simply a linguistic one, involving more or less language proficiency (Norton, 2000; Pennycook, 2001). Rather it involves the need for economically and culturally marginalised students from linguistic
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minorities to improve access to and engagement with substantive ‘discourses’ (Gee, 1995) – forms of life and ways of knowing, curriculum knowledges, powerful and meaningful social and intellectual fields, and socio-linguistic registers that have consequence and significance for further educational achievement, gainful employment, political involvement and social analysis, and the building of critical engagements with social institutions (Pennycook, 1999; Norton & Toohey, in press). These in turn are forms of capital and power that become students’ contributions to communities large and small, local and global. At the same time, mainstream cultural capital ain’t what it used to be. Engagement with new technologies and world popular and media culture has become a focal part of communities’ economic and cultural lives – and there are clear signs that mastering communications technologies and media culture will be important forms of value in new economies (New London Group, 1996; Alvermann, 2002). In this report, we also want to suggest that it is a matter of ‘which literacies’ as much as it might be framed in terms of ‘which languages’: which practices, which skills and knowledges will count as ‘learning English’ (Nakata, 2000; LoBianco, 2000). And this may mean web pages and websites as much as basal readers, signs and packages as much as traditional stories. (These are the issues that whole-school literacy plans, based on Literate Futures raise). The UQ/EQ Plus program and the use of information technology at the Acacia Ridge Murri School are prime examples where better overall reading and writing and engagement with new knowledge is achieved through direct digital and on line experiences. CASE 1: Multiliteracies and Indigenous Learners: Four years ago, the University of Queensland and Education Queensland established the PLUS Project with the Bundamba Cluster of Schools in the Ipswich area. That project brings around 20 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary students to UQ Ipswich for 2 hours of after school training for 13-15 weeks. They are trained to become ICT wizards, learning web page design, hardware and software management, and critical information multiliteracies. At a graduation ceremony, they present their ICT achievements to Elders, families and teachers. Over the four year period, the PLUS project has graduated almost 60 students, who have returned to their schools to teach teachers and students about how to use the new ICTs. The reports are that they return to their schools leaders, with improved self-esteem, attitude and visible recommitment to reading and writing, on line and off. As in other prototypical projects in the USA and UK, ICTs have been successfully used to ‘switch on’ at risk Indigenous children to reading, writing and schooling (Kapitzke, Mayer & Renshaw, 2001).
Hopevale State School’s use of IT for cultural studies and the archiving of oral histories are also notable. These efforts, part of Hopevale’s participation in the New Basics Trial, focus primary students’ rich tasks of collecting and digitally archiving Elders’ stories, community histories and narratives. These are examples of emergent Indigenous “multiliteracies” in action. And they corroborate other Neo-Vygotskian research and development projects like the University of California Fifth Dimension projects that demonstrate how ‘at risk’ readers, including bilingual students can excel at engaging with mainstream language, literacy and curriculum through working with on-line and digital environments (Cole, 1996). Yet we found too few settings in the schools that we visited where digital and mass media figured as strongly in the teaching of Indigenous children as they have the potential to. 14
Finding 4: On Indigenous multiliteracies – There is an urgent need for research and development activities to develop and generalise Indigenous ways of using digital technology. Multiliteracies are an essential part of the right to cultural capital and power in new economic conditions. Recommendation 1: On Indigenous multiliteracies – That EQ and other schooling systems review their strategies for ICT, digital technology use and virtual schooling services to assess distinctive Indigenous issues around questions of access and power. Which blends of policy and state systemic interventions are needed? Which blends of community participation, government/private sector alignment of available capital will be required to establish environments conducive to improved language and literacy in schools and out? Which blends of school-based and classroom interventions? While we don’t have definitive answers from the cases and fieldwork we undertook here – small scale, singleshot case studies are, by definition, difficult to generalise across educational, community and sociolinguistic contexts – this report will offer ways of framing, classifying the problem, selecting interventions and moving forward. There is no method or single answer. There are programmatic approaches, ways of seeing, defining and addressing the problem at these levels that are already and will improve overall performance. This educational task ahead requires policy analysis and field-based studies of schools, teachers and communities, that also cuts across work in specific KLAs and fields including: Indigenous education, LOTE, English education, ESL, primary language arts and literacy education, and special education. It also must require issues of access and competence in English, and Indigenous languages, Torres Strait Creole and Aboriginal English. Without a doubt, the delicate political and cultural issues of ‘which languages should count, for whom, with which consequences’ play through this report. We begin with a review of previous major efforts to improve language and literacy performance in education. In this section, we use recent history to view and review the present situation.
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6. WHERE WE’VE BEEN: A GENEALOGY OF INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE EDUCATION To understand where we’ve gotten to and to not simply repeat the past, requires that we know we’ve come from. Language and literacy education of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders has its historical roots in missionary education. This was a mixture of colonial readers, monolingual grammar-based instruction and the disciplined study of religious texts. To this day, descriptive linguists affiliated with religious and NGOs conscientiously work in both linguistic corpus analysis and Bible-translation in Australia and across the South Pacific. Mission school education established a discipline of mainstream English language and literacy education, disbarring or punishing Indigenous language use (Glen, 1989). One of the key strategies of colonialism was the classification of emergent Creoles, pidgins and non-standard dialects as ‘broken’, deficit and defective forms of ‘proper English’ – implying that their speakers were intellectually, educationally, cognitively and linguistically deficient (e.g., Siegel, 1987; Romaine, 1988). This monocultural and monolingual legacy extended into mainstream Queensland state and Catholic schooling well into the postwar period and is present today in many locales, whether through the use of texts like the Queensland Readers or the adoption of monocultural basal reading series and round robin reading pedagogy (cf. Baker & Freebody, 1987). Such approaches to language and literacy education have different kinds of effects, shaping and selecting differential kinds of communicative competence, constructing reading and writing, and including and excluding different kinds of kids. They show a failure of the educators and the system at large to recognise explicitly through policy, practice and face-to-face instruction the essential value of and educational potential of students’ and communities’ bilingualism, tri- and multi-lingualism, of non-standard language forms, and of related Indigenous cultural standpoints and knowledges. Partly as a consequence, it means that however much communities now wish to advocate the right to assert the right to English as mainstream cultural capital – they must also carefully consider the view that such a model is form of new colonialism, to be balanced by the previously mentioned rights to Indigenous languages claim. These debates have long histories. As the following review of general trends in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language education indicates, there have been significant paradigm shifts in over the past three decades. Excellent critical reviews of educational ideology, paradigms and policy is available in McConaghy (2000). Early 1990s overviews by Christine Walton (1996) at NTU remain the most comprehensive capture of the debates over Indigenous language and literacy education strategies and debates. Recent Western Australian work by Malcolm et al. (1999) updates strategies for bidialectal education. Further, the complexity and difficulty of the continued debates around bilingual education and direct instruction are reflected in the careful discussions of Learning Lessons (1999), the recent ‘independent review’ in the Northern Territory. As yet there has been no attempt at a comprehensive Queensland state Language and Literacy Policy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. This is in part a legacy
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of this monocultural and monolingual, assimilationist tradition, and, of late, has been more a result of the lack until recent years of a definitive template or approach to Indigenous language education. The major breakthroughs in language and literacy education for Indigenous education can be traced back to two major developments in Western Australia and the Northern Territory in the 1970s and 1980s. Following developments by Dell Hymes, Courtney Cazden and colleagues in the USA, Robert Eagleson, Susan Kaldor, Ian Malcolm and colleagues working in WA, Paul Black, Patrick McConvell and colleagues in Northern Territory began sociolinguistic and ethnographic studies of Indigenous language use. This marked a shift from traditional descriptive linguistic corpus analysis to the sociolinguistic study of actual everyday language use in Aboriginal communities. Eagleson, Kaldor and Malcolm (1982) began to describe remarkable patterns of bilingualism, diglossia and code switching in WA and Northern Territory communities. In Queensland, major work by Anna Shnukal (1984) on Torres Strait Creole did a similar job of documenting its structures, spread and variation among the Torres Strait Islander community; Shnukal continues the translation of that work into educational interventions the Torres Straits.. Later work by Kale (1995) began to document Torres Strait Islander children’s bilingual developmental pathways to and through school-based literacy, and the patterns of misrecognition of development by monocultural and monolingual educational establishments. Work by Diana Eades (e.g., 1991) and colleagues have documented the sociolinguistics of Aboriginal English in Southeast Queensland. Taken together, this work simply has the effect of breaking the mythology of Indigenous languages, creoles and pidgins, non-standard dialects and their speakers as deficit or inferior. The key point of this work is that – from a linguistic view – all languages and their speakers are equal. However, from a sociolinguistic view, some languages and ways with words have different kinds of status and power in particular linguistic markets (Luke, McHoul & Mey, 1990; Williams, 1992). By the 1980s, then, this research had established a powerful case for both language maintenance programs, and for transitional bilingual and bidialectal programs that begin to see Indigenous languages, Creole and non-standard dialect proficiency as forms of linguistic competence rather than as deficit. In what to this day is a substantial contribution to the field, English and the Aboriginal Child, Eagleson, Malcolm and Kaldor (1982) presented linguistic corpus analyses of Indigenous languages and Aboriginal English, and discussed and documented the actual functions and uses of them. They made a powerful case for ESL and ESD instruction, and for the cultural modification of patterns of classroom interaction and school literacy events. Even though the historical context has changed, much of the analysis of this book holds and was reiterated in Malcolm et al. (1999): that language, mainstream curriculum, communicative styles and patterns of classroom lessons actually were badly in need of modification to encourage Indigenous learning, not only to improve language acquisition, but as well to enable any substantive engagement with curriculum and pedagogy in all their various forms. One of the key effects of this work was to break the stranglehold of monolingual, assimilationist approaches to pedagogy and move towards ‘mismatch’ theories (cf. Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986) that call upon schools to better modify their curriculum and instruction to accommodate Indigenous language proficiency and cultural knowledge. In major ethnographic studies of South Australian children in the 1980s, Malin demonstrated 17
the transitional difficulties of switching from community communicative styles and interactional patterns to those of the Anglo/Australian school (cf. Harris & Malin, 1994). This work also sets the grounds for a case for communities’ ‘rights to their own language’ and the possibility of educational systems that recognise, understand the significance of, and even, cultivate bilingualism, bidialectalism and classroom di-glossia. This work was used as part of as the rationale for a focus on bilingual education where children began to learn to read in an Indigenous language through locally authored stories and translations, and then transitioned into mainstream English language literacy. The initial NT model was a “staircase model”, designed to deliver a “95:5 mix of Indigenous language oracy and literacy and limited English oracy in preschooling, moving in stages to 20:80 Indigenous language and SAE oracy and literacy by Year 7” (Learning Lessons, 1999, p. 121). The debate over the empirical and theoretical grounds for this model, its practical maintenance (e.g., the Northern Territory report goes on to report “an ad hoc move in most towards a 50:50 model” with variable results) continues to this time. There is an extensive international literature on bilingual education, much of it based on initial research in Canada, Europe and the United States around migrant linguistic minority populations. In a widely-cited taxonomy, Nancy Hornberger (1991) attempted to describe those models that focused on language shift from L1 to L2 as “transitional models”, those that focused on maintenance and affirmation of linguistic rights and identity as “maintenance models” and those that were actively aiming at expanding the range and cultural influence of linguistic diversity as “enrichment models”. Working from an interactional sociolinguistic paradigm, Hornberger argues that models are context-specific, not only reflecting the complex linguistic ecologies and socio-demographics of specific communities, but as well the normative political and social aspirations of particular groups. This latter point is important – for it suggests there is no ‘universally’ applicable or relevant model of bilingual education, but the actual programs and approaches necessarily reflect particular political and cultural power dynamics. The conditions and aims of language learning are, as Toohey (2000, p.8) reminds us, “socially, historically and politically constructed”. Nettle and Romaine (2000) make a compelling argument about the interrelatedness of cultural diversity and biological diversity that says geographical areas of biodiversity are the same places where we find the highest linguistic diversity (e.g., Australia and Papua New Guinea). These are the areas most often inhabited by indigenous peoples. They coin a new term for this; biolinguistic diversity “the rich spectrum of life encompassing all the earth’s species of plants and animals along with human cultures and their languages”, p.13). The authors subsume language loss under the more global phenomenon of a biolinguistic diversity crisis and see impending language loss as an artefact of this larger, biolinguistic diversity crisis facing the planet. “Languages are like a miner’s canary: where languages are in danger, it is a sign of environmental distress” (p.14). Nettle and Romaine make sobering predictions about languages viability internationally, with particular reference to Australia:
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“… 90% of an estimated 250 Aboriginal languages (are) near extinction. Only some 50 languages are widely spoken today and of these only 18 have at least 500 speakers. These 18 account roughly 25,000 of the remaining 30,000 speakers of Aboriginal languages. There is no Aboriginal language that is used in all arena of everyday life by members of a sizeable community. It is possible that only 2 or 3 of the languages will survive into the next century” (p. 9). They caution against seeing a small population of speakers as a risk factor as in and of itself, it is not necessarily a predictor of language loss. They note other predictors (e.g., language status). In her discussion and survey of bilingual education, Freeman (1998) points out that US bilingual programs have tended towards the transitional model, potentially leading to “subtractive bilingualism” (Lambert, 1987 in Freeman, 1998), while maintenance and “enrichment” models have proliferated in Canada and parts of Europe. There are several key points that arise in relation to such descriptions of bilingual education. First, many of the operative models and claims about bilingual education tend to be extrapolated from data and contexts of migrant minority language education in advanced capitalist countries. Second, many of the operative models that claim cognitive effects of bilingual education are based on 1980s research on French immersion programs by Cummins (1986; 1987), who argues that concepts and knowledge acquired in one language do not necessarily require teaching and learning anew in the second language. The author further argues that “threshold” capacity is necessary in first language in order to generate proficiency in the second language. Freeman (1998) goes on to make several telling points which are relevant to our current discussion. First, some of Cummins’ claims about threshold competence are unproven. But more importantly, the author argues that dual language programs are contingent upon a number of extra-linguistic implementation and pedagogic factors the influence their resourcing, sustainability and viability (e.g., community support, continuity of staffing and funding, clear domain-separation in classrooms). We will return to these later in this report, specifically in relation to recommendations for bilingual education and for Indigenous LOTEs. Returning to the context of Australian Indigenous education, we confront unresolved issues of both research and practice. The extrapolation of many of the principles of Cummins’ work raises significant and unresolved empirical and pedagogical questions. Furthermore, the issues of implementation and support for sustainable bilingual programs have been persistent, with Learning Lessons (1999) noting cases where “the proportions of languages used, and quality of instruction delivered, zigzag widely from year to year”… and where “high staff turnover, lack of equipment and resources and … [unsupportive] staff and principals” all creating large scale implementation and quality problems. Finally, it is worth noting that while they recognise the importance of community “empowerment”, culture and identity – like much of the work on bilingual education and second language acquisition it does not engage with concepts of capital or developed sociological views of power. This bilingual approach was the language/literacy component of what would come to be known as ‘two ways’ or ‘both ways’ education in the 1980s and 1990s. It thus aimed both to enable a transition from first language competence brought to school from community to the formal English registers of schooling, while recognizing and maintaining the 19
community language in question. Historically, these approaches were brought to fruition in the Northern Territory, but continue to have powerful effects in other States to this day. The second major breakthrough in Indigenous education occurred in work in the Northern Territory by educational psychologists Stephen Harris (1984) and Michael Christie (1985). In these widely cited works Harris and Christie argued that traditionally-oriented Indigenous peoples had distinctive learning styles. These specifically, were field and context-dependent, kinesthetic and visual learners. Their work began to set the grounds for what would in the 1980s be called “culturally appropriate pedagogy” by Barry Osborne (2001) and colleagues in North Queensland. This work, drawing also from comparable educational ethnography on North American Indigenous peoples and cultural minorities, added two key principles to the field. First was the idea of a “warm demander”, implying the need for humane, child-centred education. Second was a strong focus on the expectation that all children could and would learn – a theme reinforced across the literature and all successful practices in Indigenous education. The basic concept was that mainstream schooling needed to directly adjust mainstream teaching/learning approaches to accommodate the distinctive ways of learning of Indigenous children. The further implication was that it had to quit misrecognising multilingual competence as ‘deficit’ and begin setting up conditions for and expecting that all children would learn and succeed. The work on “culturally appropriate pedagogy” later evolved into various 1990s attempts to identify and deploy forms of “Aboriginal pedagogy” that take into account distinctive aspects of Indigenous world view, epistemology and ways of learning. These efforts continue to this day in Queensland, Australia and elsewhere, notably in the Maori work by Linda Smith (1999). Though they were later critiqued for overgeneralising across increasing heterogeneous Indigenous communities and learners (e.g., treating all Aboriginal kids as if they had similar learning styles, regardless of location or life history), these developments were linked to a series of prototypical developments in the Northern Territory. Beginning in the 1980s, the Northern Territory moved into systematic bilingual education. This involved the development of the role of teacher linguists in community schools. Supported by bilingual teachers and teacher aides, the Northern Territory system invested in the development of bilingual Indigenous language/English education. Initial reading instructional materials were developed and used in Indigenous languages (e.g., Warlpiri, Burada) and these were used as part of bilingual programs that aimed to engage children and introduce them to literacy in their initial years of schooling in first language narratives (e.g., the 80/20 model), introducing key curriculum concepts and ideas in first language, and then transition them into mainstream English literacy at later stages of the educational development (see articles in Lipscombe & Burnes, 1982). Additionally, Aboriginal culture and studies programs were brought into community-based primary schools. This was tied to two affiliated moves: First, the development of community-based teacher and teacher-aid education to training Aboriginal teachers through Batchelor College. One effect of this move was to increase the number of Indigenous language speakers, pidgin and creole speakers, and Aboriginal English speakers among the teaching and administrative workforce. Second was a systematic focus on student empowerment, community engagement and negotiated curriculum through adaptation of work on action research undertaken by Stephen Kemmis, Jon Henry and others through Deakin University (Atweh et al., 1998).
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In this regard, the Northern Territory approaches in the 1980s brought together what were, at the time, several key themes: 1. bilingual Indigenous language/English education; 2. the introduction of Aboriginal cultural content into the curriculum and classroom; 3. community engagement and political empowerment models; 4. the training and development of Aboriginal teachers and teacher-aides; and, 5.
a systematic focus on ‘cultural appropriateness’ and bridging community/school learning styles, Indigenous knowledges.
Taken together, these formed the basis of ‘two way education’, variations of which continue in various formats across Australia. As a philosophy and orientation, it has received continued endorsement through almost all recent State, Territory and Commonwealth reports. As the review of current policies in the following section of this report indicates and in a controversial decision, the Northern Territory recently moved away from large-scale commitment to bilingual education. Different explanations of the difficulties in delivery of bilingual education and attempts have been raised – however, it appears not to have delivered its promised results. Some of the explanations involve its requisite for highly trained native or native-like speakers in both target languages, the expense of development of Indigenous language materials, and the inability of bilingual education to deal with those larger community issues of health, social infrastructure and cultural conflict that have direct impacts on schooling success. Whatever the reasons, a review of the international literature on successful and unsuccessful bilingual programs (e.g., Romaine, 1995; Swain & Lapkin, 1982) suggest that it requires, at the least: • Formalisation of the linguistic corpus and functional domains where the Indigenous language is used; • Highly trained teachers who are expert pedagogues and have high levels fluency with target languages; • High quality, linguistically sound and developmentally sequenced learning materials; • Clear, principled domain separation within the classroom and curriculum. These, it should be noted, provide significant human, financial and cultural resource challenges for community schools and state systems. They have as well troubled attempts in the USA, Canada, South Pacific nations and elsewhere to build sustainable and effective bilingual programs. Drawing from Lindholm’s (1990) criteria for successful implementation of “dual language” education drawn from US and European cases, Freeman (1998) lists the following:
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1. … dual-language programs must last for at least four to six years; 2. they must focus on academic achievement; 3. there must be large quantities of comprehensible language input and opportunities for speaker input; 4. separation of languages for instruction is required; 5. the minority language must be used at least 50% of the time, or as much as 90100% of the time in the early grades; 6. …an additive bilingual environment; 7. a positive school environment…; 8. …a large number of students from each language background in the program; 9. students should be actively involved with each other in their learning, with the teacher facilitating…; 10. high quality instructional personnel… 11. home-school collaboration… (p. 14). We table Freeman’s and Lindholms’ criteria for illustrative, not definitive purposes. For while some of these criteria would appear to most educationists to be common-sense, others, for example the percentage of time devoted to each language in the early grades, the threshold numbers of speakers of each language, the levels of training for teaching personnel, are debatable and remain controversial. We also note that both advocates and critics of bilingual education in the Northern Territory would agree that the actual resource, logistical and educational implementation issues raised by bilingual education has been difficult to achieve on a sustained and consistent basis.
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CASE 2: Bilingual Education in the School: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders and educators all argued strongly that the speaking of ‘language’ – whether Indigenous languages, Torres Strait Creole, or Aboriginal English – is a crucial element of identity for many students and was necessary for power in local communities. Specifically, our field work involve meeting community members in the Torres Strait and documents the case that the maintenance and support of Indigenous languages and Torres Strait Creole will be important as the Torres Strait people move towards political autonomy and self-determination. However there are several systematic impediments to moving towards bilingual or transitional bilingual education. First, many of the communities we visited spoke several Indigenous languages and could not agree on which ones should be brought into the classroom. Second, despite the extensive work on its lexical, syntactic and semantic properties, there remain serious questions about whether Torres Strait Creole can be an effective medium of instruction in specialised learning areas of mainstream schooling. Third, there are serious questions about whether the systems, schools and communities have the requisite pool of trained teachers with fluency in these languages to run effective programs. Finally, there is ample evidence in Australia and internationally now that without huge resource and training investments, the results can actually lead to deterioration of competence in both English and target languages. A proposed trial: After conferring with IECB members and other Indigenous educators, and having reviewed recent literature on dual-language education, the research team is of the position that bilingual education can be viable only where it meets many of the criteria noted above. By our estimates, the trialling of a bilingual program in an Islander or Aboriginal community could occur where the following conditions could be met: • The community is linguistically homogeneous and strongly supports the teaching of one specific Indigenous language, used in home and community settings; • Highly trained and experienced teachers fluent in both English and the Indigenous language are available; • A full-time teacher linguist is secured to guide development of materials, longitudinal research, and to develop a model of domain separation in the classroom; • The education system is willing commit necessary resources for at least five years to support: basic linguistic research as needed, local literature and materials development and publication, additional staffing as required, and to manage the industrial situation such that the school was insulated from high staff turnover. If these conditions could be met, a small-scale trial of bilingual education could be undertaken. This would require thorough costings and commitment of ongoing funding, community support, and a team of educational professionals willing to commit to such a project on an ongoing basis. Because of the costs involved and the ‘high stakes’ involved for communities and students, we support limited and closely monitored trials only.
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Recommendation 2: On bilingual and Creole education – That given the complexity, costs and practical challenges affiliated with systematic bilingual or Creole-as-a-medium of instruction programs, that systems pursue a policy of ‘separate bilingual education’. That is, where trained teachers can be found, Indigenous languages be substituted for LOTE programs, and where community Elders can be engaged, that some teaching of Indigenous languages can be included in the school Indigenous culture programs. That, where community will and resources exist, after school and community-language programs can be established and supported by the state. A model scenario for the trial of a transitional bilingual program in schools is presented in this report. But, given the human and fiscal resource requirements and complexity of running effective bilingual programs this report argues that the principal focus of indigenous language and literacy education in Queensland schools remain on the achievement of English language literacy. Since the period of the late 1980s, there has been a lack of major, large-scale developments in Indigenous language/literacy education. Certainly, one set of moves has been to adapt successful mainstream pedagogies for Indigenous use. This has included attempts to put to work the various popular approaches to mainstream literacy education including: Freirian and Ashton-Warner approaches to the building of local curriculum around ‘key words’ and problem-solving; whole language immersion in literature approaches; process writing and writing workshop approaches to the development of local, student-authored literary materials; widespread use of packaged phonics programs. These have met with varied, and inconsistent success. It is our view, explained below, that ‘immersion’ and experiential approaches need to be augmented strongly with explicit models that give Indigenous learners very direct instruction in how English and how texts work – both in terms of writing genres, but especially now in terms of alphabetic knowledge, print knowledge, and phonemic awareness to achieve automaticity in early reading (Luke, Freebody & Land, 2000). We will comment further on these as we move towards a discussion of current practices. Additionally, there has been extensive work on adapting genre based, functional grammar approaches to the teaching of English. This has involved both adaptations of text-incontext models, direct instruction in grammatical metalanguage and genre and other approaches used in Queensland and other states. It also has been implemented through the successful “Concentrated Language Encounters” program developed by Brian Gray of Canberra University. This model involves the introduction of scaffolded and highly structured engagements with texts and their interactional contexts, and an affiliated pedagogy that provides explicit instruction in the lexico-grammatical requirements of such contexts (e.g., Gray, 1990). In its focus on direct instruction in specific generic and lexicogrammatical features of language in their contexts of use, Gray’s (1988) work is based both on the systemic functional linguistics work of Halliday and colleagues and the various work on genre pedagogy. It fits well with both current and proposed Queensland ELA approaches. This work is documented in What Works (McRae et al., 2000), and we saw examples of variants on this model used in classrooms with success. There are, additionally, recent models of ESL and bidialectal materials, in the tradition of the work cited above by Eagleson et al., that are currently being used in many classrooms we visited with some visible success. These include Walking Talking Texts (Northern Territory Board of Studies 1995), frequently used as a curricular resource, and the FELIKS materials from Western Australia. Nola Mary Goodwin, working in the Northern Territory, offers this 1998 description of the development of FELIKS: 24
In 1994 after years of study, research and helping teachers in Aboriginal community schools in the Kimberley, Joyce Hudson, Roslyn Berry and language team members made up of teacher linguists and ESL specialists were instrumental in publishing a kit called Fostering English Language in Kimberley Schools (FELIKS) … . This is a professional development course for training teachers and community helpers in accepting and validating Aboriginal students’ home language. It provides a systematic approach to examining the difference between AE dialects, Kriol and SAE. It increases teacher knowledge of these differences and provides specific strategies for teaching SAE as a second dialect. Students develop a meta-awareness of sociolinguistic rules of appropriateness and code switching, by identifying the situations in which AE would be appropriate and the situations in which SAE would be appropriate. It further provides games and work to pinpoint the difficulties that AE speakers have with SAE. While this is a very rich resource for ESD (English as a Second Dialect), which will be looked at under bidialectal approaches, it is initially an extremely good tool for awareness raising and can be used as a pre and in-service package for all teachers of Indigenous students … In the 1990s each Catholic school in the Kimberley was inserviced with both staff and community members taking part. New teachers coming in were in-serviced as part of their induction. This was followed up by sessions back at school and by help from FELIKS trained ESL teachers. Teachers from some of the independent schools also availed themselves of this in-service and there has been a fair amount of “exchange of ideas and strategies” (Malcolm 1995: 11) between this system and the W.A. State Education Department and the Edith Cowan University. At the 1997 induction of Catholic School teachers FELIKS was presented as part of a whole package toward helping teachers to be aware of AE dialects and to be able to deal with the difficulties they were experiencing. The package included other materials such as Walking Talking Texts (Northern Territory Board of Studies, 1995), and First Steps (Western Australia Education Department 1994) 1 . We believe that there are effective resources both for text-in-context work, for four resources, for direct instruction and transitional bilingual/bidialectal training available, many of which are featured in current training available though AIETA and some of the state LDCs . But they are very much in need of systematisation and dispersal across the schools working with larger indigenous populations. The case studies and reports from many informants across the states suggested that coordinated approaches and wholeschool programs were extremely variable and ‘patchy’. We have here provided a brief overview of some of the available strategies that have been mixed, matched and blended across states and systems over the past three decades. We would argue that the following principles and general approaches remain viable and of great potential, some confirmed in McRae et al., (2000), Malcolm et al. (1999), Desert Schools (1986) and Learning Lessons (1999). They should not be discarded. But they need to be brought together in alignment with other features to develop whole-school programs. To summarise: 1
For a review of issues of cultural and linguistic adaptation of the First Steps Developmental Continuum, which is the basis for the Queensland Year 2 Diagnostic Net, see the IECB report by Luke, Woods, Land, Bahr & McFarland (2002). That report makes a case that the continuum should be reviewed for its adequacy in representing and accommodating alternative, community-based pathways to literacy. 25
•
EFL/ESL/ESD Education: Programs and materials that explicitly recognise the issues around transition from Indigenous languages, Torres Strait Creole and Aboriginal English speech to mainstream English language and literacy in schools and in communities.
• Two-Way Schooling: Programs and materials that recognise and bring into the classroom aspects of Aboriginal language and culture, that narrative representations of student and community experience and history can be substantive elements of the curriculum for purposes of identity and knowledge building, and that open out schooling to engage directly and continuously with community knowledge and expertise. • Culturally Appropriate/Aboriginal Pedagogy: Recognition that the interactional patterns of the classroom may need to be altered in order to engage with the specific linguistic, cultural and behavioural ‘mismatches’ between communities and schools. • Genre/Explicit Pedagogy Models: Recognition that direct instruction in how English language works in specific contexts and how it works in specific communities is required by EFL, ESL and ESD students. It would be unwise to discard or dismiss these models as somehow ‘failed’ because they have not delivered the kinds of improvements to date on a large scale. All have something powerful to offer the education of Indigenous students – no one of them will ‘solve’ the problem. Part of the problem with them has been that they often have been adopted as the ‘whole answer’ and promoted as universally applicable to all Aboriginal students. Because of the linguistic, developmental, social class and experiential diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, it isn’t surprising that all of these approaches don’t work for all kids. Because of the complex issues of aligning community capital, there are other major structural impediments to many of these approaches working (e.g., health, attendance, behaviour and violence, etc.). The question, then, is how teachers and schools can make principled decisions, building whole-school plans, that mix and blend these and other, more recent approaches. At the same time, we found in this study that too few teachers and principals are fully familiar with this range of pedagogic options and for others – the wheel was being reinvented, or at times, just neglected. Finding 5: Lack of systematic direction – While there are several examples of exemplary practice in effective classroom and whole-school blends of these strategies the approaches, consistency and coherence of English language and literacy instruction in schools with significant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student populations are extremely variable. There has been a lack of systemic guidance, policy direction and concentrated pre- and in-service teacher preparation across the system. These issues are confounded by high turnover rates for both teachers and principals, the presence of many inexperienced teachers, insufficient pre- and in-service training for both teachers and principals, and a lack of ‘institutional memory’ about what has been used and tried before and with what degrees of sustained success.
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Unfortunately, at present there has been little in the way of an overarching policy approach in Queensland or elsewhere that would encourage or provide grounds for their systematic application, or their systematic deployment. The high stakes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education as a field has meant that much teaching, research and development expertise, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, has moved into other social service and education systems. We turn, then, to a brief review of Queensland Indigenous language education.
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7. QUEENSLAND INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE EDUCATION POLICY: A CASE OF UNPLANNING The history of Indigenous language education in Queensland has been quite different from other States and Territories, steeped in monoculturalism and without a systematic and consistent approach. The only systematic large-scale attempt to address the problem of Aboriginal English language competence was the Van Leer Project in the early 1970s (see Dwyer, 1974, 1976). Predating some of the work by Eagleson and colleagues in Western Australia, the Van Leer project was based on a contrastive analysis of Aboriginal English and Standard Australian English, early psycholinguistic work on reading, and study of sociolinguistic contexts of use. Dwyer and colleagues working in the early 1970s argued against intellectual and linguistic deficit positions and argued for a systematic transitional bidialectal program that prototyped many of the same design principles that feature in FELIKS and other programs now. The work led to a strong language immersion and language experience approach, augmented with direct instruction models in alphabet knowledge, grapheme/phoneme translation, and word recognition. Reviewing the Van Leer Project three decades later, which at the time generated documented improvement in student literacy – its design principles and practices remain valuable. Despite this early and quite innovative prototype, following Van Leer, there was little systematic follow through in language and literacy education policy for Indigenous children and communities. Throughout the 1980s, there was a strong focus placed on the development of “culturally appropriate” pedagogy and exploration of some of the “twoway models” proposed by Christie and Harris, Osborne and others noted in the previous section. But over the last two decades, Queensland has operated without an Aboriginal/Islander language-and-literacy-in-education plan or policy. What this has meant is that there has been a tendency to apply mainstream developments in English language and literacy without research and development directly in State and non-State schools for teaching Indigenous children. Successively, this has meant a focus on shared book experience, on process writing, on literature-based whole language and language experience, applications of more formalised programs like Reading Recovery generally without modification, and, more recently, general extrapolation of approaches to genre and direct instruction in phonics to Indigenous teaching. Simply, during the period since the release of the 1992 Queensland English Language Arts syllabus, the introduction of the Year 2 Diagnostic Net and the defacto adaptation of the First Steps Developmental Continuum in the mid-1990s, and through the introduction of benchmark testing in literacy in the late 1990s, there has been no attempt to systematically provide advice on how to translate these approaches for Indigenous students. The adaptation of the migrant ESL Bandscales for use by Queensland teachers for the assessment of English proficiency among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children is a welcome development, which we will discuss in the Appendix to the report. In the course of this report, it was reported to us that further developments in Indigenous and non-Indigenous ESL policy were pending and imminent.
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It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that the case studies we undertook here found a similar combination of eclectic approaches to that that Luke, Land and Freebody (2000) described in Literate Futures. Specifically, there was a blend of practices, a strong emphasis on genre approaches to writing, but teachers were still searching for appropriate materials and those that specifically would work with Indigenous children. This has led to some interesting moves, from the adoption by several schools of packaged phonics programs like THRASS, the Sound Way and Jolly Phonics, to the assumption in other schools that a largescale adoption of ESL models based variously on principles of communicative language teaching and systemic functional grammar would address the problem. In our discussions with teachers and administrators working in schools with significant Indigenous populations there was clear frustration, particularly over how much they were having to ‘make it up for themselves’ without strong systemic advice or training. At the same time, we were surprised, though we shouldn’t have been, at the extent to which successive generations of teachers might adopt what they thought was a new approach (e.g., communicative language teaching, shared book experience, transitional bidialectal programs) without knowing where it came from, whether and how it had been tried before, and what results it might yield. This situation was exacerbated by two other professional/industrial factors. First, many of the schools visited continued to experience high turnover of teachers, many of whom were altogether unprepared in pre- and in-service to contribute to whole-school language and literacy programs. Second, many of the schools visited did not have ongoing continuity of leadership. Note in our comments above that Freeman et al. suggest that the requisite cycle for successful dual language programs is five to seven years. Corroborating the findings of the QSRLS (Lingard et al., 2001) and the overall school renewal and improvement literature, we found that where there was leadership continuity – particularly in the cases of Indigenous principals, but in the cases where there was longstanding, committed nonIndigenous leadership as well – the overall pedagogical efficacy and coherence was better and was yielding better results. Nonetheless the situation we described in the field is the result of almost two decades of unplanned and relatively uncoordinated language and literacy in Indigenous education. Teachers, administrators and communities are justifiably frustrated with the situation. Recommendation 3: On a state language and literacy strategy for Indigenous learners – There is an immediate need for a state Indigenous language and literacy policy and strategy that sits in strategic and systemic complementarity with Literate Futures and Partners for Success and that is supported through systematic resourcing, in-service and advice for staff working in all schools where there are Indigenous learners enrolled. Note that we are here calling for an Indigenous language and literacy policy. Such a policy necessarily will include a substantial component of Indigenous ESL but must go beyond a focus on diagnostic assessment and specialised support per se. All of the literature, our findings and developments in other states suggest that the basic principles of Literate Futures and Partners for Success, and other aspects of Queensland State Education 2010 orientations are relevant and valuable here: the focus on whole-school planning, on community engagement, and a consistent focus on professionalism and the improvement of pedagogy and curriculum across the board, rather than the addition of further ‘pull-out’ or augmenting programs.
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A POLICY ALIGNMENT: CURRENT AUSTRALIAN POLICIES What can the approaches of other States, Territories and the Commonwealth to English language and literacy education for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders tell us? At present Commonwealth and State policies fall into three broad categories: those covering ESL, those covering language and literacy, and those covering Indigenous education. The following diagrams provide a broad graphic overview of activities in the three areas.
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Overview – Commonwealth ESL Policy/program The Commonwealth’s approach to the delivery of English as a Second Language program has two distinct elements. 1. The English as a Second Language – New Arrivals (ESL-NA) program focuses on the special language needs of newly arrived migrant primary and secondary school students. ESL-NA seeks to improve the educational opportunities and outcomes of students who are Australian citizens or permanent residents of Australia, who have recently arrived in Australia and whose first language is not English. Each State and Territory makes its own arrangements for use of Commonwealth grants in this area. A mix of strategies are evident that include specialised units that are accessed by newly arrived students, as well as funding mechanisms for students who are enrolled in mainstream schools. 2. As part of the Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Program (IESIP), the Commonwealth has introduced a target program to enhance learning in English for Indigenous students in their first year of schooling. Entitled the ESL for Indigenous Language Speaking Students (ESL for ILSS), the program targets Indigenous students who speak an Indigenous language or Kriol as their first language and are in their first year of formal schooling. Schools’ capacity to increase students’ access to English is realised through: • additional staff in schools to reduce teacher-pupil ratios, which increases individual students’ access to English;
2
Literacy Strategy
Indigenous Education
The cornerstone of the Commonwealth’s literacy policy relates to a key goal within the 1999 Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-first Century:
The Commonwealth recognises that Indigenous Australians are not achieving the same educational outcomes as their non Indigenous counterparts.
“Every child leaving primary school should have attained the skills of numeracy and English literacy; such that, every student should be numerate, able to read, write, spell and communicate at an appropriate level” 2 In a prior agreement with State and Territory Ministers (1997), the Commonwealth established a gaol that has paved the way for reporting student achievement in literacy and numeracy. “… every child commencing school from 1998 will achieve a minimum acceptable literacy and numeracy standard within four years.” To help support the achievement of these goals, Commonwealth and State and Territory Ministers also agree on a set of key priorities for school education. These form the National Literacy and Numeracy Plan. Key features of this plan include: • comprehensive assessment of all students, as early as possible, to identify those students at risk of not making adequate progress towards the national numeracy and literacy goals; • intervening as early as possible to address the needs of students identified as at risk; • the development of agreed national benchmarks in literacy and numeracy, against which all students’ achievement in
“Seven out of every ten Indigenous students in Year 3 are below the national literacy standard compared with three out of ten for other Australians.” To address this, the Commonwealth has established the National Indigenous Literacy and Numeracy strategy (2000 – 2004). The strategy has six key elements: • lifting school attendance rates of Indigenous students to national levels; • effectively address the hearing and other health problems that undermine learning for a large proportion of Indigenous students; • providing, wherever possible, preschooling opportunities; • training sufficient numbers of teachers in the skills and cultural awareness necessary to be effective in Indigenous communities and schools and encouraging them to remain teaching in such schools for reasonable periods of time; • ensuring that teaching methods known to be most effective are employed; and
State, Territory and Commonwealth Ministers of Education met as the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA)
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• targeted oral English professional development courses to increase teacher skills and understandings in the areas of planning, teaching and assessing oral English; • grants to schools for purchase of additional resources to support the implementation of oral English programs; • grants to schools to employ Indigenous Assistant Teachers to support the implementation of oral English programs; and • regionally based ESL specialists to provide additional support to schools involved in the program.
these years can be measured; • assessment of students against the national benchmarks using rigorous state-based assessment procedures; • progress towards national reporting by systems on student achievement against the benchmarks; and • professional development for teachers to support the key elements of the National Plan.
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• instituting transparent measures of success as a basis for accountability for schools and teachers. An implementation plan accompanies the strategy that will require an integrated approach from government departments and close cooperation with State and Territory and local government.
Overview – Northern Territory ESL Policy/program The ESL program in the Northern Territory is managed by the Indigenous Education Branch (IEB) based in Darwin. Students eligible for the Commonwealth New Arrivals program are able to access services through two Intensive Languages. ESL support is provided to a range of students in the Northern Territory that include migrant students and students of Indigenous backgrounds who attend Northern Territory schools. Depending on where they live, ESL students are able to access a range of services that are available in the Northern Territory. In urban areas, many schools are staffed with a designated ESL teacher who works with students and teachers in the delivery of ESL programs. Within Darwin, Anula Primary School and Darwin High School both offer intensive language units, which are accessed by recently arrived migrant students who are eligible for support the Commonwealth New Arrivals program. The units are staffed on a ratio of one teacher for every 10 students and generally operate with a student population of 60. Students spend up to two years attending the units prior to moving into mainstream classes. In remote areas, ESL regionally based advisory staff support the delivery of ESL programs in schools.
Literacy Strategy In order to meet the literacy needs of students, schools in the Northern Territory make use of a variety of resources and teaching strategies that include: • phonics based spelling and reading programs such as School Wide Early Language and Literacy program (SWELL) and Fitzroy Readers (developed by the Fitzroy Community School in Victoria); • First Steps3 which has been widely implemented across the Northern Territory; and • ‘Scaffolding’ – a methodology that enables learners to read and write complex texts with the support of their teachers and peers.
The Northern Territory Department of Education (NTDE) funds the allocation of teachers to ESL positions. In 2000, The Department of Education allocated 71.5 teacher positions to schools to support ESL teaching, all of which are in urban settings.
The Indigenous Education Branch IEB has been established by NTDE with a view to achieving the following objective: “to ensure that all Indigenous students achieve the level of skill necessary for participating in society and undertaking tertiary and vocational education; and that the entire community, including parents and students, places a high value on education.” Core Functions of the Branch are: • Policy and Planning; • Research; and • Program Evaluation and Reporting Program. 1. Indigenous students’ attendance and participation are maximised. 2. Indigenous students’ educational outcomes meet recognised benchmarks and community expectations. 3. The Indigenous Education program is implemented through effective management. The NTDE has developed a five year strategic plan to improve Indigenous student outcomes and, in response to the launch of the National Indigenous English Literacy and Numeracy Strategy, the NTDE is also working with the Catholic and Independent school sectors to develop the Implementation Plan for the
Walking Talking Texts is a key resource in the delivery of ESL in the Northern Territory. Developed by staff within the Northern Territory Department of Education (NTDE), Walking Talking Texts presents sample units organised around literacy texts and gives teachers strategies to support the development of both oral and written language in a number of genres. Some schools, particularly those in 3
Indigenous Education
See Western Australia report
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Northern Territory Indigenous English Literacy and Numeracy Strategy.
remote communities, use Walking Talking Texts as the key English resource. In early childhood classes, explicit teaching sequences are suggested for two groups of students – those in bilingual schools and those in English medium schools. For middle and upper primary classes, the teaching sequence is similar for both groups. Other schools take a more eclectic approach by drawing on aspects of Walking Talking Texts as required, with many schools finding the petal planner (early years) and the column planner (older students) useful points of reference in planning thematic programs.
The draft NTDE Indigenous Education Strategic plan identifies six key elements: • students go to school regularly; • students are fit and able to learn; • students have good schooling; • students are tracked and their educational outcomes measured; • the program is managed with full accountability; and • Indigenous families and communities share responsibility with schools and government for educational outcomes.
NTDE has developed a two-staged professional development program to provide teachers with insights into the methodology and processes used in Walking Talking Texts. In the second stage of the program, participants reflect and give feedback on the implementation of Walking Talking Texts in their classroom and school. Participants identify areas of need and plan ways that this can be provided at an individual and whole-school level. Participants are also given the opportunity to share current practice and focus on strategies for assessing student learning.
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Overview – Victoria ESL Policy/program In Victoria, the ESL program is managed by the ESL section of the LOTE, ESL and Multicultural Education Branch of DEET. DEET defines a student as an ESL student, for funding purposes, if the student: • comes from a language background other than English, that is, either the student or one or both parents was born in a nonEnglish speaking country; • speaks a language other than English at home as their main language; and • has been enrolled in an Australian school for less than seven years. Newly-arrived primary and secondary students from language backgrounds other than English are able to attend an intensive English language program to prepare them for mainstream schooling. While the programs cater mainly for permanent residents, some students who are temporary residents are able to enrol. ESL Index funding is allocated to mainstream schools through the school global budget. Funding is based on data collected from the Language Background Other Than English Census conducted from all government schools in August each year. A weighted formula, that reflects both the length of time in an Australian school and the stage of schooling, is then applied to the students identified. Schools are required to meet a funding threshold before receiving ESL Index funding. Funding is also provided to a number of schools to employ Multicultural Education Aides (MEAs) to assist with communication between the school and parents from language backgrounds other than English. MEAs also provide classroom 4
Literacy Strategy
Indigenous Education
In addition to the English component of the Curriculum Standards Framework (CSF), the Victorian Department of Education, Employment and Training (DEET) has established the Early Years Program as its key strategy for improving literacy and numeracy outcomes for Victorian students. The program is a resource for schools that assists them to plan for a strategic and comprehensive approach to early literacy achievement in the first five years of schooling (Prep to Year Four). It consists of advice documents for teachers, professional development modules, parent programs and videos. The Early Years Literacy Program is informed by the work of Victorian teachers and is based upon research undertaken by DEET and The University of Melbourne. The essential features of the program are: • a daily, focused two-hour classroom literacy session • case management of ‘at risk’ students; • strategically planned home/school partnerships; • the identification of an Early Years
There were approximately 5500 Koorie student enrolments in government schools in Victoria. DEET’s focus on the achievement of appropriate educational outcomes for Koorie people is based on the eight priorities agreed to by MCEETYA in 1995. These priorities are: • participation of Indigenous peoples in educational decision-making; • increase of Indigenous peoples employed in education and training; • equitable access of Indigenous students to education and training services; • participation of Indigenous students in education and training; • equitable and appropriate achievement for Indigenous students; • promote, maintain and support the teaching of Indigenous studies, cultures and languages to Indigenous and non-Indigenous students; • provide community development training services including proficiency in English, literacy and numeracy for Indigenous adults; and • improve implementation, evaluation and resourcing arrangements.
Department of Education., Employment and Training (2000) The ESL Report
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Koorie 2000 is an initiative of DEET. It address these priorities. It provides the framework for initiatives, which operate in the schooling sector, to improve educational outcomes for Koorie students. Koorie 2000 aims to strengthen and formalise the
ESL Policy/program assistance to students for whom English is a second language. The ESL Companion to the English CSF (Board of Studies) provides a broad overview of stages of English language development and sets out the framework for ESL Course Advice and ESL curriculum materials written in Victoria. Survey data 4 reveals that the majority of ESL students in mainstream settings are supported through either of two major programming strategies: Direct intensive instruction – that is, direct intensive ESL teaching in similar needs classes, including transition classes for students who have recently exited from an ELS/C in which content from the mainstream program is taught by the ESL teacher; or Team teaching and/or support teaching where ESL and mainstream teachers plan and teach together.
Literacy Strategy
Indigenous Education
Coordinator to manage and support • program delivery; and • the requirement of a whole-school • commitment to focus resources on achieving outcome targets. Complementary programs for the middle and later years of schooling have also been established by DEET.
involvement of Koorie people in educational decision making and builds further on the partnership between the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Incorporated (VAEAI) and DEET. The approach also involves the devolution of resources and decision making to a regional level through Regional Koorie Education Committees.
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The Koorie Literacy Links Project is a major component of the Koorie 2000 initiative. This Project is exploring the use of technology to improve the educational achievements of Koorie students in P-3 literacy. Special projects have been undertaken by the Early Years Branch of DEET to determine the supports and challenges of implementing the Early Years Literacy Program with Koorie and ESL students and the supports available for them.
Overview – New South Wales ESL Policy/program
Literacy Strategy
ESL programs are provided to support English language and literacy development of students whose first language is not English.
The Board of Studies English Syllabus (1998) contains the content and provides advice about what is to be taught in each stage of schooling.
Students eligible for ESL support range from those students newly arrived in Australia and beginning to learn English to those Australian born nonEnglish speaking students who require further development of their English language skills.
The overarching strategy is the State Literacy and Numeracy Plan, which is in its fourth year of implementation in NSW government schools. Features include: • literacy consultants in all education districts to assist teachers in the improvement of literacy outcomes for all students; • a range of curriculum support materials in the teaching of reading and writing; • Reading Recovery program – short-term individual designed intensive instruction to Year 1 students; • Basic Skills testing in Years 3 and 5 in order to continually develop and improve literacy teaching by monitoring statewide standards through regular, ongoing tests; • English Language and Literacy Assessment (ELLA) Tests, introduced in 1997 for Year 7, has been extended to provide voluntary follow-up testing of Year 8 students; • Parent Literacy programs have been introduced to help lift literacy standards by strengthening partnerships between home and school practices; • Talk to a Literacy Learner provides links between home and school practices. Parents volunteer as literacy tutors in classrooms; • language programs reinforce literacy skills, as well as broadening awareness of other cultures.
Programs include: • ESL programs with specialist ESL teachers are provided in primary and high schools for both newly arrived students and for those who need ongoing English language support. • Short term intensive English language support is provided for students newly arrived in Australia who are in the early stages of learning English.
The syllabus also includes statements of the aims and objectives and lists the expected outcomes of the student’s learning experiences at each stage.
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Indigenous Education The centrepiece of Aboriginal education programs in NSW schools is the Aboriginal Education Policy. This focuses on • strategies to improve the educational outcomes of Aboriginal students; • the development of the participation of Aboriginal communities; and • to increase the knowledge of all staff, students and school communities about Aboriginal Australians. The Aboriginal Programs Unit has recently prepared a document for presentation to the Minister titled: Towards the Development of a State Implementation Plan for Partners in Learning Cultures in NSW. This, in conjunction with the Commonwealth initiatives, will form the future NSW strategy.
Overview – Western Australia ESL Policy/program
Literacy Strategy
Indigenous Education
The Department of Education in Western Australia has established an English as a Second Language/English as a Second Dialect ESL/ESD Team as part of the Learning and Teaching Directorate to support ESL/ESD students to attain English language proficiency necessary for successful participation in mainstream schooling.
Western Australia has developed First Steps as its key literacy strategy. It was introduced into Western Australian schools by the Ministry of Education in the early 1990s and has since been widely used by schools and school systems in other States and Territories. First Steps includes developmental learning continua for reading, writing, oral language and spelling, as well as remediation and special needs programs. Early childhood education teachers use the First Steps materials to map student progress on a Developmental Continuum.
Two recently released publications give teachers in Western Australia insights into the nature of ESL for Indigenous students and strategies to address the needs of Indigenous ESL students in both remote and urban schools.
ESL students are classified into two Stages of English language development. Different ESL programs provide support according to these Stages. Stage one students • those who have been in Australia less than a year and have enrolled within six months of their arrival date, or • those who are entering their first year of compulsory schooling with no or limited English language skills due to speaking another language (this includes children who have attended Preprimary). Stage one students who are permanent residents are eligible for a maximum of four school terms of fulltime English Language instruction at an Intensive Language Centre (ILC). Four primary level and four secondary level ILCs have been established for this purpose. Stage two students • those who have had no more than two years Primary or three years Secondary education in an Australian school and have sufficient oral and written English language skills to begin to participate in mainstream classroom activities.
A key feature of the called Developmental Continua is that they enable teachers to make explicit links between monitoring, assessment and data gathering on student performance and the planning and delivery of the teaching and learning programs. The First Steps kit contains four resource books, which complement the Developmental Continua, and provide teachers with additional teaching strategies and learning activities to enhance literary development. They also contain classroom organisation, assessment and implementation ideas. A ‘Parents as Partners’ book is also part of the kit. This book is designed to help schools encourage and support parents’ involvement in their children’s literacy
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The publications, Solid English, and Two-way English each contain their own specific focus areas. Solid English elaborates on what Indigenous students bring to school in terms of language; world view; expectations of self and others; learning styles, habits and expectations; personality and individuality. The book then gives teachers strategies to capitalise on what Indigenous students bring to school. These strategies include: • being inclusive and supportive; • being receptive to: • Aboriginal dialect features; • what the student already knows; • home and family relationships; • Community priorities; • making explicit: • school culture • what students are expected to learn; • general strategies for use in classrooms; and • specific strategies for language teaching. Two-way English provides insights into the evolution of Aboriginal English and its educational implications. This information is juxtaposed with the changes that have occurred through curriculum development in Western Australia with specific reference to the role of Aboriginal and Islander Education workers(AIEWs) in bridging between Aboriginal English and the formal school curriculum.
ESL Policy/program
Literacy Strategy development.
Stage 2 students are able to attend an ESL Support Program or an ESL Cell Program. ESL Support Programs are designed to meet the needs of Stage 2 ESL students within the mainstream context across all learning areas, whilst Cell Programs provide support for Stage 2 ESL students enrolled within a number of neighbouring primary schools.
The First Steps program and its associated professional development have been widely adopted as key literacy resources in other States and Territories. The First Steps professional development course is offered in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and parts of South East Asia.
Additional support is provided to Indigenous ESL/ESD students through the auspice of a Curriculum Officer – ESD (ESL Aboriginal) Learning and Teaching Programs who provides resources and advice to teachers throughout Western Australia and regionally based ESL/ESD field officers.
Indigenous Education Two programs evident in the Kimberly region provide examples of better practices in the integration of ESL methodologies and strategies to enhance literacy for Indigenous students. The first relates to the implementation of the Commonwealth ESL for ILSS program. Reports from this program suggest that enhanced learning outcomes are achieved through: • curriculum that has been adaptive to be inclusive of Indigenous culture; • parent and community involvement; • collaboration in the delivery of classroom programs involving teachers, AIEWs, Teacher Assistants and Visiting Teachers.; • ‘classroom up’ planning that features: • broad consultation in program development; • targeted student groupings; • clearly identified foci for student learning • collection and analysis of quality data to income student progress, progress of the program and future planning • semester, yearly and longitudinal data collection, analysis and action; and • links to a district wide approach to whole-school and classroom planning; and • a researched understanding of the ESL band scales that is evident in planning and monitoring processes. The second program is entitled Fostering English Language in Kimberley Schools (FELIKS). FELIKS is a bidialectal approach to teaching English. It seeks to avoid making assumptions that children are going to understand English as a new language and learn in other areas of the curriculum through English. The program takes the English based
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ESL Policy/program
Literacy Strategy
Indigenous Education Kriol language that the children utilise in their everyday interactions and ‘cashes in’ on this by focusing on what children bring to school and launching the learning process from this point, rather than a preconceived notion of what might occur. Teachers who adopt this approach seek to point out that it is neither aimless nor serendipitous; rather, the approach embraces the language and knowledge that children bring to school and builds on this to deliver broad curriculum understandings as well as new learning in and about English.
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Overview – South Australia ESL Policy/program
Literacy Strategy
Indigenous Education
ESL learners have been born overseas or in Australia and come from a non-English speaking background. They include Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) learners who speak an ATSI language, including Aboriginal English. Aboriginal learners in Anangu schools are not included (funded from elsewhere).
The Literacy and Numeracy Strategy 2000 – 2005 draws together and extends the existing range of programs and initiatives for children, young people and adults. The four key elements of the strategy rely on teachers: • having high expectations for all learners; • using a range of approaches to meet the needs of different learners; • intervening early to support progress; and • creating and maintaining partnerships between educators, families and communities.
The Plan for Aboriginal Education in Early Childhood and Schooling 1999 to 2003 outlines the goals and outcome statements for the early childhood, schooling and Anangu education sectors of the Department of Education, Training and Employment to the year 2003. The outcome statements are concurrent (that is, not sequential).
The strategy is designed to improve learners’ results by raising the quality of literacy and numeracy education, training and service standards to, or above, national levels. This is in line with the Department’s Strategic Plan 1999 – 2002.
The plan strives to ensure that all Aboriginal and Anangu children and students are: • successful learners, with a particular focus on literacy, numeracy and technology; • achieving the full benefit of education and care services; • active participants in the processes of learning and teaching; • making choices about their level of participation in the social, political and economic processes in South Australian society; and • benefiting from facilities and resources commensurate with other centres and schools.
The ESL program is an integral part of the management and delivery of multicultural education within the Department of Education, Training and Employment (DETE). The program provides children and young people who may need ESL support with: • intensive English language programs for students who are newly arrived in SA with a language and cultural background other than English and who have limited English language; • ESL support programs for students in general classroom settings; • induction, inservice training and professional support for ESL teachers, preschool and non-ESL school based teachers of ESL learners and qualified childcare workers as well as other support staff; • needs-based curriculum and resources which incorporate and promote cultural and linguistic inclusivity; • specialist school sector support services such as Bilingual School Service Officers (BSSOs), Bilingual Assistants (BLAs) working in preschools, and translating and interpreting services; • Community Liaison Officers (CLOs) who liaise
The strategy is about improving literacy and numeracy from the early years to the post compulsory years. It: • includes child and adult learners in care, preschools, schools, TAFE and adult community education and training programs; • related to all learners and particularly acknowledges diversity in cultural and linguistic backgrounds, Aboriginality, gender, disability and socio-economic status; • focuses on what works best in care, teaching and learning to support the continuing progress of all learners; • guides research and professional development to support new ways of using literacy and numeracy
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The purpose of the plan is to guide and direct early childhood and schools to work together to improve the educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Anangu children and students in South Australia.
Attached to the plan are a series of school-related strategies based on the findings from research data.
ESL Policy/program between children’s services, school, student, community and parent bodies; • access to resource centres which hold collections of literature and learning materials which support the learning of ESL; and • access to school-based research programs which support good ESL practice. Acknowledging the range of learning needs for ESL students has resulted in the provision of two related strands of the program: • The New Arrivals Program (NAP) – an intensive English language support for newly arrived students; and • The General Support Program. Commonwealth funding is supplemented by the state to: • provide teacher allocations to schools; • provide BSSOs to schools; and • support curriculum development and implementation. Allocations to schools are based on a weighting system applied to the number of students in particular categories of need. Depending on whether individual schools have undertaken local school management in terms of financial and human resource management – known as Partnerships 21 schools (P21), allocations are provided as a dollar amount for each student depending on category, or as an ESL staffing allocation to non-P21 schools. Support for curriculum development and implementation: • standards based curriculum: supported the development of the South Australian Standards
Literacy Strategy in today’s complex world. Key Elements: 1. Working together; 2. Using data; 3. Intervening for success; and 4. Adapting and changing. Statewide targets for further development in literacy and numeracy are identified annually and reported publicly. Resources and Support: The plan includes: • an on-line Literacy and Numeracy Network for information, advice, referrals, programs, professional development and the sharing of excellent practice; • teaching, learning and assessment materials and professional development for literacy and numeracy in the context of the South Australian Curriculum Standards and Accountability Framework; • research which extends and improves understanding of literacy and numeracy teaching and learning practice; • software to assist educators to track and report on learners’ literacy and numeracy achievements; • a focus on literacy and numeracy in planning for Vocational Education and Training 2001 – 2003; and • collaboration with national agencies to ensure inclusion of literacy and numeracy in nationally accredited vocational qualifications. The Literacy and Numeracy Strategy complements
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Indigenous Education
ESL Policy/program
Literacy Strategy
and Accountability framework including the development of the ESL Scope and Scales, designed to describe the language learning needed by ESL learners to achieve at the level expected of them at their year of schooling; • District ESL Support: Professional development, advice to schools, materials development and communication and consultation with the field; • development of professional development materials and teaching resources: including – Early Literacy and the ESL Learner, ESL in the Mainstream, ESL in the Mainstream Online, The Language and Literacy Course and Language and Behaviour. Teaching resources such as Teaching ESL through Science and Teaching ESL through S&E and Scaffolding Literacy in the Middle Years (CD Rom).
and links with many programs and initiatives including: • Early Years Strategy; • Plan for Aboriginal Education in Early Childhood and Schooling; • South Australian Curriculum Standards and Accountability Framework; • Commonwealth Literacy and Numeracy Programs; • Language Literacy and Numeracy in VET Consultative Group; and • Adult Literacy and Numeracy Australian Research Consortium.
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Indigenous Education
Overview – Australian Capital Territory ESL Policy/program
Literacy Strategy
Indigenous Education
ESL programs and services are part of the Department of Education & Training’s Policy for Services to Students with Special Needs.
ACT curriculum frameworks are system level, curriculum documents developed for the eight KLAs. The frameworks have arisen out of earlier draft frameworks and work carried out nationally on statements and profiles.
In keeping with the main purposes of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Education Policy, it aims to: • provide guidelines for schools that encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation in education; • ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander involvement in educational decision making; • provide equality of access for Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people to education services; • achieve equitable and appropriate educational outcomes for Aboriginal students and Torres Strait Islander student, especially in literacy and numeracy; • increase understanding of and respect for Aboriginal cultures and Torres Strait Islander cultures in the wider community, including implementation of measures to address prejudice and racism; • extend the teaching of Aboriginal education and Torres Strait Islander education perspectives across the curriculum; and • address the issue of maintenance and development of Indigenous languages.
ESL provision is made available on a needs basis to students of non-English speaking background. These learners include: • Aboriginal of Torres Strait Islander students whose first language is an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander language or Kriol; • students born overseas with language backgrounds other than English who are residents of Australia; • students born in Australia into a home where the dominant language is not English; and • students with a language background other than English who are international private students. There are two levels of ESL program delivery: • Intensive Level ESL. NESB students in both primary and secondary schools whose English is inadequate for them to function in the mainstream classroom are provided with full time intensive English language instruction in Introductory English Centres (IECs) before entry to mainstream schools; • Mainstream Level ESL. NESB students in pre-schools and primary and secondary schools whose English language proficiency is below average for age and grade are provided with ESL support programs both in special courses and in the mainstream classroom setting. ESL Identification Procedures: • Initial identification of the student as NESB is by the ESL teacher and one or more mainstream teachers. • Annual rating of the NESB student’s English proficiency by the ESL teacher and one or more mainstream teachers. • Annual verification of ESL populations in schools and IECs through the February ESL Student Enrolment Survey and February census information for final allocation of ESL staffing
Each curriculum framework provides: • an overview of the learning area, including definition, rationale, platform and across curriculum perspectives; • the broad outcomes of the learning area and assessment and reporting guidelines; • a Preschool to Year 12 scope for the learning area and information on the selection of content; and • a discussion of learning and teaching and evaluation of programs. The English curriculum is organised through two interrelated content strands of learning: • Texts, and • Language. Both deal with the language modes of listening, speaking, reading, viewing and writing.
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The development and implementation of programs in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education is carried out in consultation with the respective communities through a number of formal and informal forums. For example, the Ministerial
ESL Policy/program
Literacy Strategy
Indigenous Education Indigenous Education Consultative Body (MIECB) was established by the Minister for Education and Training to provide advice on educational issues affecting Indigenous communities of the ACT.
resources. Resource Allocation • ESL staffing resources are allocated to IECs, area preschools and mainstream schools from both department and Commonwealth ESL program provision. • Resources are allocated according to the degree of need established by students’ language performance ratings. The system profile of NESB students’ English language proficiency which is derived from the annual language performance ratings forms the basis of provision to individual schools across the system.
The department, its schools and specialist staff have complementary roles in implementing the policy: • the department provides support services through the Aboriginal Students Unit; • each school is required to nominate an Aboriginal Education Contact Officer; and • the school board has the responsibility of implementing the policy.
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Overview – Tasmania ESL Policy/program
Literacy Strategy
Indigenous Education
The ESL program is located within Equity Standards Branch (ESB) of the Department of Education. It provides intensive English language teaching to students for who English is a second or subsequent language.
The Tasmanian Literacy and Numeracy Plan covers the three-year period 20002002. Four key principles inform planning and the allocation of resources: they are • Equity; • Effectiveness; • Efficiency; and • Local management.
The Aboriginal Education Unit is within the Equity Standards Branch of the Department of Education. It aims to improve the performance and outcomes for Aboriginal students in schools and colleges in Tasmania.
The program provides English language competence to facilitate student participation in mainstream schooling. It is available to students who are permanent residents of Australia from the first year of primary schooling up to college level. It is Commonwealth funded, and priority is given to students who have recently arrived in Australia, 80% of whom are refugees.
Planning for literacy teaching and learning is based on an understanding of: • the importance of all the years of schooling, K-12, with a focus on the early years; • the need for flexibility and responsiveness to schools; • the importance of professional learning; • the necessity for ongoing research; • the need for ongoing monitoring and assessment; and • the importance of information technology. The preferred model for planning and resource allocation is a strategic intervention model. This model covers approaches that monitor performance systematically and initiate intervention where necessary. Funding is directed broadly towards achieving improved outcomes, and the success of a specific program is measured in terms of the achievement of those outcomes. Resources are allocated on condition that certain requirements are met which indicate movement toward the achievement of set outcomes. There are a range of projects, programs and research undertakings in place to support the plan: • The Flying Start Program: developed to support all students in Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 to achieve appropriate literacy, numeracy and social skills. The program delivers an extra allocation of staff to early childhood classrooms; • Systemic Assessment and Monitoring: supports the ongoing systemic monitoring and assessment of students’ literacy and numeracy performances through the Office for Educational Review;
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The Unit’s responsibilities include: • assisting districts, schools and colleges to implement the Aboriginal Education Strategic Plan 1997 – 2002 by: • supporting and developing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education programs specific to the Tasmanian schools sector; • managing Indigenous Education Strategic Initiative Programs (IESIP) and other Commonwealth funded programs. • developing policy relating to the education of Aboriginal students based on the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy; • monitoring Aboriginal student outcomes and contributing to the development of research at a National level, into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues; • operation of the Aboriginal
ESL Policy/program
Literacy Strategy • The Aboriginal Literacy Program in Early Childhood: developed to meet goal 2 of the Aboriginal Education Strategic Plan 1997 – 2000. The purpose of this program is to affirm Aboriginal student identity, self-value and capacity to succeed in the school system, supporting students to achieve appropriate literacy outcomes. • Changing Places: this program is developed to meet goal 2 of the Aboriginal Education Strategic Plan 1997 – 2000. A major purpose of the program is to improve proficiency in literacy and numeracy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary students. • School Resource Package: a significant allocation of funds for literacy and numeracy programs is delivered directly to schools through the school resource package. These resources are allocated according to an agreed formula based on schools’ needs indices. • English as a Second Language (ESL) • Program of Additional Structure and Support (PASS): is developed to foster focussed and intentional teaching of literacy in Prep, Year 1 and Year 2. The focus of the program is on basic, foundational literacy skills with particular emphasis on those students who are not achieving their literacy outcomes. The program is delivered through a school cluster model. • Spalding Support and Training: program is for ongoing support and training of teachers in the Spalding method of literacy teaching. The program involves offering Spalding training modules developed for the Tasmanian context. • Reading Recovery: the aim of this is to train, with support from Education Victoria, up to twelve teachers in the Reading Recovery method of teaching literacy.
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Indigenous Education Education Resource Centre.
There are several aspects to these policy developments worth commenting on. First, there is a clear indication that the States and Territories have followed the Commonwealth move to expand ESL policies to include explicit recognition of Kriol and Torres Strait Creole, and Aboriginal English speakers as requiring second language/dialect support. This is a major breakthrough that officially recognises, some 30 years later, the perspectives established by Malcolm, Dwyer, Eagleson and colleagues and others: that significant percentages of the Indigenous population are second language and dialect speakers. In instances Indigenous peoples are directly named in ESL policies, with apparent funding tied directly to their identification (e.g., South Australia, ACT, Northern Territory). In other cases, where the demographic and cultural mix of population is different, the policies seemed designed principally to deal with migrant and refugee students. The policy approach to addressing English as a Second Language (ESL) is relatively uniform. However, some States such as Western Australia have enhanced programs with strategies and resources to support schools and teachers. All States and Territories acknowledge at least two groups of students accessing ESL – those new arrivals who need an intensive program, and those requiring a more general mainstream approach. The means by which States and Territories determine program access and the allocation of ESL resources varies from the gathering of background information and classroom observation to formalised assessment of speaking and listening competencies. Hence, the application of face-to-face assessment through ESL Bandscales has become a principal component of policy implementation. The allocation of ESL/D resources is often dependent on the data collected by way of an annual census and the overall financing arrangements for schools. This varies from local or centrally-determined allocations as well as variations through the application of block grants with associated expenditure flexibility compared with specific purpose funding or staffing allocations. For many States and Territories, the growth of professional development material for classroom teachers and specialist staff is an emerging priority, with a great deal of material being produced that emphasises the use of multimedia and learning technologies. All States and Territories make provision for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students within their ESL program and policies to some extent, with those States and Territories having the highest percentages indicating the greatest input into these groups. Queensland, however, stands out among the States and Territories for the limited policy framework available to address ESL issues. Finding 6: On Indigenous ESL in Queensland – At present Queensland is the only State that has no systematic ESL policy in place that covers either migrant or Indigenous second language/dialect speakers. Relevant Commonwealth funds are allocated to schools and other agencies, but there appears to be no specific state-level mechanism for recognising and supporting Indigenous ESL/ESD speakers in systematic ways. Literacy strategies across the States and Territories are based on a core framework, with the foundation being National Standards or benchmarks for the preparatory years to Year 10. Acknowledgment of the National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-first Century (2000) features prominently in the development and delivery of programs across the country. Although the features of programs vary markedly from one State/Territory to another, there is a strong thread of concentration on the early years of schooling – with a special awareness of those groups of students who need additional support, and being somewhat interventionist in their approach. For many States and Territories, three- and 48
five-year strategy plans have been devised, combining both literacy and numeracy with strong reliance on the gathering of data and monitoring performance by comparison with the national benchmarks. The degree to which State/Territory literacy strategies and plans actually focus on Indigenous learners varies across jurisdictions. Their curriculum documents generally make mention of the specific needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, however in practice these are not closely attended to by most teachers. Some states, notably Tasmania and South Australia, have separate Indigenous language/literacy policies that sit within their state literacy strategies. However, while most mention Indigenous needs, and certainly Western Australia and the Northern Territory have the most dedicated literacy curriculum infrastructure in place – there is a tendency of State and Territory language and literacy plans to sit alongside the ESL plans but not be strongly linked. This is in part because of the tacit assumption that many language and literacy pedagogical strategies (e.g., genre, direct instruction in early reading, Reading Recovery, First Steps) have universal, population-wide efficacy. This claim doesn’t necessarily stand up to scrutiny of the educational evaluation literature. While Queensland’s Literate Futures strategy mentions Aborigines and Torres Strait Islander students’ performance issues, it and its adjunct support materials do not provide dedicated or specific advice for whole-school planning for Indigenous communities or students. This is a significant omission. The development of Indigenous Education policy and programs tends to extend from the established literacy strategies of State and Territories. Most address both the cultural and learning aspects within their policies and reference policy development against the overarching Commonwealth policy (i.e., the National Indigenous Literacy and Numeracy Strategy 2000-2004). In all Indigenous education policies, there is a strong emphasis on participation through the collaboration and consultation with the respective communities. Increasingly, there is a focus on the building of a range of forms of community capital, on the relationship of educational issues to matters of health, social infrastructure, employment and social welfare and overall policies that influence the overall health and success of Indigenous communities. In this regard, there is a clear paradigm shift from Indigenous education policies that tend to focus principally on ‘fixing’ pedagogy and curriculum, to those that are trying to reconceptualise community/school relations along broad lines of ‘compacts’, agreements and negotiations. This is a shift even beyond the ‘two-way schooling’ model of the 1980s, which tended to focus on opening up the school, rather than shared, mutual responsibilities. However intentionally, then, such models tend to link educational success with the availability of other forms of economic, social and cultural capital in communities. The key point here is that there is an emerging policy recognition that educational issues are not solved or resolved solely in the classroom. Queensland’s ‘Partners for Success’ strategy has a particularly strong emphasis on community partnership, but also whole-of-government strategies and shared and reciprocal responsibilities between schools and communities. This review suggests to us that are three domains for action that current policy attempts to address. These are:
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• Recognition of Indigenous Second Language/Dialect Issues: There is a near universal recognition that the contingent problems of Indigenous achievement are linked closely with issues of linguistic diversity – with varying attempts at identification and specialised assistance. This is a policy breakthrough. It should be noted that how seriously each state has set out to distinguish and target students for intervention by ESL, EFL and ESD categories remains variable. Further there is some evidence that ESL still leads to ‘pull-out’ approaches, special interventions and schools, rather than a broader focus on how issues of linguistic diversity impact on mainstream classroom environments and pedagogy in schools with significant Indigenous populations. • A shift towards explicit yet balanced approaches to literacy pedagogy: There is a near universal recognition within these models that affiliated approaches to literacy need to blend explicit and implicit, coding and meaning, ‘voice’ and genre-centred perspectives, in a balanced approach to literacy education. Many States and Territories – NSW, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia – have adopted some variant on the four resources model to generate balanced, ‘wholeschool’ approaches. Only Tasmania has adopted a total phonics based approach in early literacy instruction (i.e., Spaulding). Both Victoria and Queensland have followed ‘whole-school planning’ models, with varying degrees of mandate and flexibility. Aside from Northern Territory, none of the State literacy strategies have ‘mainstreamed’ the matter of Indigenous English language learning. • A focus on the relationship of education to other questions of community capacity building, social capital and economic development: There is a near universal recognition that the contingent problems of teaching and learning in classrooms are tied very closely to issues of community partnership, with attempts at whole-of-government and local action approaches that attempt to mobilise on affiliated health, social, and cultural issues that have real impact upon students’ and children’s life pathways. As we have seen in the above, the trick is to bring these components together into community/whole-school literacy strategies that attend to sociolinguistic issues, community issues and pedagogical/professional issues. That is, we will argue here that the next set of approaches to literacy education and whole-school planning have best chance of ‘working’ if they can actually bring together a strong the three strands of policy and practice above at the school/community level. In what follows we argue that each wholeschool literacy plan must be based on: • A sociolinguistic alignment: a critical analysis of and alignment with the linguistic resources, strengths and knowledges of students and communities. This entails knowing and engaging with students’ existing linguistic competences and knowledges, the functions and uses of different languages in their communities, and aligning the school language and literacy program to both capitalise on these and to extend them to develop English language competence. • A pedagogical/professional alignment: a critical analysis of staff and curriculum resources, with judgements made on the basis of the sociolinguistic audit above, on close diagnostic work with students, of what blend of professional expertise, curricular materials and approaches will best create a balanced literacy program and improve student outcomes.
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• A community partnership alignment: a critical dialogue and partnership with community stakeholders and members, including parents, Elders, other government agencies, employers about how to address the other issues that can enable or impede improved student outcomes. This involves the alignment of other enabling forms of capital (economic, governmental, social, cultural) to enhance the students’ chances of success and improved life pathways. In what follows, each one of these alignments is discussed separately.
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8. A SOCIOLINGUISTIC ALIGNMENT As the policy history in this report indicates, there have been various programmatic and practical attempts to intervene to improve the language and literacy outcomes of Indigenous students. In the case of language and literacy education, there is no stronger instance where ‘one size fits all’ would be an inappropriate response. The diversity of linguistic backgrounds is complicated by variable geographic access to institutional sites, community and social fields where variations of English, Indigenous languages, and dialect variations are learned. The field of language planning suggests that we would need to begin by a systematic survey of “language corpus” and “language status” (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1999). First, what this means is that we need to know what languages are actually used, and their varied linguistic features. That is, we need to begin with an overview of the complex language ecology of Indigenous languages in Queensland. Second, we need at the school and community level to analyse the actual functions and uses of these language variations – their ‘status’ in the communities, institutions and social fields where students live and play, work and consume. This is what Literate Futures calls a “community audit”. The level and details of community audits in schools visited for this report were highly variable. In what follows, we review the most recent overviews of communities of Indigenous language speakers in Queensland, outlining the range and diversity of existing Indigenous languages. As we argue, there have been no comprehensive language taxonomies or surveys of speakers in the last two decades in Queensland. However this overview is sufficient for our present purposes, to map the various ‘interpretive communities’ that we encountered in our case study schools on a broader language continuum. In order to do so requires that we have some working estimations of the actual lingua francae used by the students we examined and of the actual sites where their bi/tri-lingual competence is used and deployed. Our overall aim, therefore, is to show in a preliminary way the linguistic heterogeneity of Indigenous language learners across the State. In so doing, we set the grounds for principled analysis of different approaches to developing student competences and power based on their membership of communities of speakers. Our strategy, then, is as follows: • To map on a linguistic continuum the various speakers from the schools we visited, in a way that disaggregates their English as a second and foreign language, and their English as a second dialect expertise; • To describe some of the typical interventions that appeared to generate results for each group of typical speakers. In this way, we want not only to move past the general assumption that there is a generalisable ‘method’ or approach to teaching literacy that has universal efficacy in dealing with Indigenous students, or that ‘ESL’ constitutes a singular strategy that can be universally deployed across the state to optimal effect.
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THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC CONTEXT It has been estimated that there were probably 500-700 Indigenous languages in Australia when Europeans arrived, roughly corresponding to the number of broad tribal groups (Romaine, 1990). There is no comprehensive language map of Australia and little rigorous language mapping or comprehensive linguistic analysis has been done in Queensland in the last two decades. By Kaldor’s 1982 appraisal (Eagleson, Kaldor & Malcolm, 1982), of the remaining 170 Indigenous languages most would have declining communities of speakers. The past twenty years in Queensland has seen a further decline in both the number of discrete Indigenous languages and in the number of fluent speakers in most of those that remain. As noted in this review, some of the interventions where systems have attempted to engage in language maintenance efforts have included: Indigenous language education, bilingual programs, and community language programs. There is little evidence that such programs have had sustained and widespread effects in deterring what is termed ‘language death’ or ‘language loss’ among younger generations of speakers (see articles in Dorian, 1989). What we do know is that language maintenance, loss and death depends upon a range of social, economic and cultural factors – in which the contemporary school plays an important, but limited part. Schools (like mass media) can support and value languages, they can accelerate their loss, but in and of themselves, they can not ‘save’ or ‘maintain’ a language without other kinds of community commitment that maintain the economic significance and cultural power of the language ‘at risk’ in the face of threat (Luke, McHoul & Mey, 1990; May, 2001). According to the 1996 census, 44,017 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders self-identified as speakers of Indigenous languages in Australia. Of these, 5038 Queensland Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders identified speakers of Indigenous languages (Commonwealth Government, 1996, ABS data). This figure covers all age groups and, while it does not give us any specific indication of the levels of fluency and which specific languages are spoken, it does provide a slice-in-time view of the spread and extent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language retention and loss. Specifically, the same census year indicated that there were over 95,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Queensland (ABS, 1996). This suggests to us that of the total Indigenous population of the state less that 4% profess to have any significant Indigenous language fluency. As noted, the above figures comprise all age groups. If we extrapolated downwards, about half of the total Indigenous population is under 18, with 29,400 enrolled in state and non-government schools in 1999 (Sirris, in preparation). What this would suggest is that if Indigenous language retention and loss follows the pattern that it has nationally and internationally – with higher proficiency rates amongst Elders with progressive language loss amongst younger generations – that the actual numbers of child speakers of an Indigenous language would be less than the overall percentage of the population. Even if it were notionally in the 3-4% range, this would suggest that the total school age population of Indigenous language speakers would be less than 1000, principally located in our case study school sample in outer Torres Strait Islands and in more remote or far western Aboriginal communities. Levels of fluency, relative competence in speech comprehension and production are unknown, but there are anecdotal reports that many youth are capable of oral comprehension but are losing the capacity to produce the extended spoken narrative text readily produced by 53
their parents and grandparents. By this categorisation, they would be ‘receptive bilinguals’ but without high levels of productive competence. This isn’t to say that there aren’t many principally English, Creole or Aboriginal English speaking young people who might have some exposure to limited lexical and grammatical aspects of Indigenous languages. And many engage in various forms of bilingual and bidialectal diglossia or code-switching – depending on context and communicative purpose between different languages. But it appears that the actual numbers of Indigenous speakers is in decline, following patterns of language shift, maintenance and loss among Indigenous languages documented internationally (Labov, 2001). This loss has recently been connected in some recent discussions to correlative loss of biodiversity and traditional knowledges. The most recent estimate of the number of the number of Torres Strait Islanders living across Australia is 22,000 (ABS, 1996 Census). Other than Shnukal’s (1984) groundbreaking studies in the 1980s, there is no exact estimation of the number of TSC speakers in Queensland. On the basis of these studies, it is quite likely that a significant proportion of the Torres Strait Islander population has some productive and receptive capacity with Creole. There are recent reports, however, that a process of ‘decreolisation’ has begun. This means that the relative stability that TSC had achieved, as documented by Shnukal, has been disturbed by a range of social and linguistic forces, including the incursion of Standard English based mass media into the TSC community, increasing rates of intermarriage, increased geographical mobility, urbanisation and other factors. Our point: that Indigenous speakers are a heterogeneous community, with diverse and quite different language learning needs. Queensland Indigenous children are a diverse lot – ranging from Indigenous speakers whose schools sit on traditional land, to seasonally mobile TS Creole and Aboriginal English speaking students whose schooling spans community and urban sites, to English as a First Language speakers who have lived in suburban working and middle class communities their entire educational lives. In this way, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children bring complex and different combinations of linguistic knowledge, background cultural knowledge, and orientations to learning and schooling. These will require different combinations of the various approaches to language education and schooling noted above (e.g., ESL/ESD, ‘two way schooling’, genre approaches, four resources models, phonics and phonemic awareness). We will term this a ‘pedagogical/professional alignment’ below – and this needs to exist in relationship to a close analysis of ‘sociolinguistic alignments’. Likewise, approaches such as ‘ESL’ are not themselves singular, contiguous or homogeneous and need to be mixed and matched to accommodate speaker/community language variation in principled and researched ways.
WHAT IS ESL? The question of who is classified as ESL under Commonwealth and State/Territory funding guidelines has clouded the situation in recent years. Many ESD students (English as a Second Dialect speakers), specifically speakers of Aboriginal English, do not currently receive any specialised support under ESL funding, despite an extensive literature that we have reviewed here that shows how bidialectalism can create as significant impediments to literacy as bilingualism (Malcolm et al. 1999). The actual classification and assessment of Indigenous ESL needs has been assisted by the
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development by Education Queensland of Indigenous ESL Bandscales, despite the consistent failure of systemic authorities to factor ESL/ESD issues into the formulation and administration of the Year 2 Net, Reading Recovery and the statewide benchmark testing system (Luke, Woods, Land, Bahr & McFarland, 2002). Many successful Indigenous programs that we have studied here have engaged specialised language support (ESL, special education, early intervention, etc.) using discretionary funding from other than formal ESL provisions. At the same time, the miscategorisation of second and third language and dialect problems (e.g., as signs of low intelligence, poor effort, first language development problems) is still common in many schools including some we visited as part of this study and in earlier reviews (e.g., Luke, Freebody & Land, 2000), despite the three decades of literature that would refute this position. This is common as well in provincial centre and suburban schools with small populations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. The challenge is to examine existing Indigenous approaches to first, second and third language and dialect pedagogy and to provide advice on best practices, appropriate funding levels, and, hopefully, optimal approaches to intervention and development. At the same time, there has been a considerable ‘push’ towards the implementation across the state of various approaches to ESL. There is no such thing as ‘ESL’ in the singular as a methodology and approach, and that there are a vast range of ESL interventions and ‘schools of thought’, based on different theoretical foundations (for a recent critical review, see Grinberg & Saavedra, 2000). These include, but are not restricted to: psycholinguistics, systemic functional linguistics, interactional sociolinguistics, speech act theory, cognitive information processing theory, sociocultural psychology, pragmatics, and various versions of “applied linguistics” (Pennycook, 2001). Each of these models in turn defines language, the language learner, her or his context and relative agency and power in distinctive ways (Toohey, 2000). The approaches to ESL used in Australia for Indigenous children range from ‘communicative language teaching’ models, to systemic functional models, to transitional bidialectal programs, to specialised ‘English for Academic Purposes’ or ‘English for Special Purposes’ discipline and field programs (e.g., Gibbons, 1991). These vary in mode, approach and purpose. Some focus distinctively on oral fluency in everyday conversational settings, other focus on writing and specific technical levels of English texts, yet others focus on specific occupational and job-related skills. All of these approaches tend to offer very specific curriculum and instructional strategies – and are contingent upon particular assumptions about student background, motivation, developmental levels and purposes for learning English. In fact, differing approaches to ESL/ESD/EFL etc. offer different instructional and curricular focuses: in so doing, they construct different repertoires of receptive and productive, oral and literate English competence. Any judgement about ‘which ESL approach’ or what kinds of blends depends upon: • An analysis of the sociolinguistic competences, skills bases and needs of specific cohorts of students; • An analysis of the kinds of future aspirations, demands and pathways that the curricular or instructional program is setting out.
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Note that the above position matches the focus in Literate Futures (Luke, Freebody & Land, 2000) on the need to audit community, staff expertise, and student expertise and needs prior to the making of a whole-school plan. It would, of course, be a much simpler universe if there were a single answer – a single ESL or single approach – that would simply ‘develop basic English skills’ for all Indigenous kids. But our point here has been that all Indigenous kids are not of a piece. And all approaches to ESL are geared or designed for different results. It is not our purpose here to ‘come down on the side of’ one approach to second language teaching or another. Most that we observed in action (e.g., functional communicative work in spoken language, bilingual contrastive work, direct instruction in genre/functional grammar) in this study was quite freely blended with other approaches to teaching (e.g., literaturebased, language experience). But that teachers come to be able to distinguish between them, and put them to work in combination with mainstream pedagogies is an urgent matter. Recommendation 4: On teacher preparation and training – That all teachers who work with Indigenous children should have professional development and training in principles and practices of both first and second language teaching, understand the broad repertoire of possible second language approaches, and be able to choose and use linguistically and pedagogically appropriate and effective strategies. The continuum of speakers in the schools that we have studied ranges across four language categories. As a whole population, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander speakers speak Indigenous languages, Creoles and Pidgins, non-standard dialects of English (e.g., Aboriginal English), and variants of English – and of course every possible combination of these. They are, in sum, a network of linguistically diverse, linguistically nimble, and highly skilled, multi-lingual communities. We define vernacular as the unstandardised native language of a speech community. Technically, some Aboriginal languages have been written down and recorded (e.g., Wik, KKY) and, in purely linguistic terms, have gained some degree of standardisation and stability through that process. However, they reside as owned by their speakers and interpretive communities, who do not principally use Wik or KKY for literate purposes in everyday written form. In this regard, our view is that they retain the status of vernaculars in many Indigenous communities. A Creole/Kriol is a pidgin/pigin that has become the native language of a speech community (Fasold, 1984). Pidgins/pigins were the face-to-face blended forms of communication that emerged at point of colonial contact and trade, typically used to describe the emergent forms of bilingual code shifting that occurred with cultural contact. The designation Creole specifies when these languages have achieved degree of lexical uniqueness and syntactic regularity. This formalisation, community acceptance and use, and standardisation is marked when children in communities begin to learn Creole as first language, with its attendant discourses and registers, identities and power relations. In the Australian context: Creole is a language spoken by Torres Strait Islanders whereas Kriol is an Aboriginal language spoken in parts of Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Standard English (SE) is described in the literature as the variety of English used as a standard throughout the English speaking world. In Australia this is referred to as Standard Australian English (SAE). The term ‘standard’ implies a version of English
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that is distinct in its own right. Crystal (1992, p.366) defines it as “a prestige variety of language used within a speech community, providing an institutionalised norm for such purposes as the media and language teaching”. Although it is widely accepted, we do not take Crystal’s definition lightly, particularly in its reference to an “institutionalised norm”, since it is schools and school systems that often act as definers and enforcers of that norm. There is of course an extensive and ongoing debate about the validity of the term ‘standard English’ and even Standard Australian English. Questions have been raised regarding the dynamic and shifting status and power relationships between variations in English. As Pennycook (1996) and others have established, the very concept of Standard English was a manifestation of imperial centre/margin relationships under conditions of colonisation. By this account, there was a prestige variety of English, emanating from the colonial centre, against which all other forms of English could be measured and found to different degrees deficit. By such a traditional account, there were literary, lexical and syntactic benchmarks and criteria against which variant regional, local forms of English could be judged. Obviously, the idea of a central, standard English has been destabilised by two separate sociolinguistic critiques: first an historical analysis which documents how the hegemony of English is an historical artefact of political and economic force (McKinnon, 1996), and second, the strong hypothesis put by Hymes (1996) and colleagues of the intrinsic sociolinguistic equality of all languages and language variations. This situation and analysis has been complicated by the emergence in the second half of the twentieth century of ‘world language English’ characterised by the expansion of late capitalism, driven by mass media, technological and geopolitical domination of the United States (Abbott, 2001, p. 467), and fed by an emergent scientific and training structure for the proliferation of English. As Crystal (1997) has pointed out, English is both the “international language of protest and economic development”. By the same token, through its expansion across linguistic domains, there can be little doubt that it has developed progressively more sophisticated and complex lexico-grammatical resources to deal with new domains – specifically technological, scientific and cultural. The result has been the sheer spread of its speakers in the postwar period directly in response to the world geopolitical and economic domination of the US and England over a two century process. As a result, there are predictions that the majority of English speakers in the next century will be English as a Foreign Language and English as a Second Language speakers. The principal categories then of English as a First Language (EFL) are complicated for Indigenous peoples. Part of the issue is highlighted if we return to the concept of linguistic markets. What this means is that we here use the term Standard Australian English provisionally, not as a recognition either of its linguistic or cultural superiority, but to designate the lingua franca, mastery of which is tied directly to power in the dominant linguistic markets of Australian workplaces, educational institutions, government agencies, the internet, legal and health systems, mass media, and multinational corporations. It has become a dominant form of cultural capital – even for political protest and critique. As much as some wish to ‘undo’ the hegemony of English, for the Indigenous students, not learning it, as first, second or foreign language or dialect, will severely limit life pathways and social futures. Quite the contrary, we here use the term to refer to those variants of English that are the lingua franca in the principal linguistic markets, participation in which are requisite for 57
social and geographic mobility, economic and cultural participation. This caveat is important, for we don’t want to ‘buy into’ intrinsic linguistic or cultural superiority arguments. Further, given the history of treatment of Australian English as a degenerate dialectal form of British Standard English, it would be ironic to reproduce it here as a colonial standard for Australian Indigenous peoples. However, we begin from an empirical recognition that spoken and written mastery of Standard Australian English has become a gatekeeper for access to institutions – at times as a legitimate technical and social necessity, at other times employed as an arbitrary discriminatory impediment to participation. In many instances in sociolinguistic contexts it is difficult, if not impossible to disentangle these historical and contemporary functions. This said, we can categorise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander speakers in any one of numerous categories: We would term a student an English as a Second Language (ESL) learner when their first language is either an Indigenous or other language which is used in their community, but where English is also used in that community as one or the principal lingua franca. Initially the term and its approaches were developed for migrants in English-dominant countries like the USA and UK. In these contexts, the learner thus sees daily evidence and examples that English has important and central social functions in everyday community life, even if his or her extended family or close social networks may use another language. This makes the task of ESL instruction one of tapping into existing motivation to learn a language which has visible capital in the community, and one of creating a consciousness awareness of and engagement with its uses and functions. Various longstanding approaches to ESL (grammar- translation, communicative, functional-systemic) make different efficacy claims, but it appears that they generate different kind and levels of productive and receptive, literature and oral English competence. Like EFL and ESD below, some knowledge of contrastive analysis of the linguistic structures of L1 and L2 enables teachers to directly address difficult transition issues for students. English as a Foreign Language (EFL) implies the use of English in a community where it is not the usual means of communication. One of the results of this, is that unlike for the ESL speaker, the EFL learner may have less sociolinguistic, non-school opportunities for the use and practice of language. This means that many children learning in EFL contexts see no principal motivation for learning English. This raises a number of key curricular problems: first of all, necessitating a modelling of functional sociolinguistic contexts and uses which are available in ‘target’ communities and linguistic markets. Second, it assumes that there must be direct instruction and immersion, modelling and exemplification of target language behaviour that will not be found in everyday community life. English as a Second Dialect (ESD) learners are those who speak a regional dialect of the language. Dialectal variation may consist of differing phonological patterns, but as well is typically accompanied by lexical and syntactic variation. Bidialectalism is the use by a person or community of two (or more) dialects of a language. Following the increased mobility of populations, many people now have some degree of bidialectal ability, perhaps switching between regional dialects, or using the standard native language at work and a local variety at home. Again, from one perspective, there is “equal linguistic validity … [of] different dialects – typically, between standard and non-standard varieties, each of which is recommended for use in its appropriate settings” (Crystal, 1992, p.42). The task for a bidialectal speaker is deceptively tricky: while ESL and EFL learners are generally 58
aware of the differences between L1 and L2, the bidialectal speaker may readily codeswitch, unaware of the boundaries conventions and rules of appropriateness that differentiate, say, Aboriginal English from Standard English. As noted in the review above, there has been considerable Australian work in the development of bidialectal programs for the past several decades. These have a very deliberate focus on contrastive analysis as a way of increasing students’ and teachers’ awareness of metalinguistics. On the basis of our limited fieldwork and case studies, we offer the overview of Indigenous linguistic diversity, typical locations and different possible blends of EFL/ESL/ESD/EMT strategies contained in the page overleaf. The strategies here are indicative only not exhaustive or binding, some are described in case studies in the Appendix to this report and in the following section on Pedagogical/Professional Alignments. This will be an area for further development by applied linguists and curriculum developers. Note here that each of these communities is a broad typification. Further, the proposed pedagogical schemas for whole-school planning are illustrative only and will need to be worked out in much more fine detail. They illustrate the kind of taxonomy that will be necessary to give teachers and schools some guidance about bringing together various English language and literacy pedagogical strategies.
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Table 1:
A Strategic Taxonomy of Types of Indigenous Student Speakers in Queensland
Student Speaker Types
Typical Locations (e.g., schools)
Possible Mix of Strategies for an Indicative Whole School Plan
Primarily Speakers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL): • First language is usually a traditional Indigenous language or dialect, encountered in the home and/or community • Second Language is usually Aboriginal English or Torres Strait Creole encountered at home or in peer group • English is typically encountered as a Foreign Language in school and other ‘official’ settings (e.g., health clinic, police station) Primarily English as a Second Language (ESL): • Speakers of Aboriginal English or Torres Strait Creole as a First or Second Language encountered in the home and/or community • Speakers of traditional Indigenous language or dialect as First or Second Language • Speakers of Standard Australian English as a Second (or sometimes Third) Language, usually encountered first in a school setting Primarily English as a Second Dialect (ESD): • Speakers of Aboriginal English as a First Dialect, with Standard Australian English encountered as a Second Dialect –typically in a school setting
• Outer islands of the Torres Strait (e.g., Typically KKY or a PNG language as first (home or community) language on Saibai or Boigu, Merium Mer on Murray Island – with Torres Strait Creole as typically the second language) • Western section of Cape York (e.g., Primarily clans with a dominant Wik home/community dialect in Mapoon, Aurukun, Kowanyama, Pormpuraaw) • Other linguistically-unique communities (e.g., Typically Lardil as first home or community language on Mornington Island)
• EFL pedagogy, with systematic, motivating immersion in standard English as a medium of instruction – strong communicative and functional orientations (e.g., ‘concentrated language encounters’) that model instances of English-usage; while maintaining strong links to and recognition and support for Indigenous language and culture. • Direct instructional introduction to alphabetic and print knowledge, phonemic awareness. • Cultural program that is based on local knowledges and recognises students’ Indigenous language or dialect ‘wordings’. • ESL pedagogy, with a strong emphasis on transitional bilingual/bidialectical instruction (e.g., FELIKS, Walking Talking Texts) • Direct instruction in phonemic awareness and alphabetic knowledge of SAE • Focus on key genres and use of functional grammar to highlight first and second language differences and the structure of SAE.
Primarily English as a First Language (EF1): • Speakers of Standard Australian English as a First Language in home and school settings
• Inner islands of the Torres Strait (e.g., Moa, Badu, Mabuiag) • Upper Eastern section of Cape York (e.g., Lockhart River) • Other linguistically heterogeneous communities, where Torres Strait Creole and/or Aboriginal English is/are the lingua franca (e.g., Bamaga, Thursday Island) • Rural (e.g., Camooweal, Cloncurry) and provincial communities (Mt Isa, Cairns, Townsville, Mackay) with seasonal mobility of families and school-age members
• Edge communities at the periphery of provincial cities, regional towns and rural areas, especially previous church missions and government ‘collection centres’ (e.g., Cherbourg, Hopevale, Yarrabah, Palm Island, Woorabinda) but also other rural communities (e.g., Normanton, Cooktown) and many (sub)urban families in larger centres • Principally (sub)urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait families (e.g., in Brisbane, Townsville, Cairns) • Also communities characterised by stable employment patterns, but with some seasonal mobility (e.g., Mackay, Rockhampton)
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• Begin from bidialectical instruction (e.g., FELIKS) • Lead to a blend of implicit/ explicit English instructional models using the four resources model, with a strong focus on code and explicit instruction in functional forms and genres – including context-based grammar. • Appropriate cultural programs • A repertoire of strategies using the four resources model • Include direct but balanced instruction in the code, and functional use of texts with explicit teaching of context-based grammar. • Mainstream blended models.
9. LOTE AND THE MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT OF INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES As noted above, we have here argued that the principal focus of resources and systems should be on the systematic improvement of the teaching of English. We have argued that bilingual education programs in linguistically homogeneous communities are possible, but only should be trialled on a limited scale if strong community support, fiscal and professional resourcing can be established. In what follows, we turn to questions around LOTE. The issue of whether/how LOTE should be introduced to Indigenous bilingual and/or bidialectal speakers of Indigenous languages, Torres Strait Creole and non-standard English to date has not received a rigorous analysis on linguistic, developmental and educational grounds. The current piecemeal policy approach, which has consisted of mandated LOTE, with exemptions liberally granted to community schools short of trained LOTE teachers, has not been subject to rigorous review (It is worth noting, further, that the Rix Review, undertaken for Education Queensland in 1999 advocated LOTE expansion across the board but also did not engage in an analysis of the implications of mandating LOTE for vernacular language or Creole speakers). Our intention in this study was to gather specific case data on: • the issues of bilingual, bidialectal fluency, and literacy achievement of those Indigenous children studying LOTE; and • Their achievement in the specific LOTE. There are two principal findings based on our fieldwork: Finding 7: Lack of LOTE data – There is no consolidated data base available on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander achievement in LOTE across Queensland schools. Our field studies indicate that the uptake of LOTE is extremely patchy. Most schools with significant Indigenous student populations have exercised exemptions from LOTE requirements, some substituting community languages, and others complying minimally. There is little evidence that the teaching of European or Asian languages has had a major impact – positive or negative – on the acquisition of English language and literacy in these schools. We argue for a principled judgement about the educational value of LOTE for Indigenous students – for which students, where and when. Not to be taken on face value, the simple claims that Indigenous students should receive LOTE for ‘equity purposes’ or because of the economic significance of LOTE needs to be carefully examined from a language development perspective. They are particularly problematic given the national documentation on the limited LOTE proficiency achieved with given teacher, pedagogic and funding limitations. It is notable that the international literature does document language planning and policy cases where:
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• Mandatory second language instruction (e.g., in English, in Russian) has overridden minority vernacular language and sped up the processes of language loss (e.g., among Laplanders, and Indigenous minorities in China and Russia); and cases where, • Inappropriately and poorly applied second language instruction and unprincipled code shifting can lead to the phenomenon of ‘semilingualism’, where truncated development both in first and second language occurs (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1984). At the same time, this report recommends a strong and consistent respect for, support of and recognition of Indigenous languages and cultures. It is premised on several specific assumptions, based in part on the policy analysis undertaken of other states and nations experience here. These are: • That bilingual education is only effective in the present of sufficient investment of fiscal and human resources such that: there are trained teachers of high levels of proficiency in both L1 and L2, and that there are clear domains for language use established in the classroom. • That bilingualism and vernacular language retention can be effectively supported through strategies that emphasise separate or autonomous monolingualism – that is separate linguistic domains, partitioned lessons and ‘spaces’ for separate languages to be taught and learned. This avoids the phenomena of unstructured code-shifting in the classroom, prevalent in many of the school sites visited in this study. Recommendation 5: On LOTE for Indigenous students – that in terms of the current LOTE requirements, educational systems should provide: • In-service and pre-service training so that teachers can both recognise and value children’s bi and multi-lingualism as part of cultural programs and a general curriculum orientation. • Encouragement of community language and culture, through programs run by Elders as part of regular scheduled activities and events and valued cultural programs – as well as after-school community language programs, if appropriate to community context. • QSA guidelines and support for syllabus and curriculum development in Indigenous languages as LOTEs. • Replacement where expertise and curriculum is available of LOTE programs with Indigenous language programs. • Exemption from LOTE requirements in those schools with significant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations where students are working within the framework of the aforementioned EFL/ESL/ESD interventions.
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10. THE ALIGNMENT OF COMMUNITY CAPITAL To assume that the problems of English language and literacy can be solved between the four walls of the classroom or school is naïve. And if there was a ‘flaw’ to much of the early development work in bilingual/bidialectal teaching described in the previous reviews, it was a strong belief that the finding of the right curriculum or pedagogical approach had the potential to ‘solve’ the dilemmas of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educational achievement. Nothing could be farther from the case. We suggest that alignment between the school and its community is important for language policies to succeed. In suggesting this, we recognise that the concept of community is a complex one, and also that communities can be very different. So it is worth giving some careful thought to how we might understand school / community alignment. What the ‘two-way schooling’ model recognised is that the complex relationships between school and community needed to be sorted out in some fair and reciprocal way before progress could be made. What Partners for Success (Education Queensland, 2000b) reminds us is that this must be a set of genuine, reciprocal sign-offs and exchanges to move forward, as opposed to everybody just playing their historical roles through. Basil Bernstein’s (1972) controversial claim almost thirty years ago – that “education cannot compensate for society” – reminds us is that other kinds of community infrastructure need to be put in place and aligned before the full value and power of educationally acquired capital can be put to work. There is certainly a recognition of this in recent Commonwealth and State Policy. Both What Works (McRae, 2000) and Partners for Success (Education Queensland, 2000b) recognise very explicitly that English language and literacy success is reliant and contingent on a number of other factors being in place. These include a set of reciprocal understandings and partnerships around language and literacy: • A supportive link between community ‘language ideologies’ (beliefs about the power and value of language and literacy) and the efforts of the school. • A reciprocal link between teachers’ understandings of the sociolinguistic patterns and functions in the community. In our case studies, we noted a range of strategies in schools for building these bridges. In the case of Mitchell State School, this involved a longstanding community support of the teaching of Aboriginal languages as part of the LOTE program. In the case of community members and parents, this involved the training of parents and teacher aides at how to read with students, the engagement of Elders to support language and culture programs, and, in some Partners for Success community compacts were made with parents to read and work with their children at homes. The school literacy program will work better and more effectively if there is less ‘mismatch’ and a better ‘dovetailing’ and coordination of efforts and resources between home and school. In the case of Garbutt State School, this meant regular community parent 63
gatherings on campus to contribute to the cultural programs and teacher/ administrator/ community liaison visits to homes on a scheduled basis to shore up and support parents who wanted to help their kids read and write. But as well, the linkages suggested by Partners for Success point to key liaisons in terms of building up other forms of community capital. This means that the School can work optimally in relationship with the provision of: • Health services: particularly in the area of managing nutrition and hearing issues; • Community and private sector employers: ranging from the use of CDP funded support for the school to work experience; • Welfare and community services: to coordinate the development of pathways to and through school to productive community and work pathways. Recommendation 6: Members of our expert panels, community members and teachers raised for us the persistent problems of Otitis media among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Estimates are that “30-80% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children experience significant hearing loss” (Education Queensland, 2001); there are well established research links between Otitis media and early language and literacy development problems (e.g., Yont, Snow & Vernon-Feagans, in press). This report endorses the findings and recommendations of the 2001 Education Queensland report, and renews calls for its full implementation and linkage to the proposed Indigenous language and literacy policy and strategy.
ALIGNING SOCIAL CAPITAL Another way to think of communities is in terms of their social capital, including the social capital they offer to young people. Broadly defined, social capital refers to networks between people, to social support and social connectedness, and to the opportunities to mobilise resources that come with links to other people. Robert Putnam adds two important ideas to social networks and connections: “the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them” (1993: p.167). Relationships of trust and collaboration for mutual benefit are thus part of social capital. Schools are important in terms of social capital. They may provide young people with social connectedness to others, and open up opportunities for access to further connections. They may also be places where trust and collaboration are built. In addition, schools may play a role in building social capital in communities. They may be places that actively build networks, bring community members in to link with others on activities of mutual benefit, and make links with other schools and workplaces to build curriculum opportunities or support students when they leave the school. Schools may also support collaborative efforts in the community, such as participating in community events. The concept of social capital is useful in understanding the relative powers that come with ‘connection’, family membership, an ‘old school tie’ and so on. But again, it should not be used too simplistically, or seen as a ‘magic solution’ to social problems. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu viewed social capital alongside other forms of ‘capital’: economic capital, cultural capital, linguistic capital, symbolic capital and so on. Cultural capital refers to the ‘tastes’ and preferences people have, the sorts of books and art forms that they have access to, their qualifications and so on. In the context of social class
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analysis, Bourdieu argued that schools appear to treat everyone equally, but in practice they are built on the cultural capital of middle class groups, and thus discriminate against students who do not have this particular cultural capital. Students with the same cultural capital as the school and its ‘academic curriculum’ tend to fit the cultural assumptions and demands of schooling, including the preferred language forms. For these students, there is usually some continuity between school and home. For students whose cultural capital is different – is not that of the middle class ‘mainstream’ – school does not have the same ease. Without the assumed continuity between what is done at home and what is done at school, these students must strive to gain the capital that others bring with them. When these students fail at school, schools tend to view them as lacking ability. But Bourdieu argued that this is a ‘misrecognition’ and misreading of cultural differences (linked to material distinctions) as individual ability differences. To illustrate: a Torres Strait Islander girl might enter Thursday Island Primary School (in a remote Indigenous Islander community off of Australia’s northern coast) with trilingual linguistic competence (typically one of three Indigenous languages, plus Torres Strait Creole and English) but limited early print knowledge (embodied capital), access to family networks and community infrastructure (social capital), and limited family material wealth (economic capital). The state school, operating as a ‘mainstream’ Australian institution must exchange and transform her capital into other forms of cultural capital. This can be done by: • setting up optimal zones and environments for the conversion through social relations and linguistic interaction for the students to further develop Englishlanguage reading and speech; • transforming this into a visible portfolio of artefacts of writing and other literate practice as demonstration of competence (objectified capital); and • degrees/diplomas/grades (institutional capital) that might enhance her traverse through both Islander community life and mainstream Australian and Queensland institutions and economies. These in turn are re/mediated and exchanged in other institutional settings (other educational organisations, communities local and ‘global’, face-to-face and virtual, workplaces) with differential field-specific cache (Luke & Carrington, 2002). Some of these institutions will be more friendly and welcoming than others – in terms of the ways they position and enable Islander women. Schools have the power to open access to dominant cultural capital through the curriculum and languages that they offer. The argument here is that through particular forms of pedagogy that recognise difference and systematically bridge students’ existing cultural capital with the mainstream forms of English language and literacy as cultural capital, children may have opportunities to acquire the cultural capital valued by schools. Education is always about building bridges between the ‘known’ and the ‘new’. In particular, explicit pedagogies and scaffolding with mainstream English language and literacy practices may provide Indigenous students greater access to academic and linguistic capital. Bourdieu’s analysis also gave us more fine-grained ways of looking at communities, in terms of their access to different forms of capital: economic, cultural, social, linguistic, and so on. Instead of assuming a ‘one size fits all’ approach to schools and their communities,
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an analysis of different capitals challenges us to look at different mixes for different schools and communities, and thus at different interventions. While recognising that the school plays a role in building these different forms of capital, it needs to be recognised that schools do not do this alone, as Bernstein (1992) claims, schools alone cannot remedy social inequalities. Schools are one part of the bigger social picture, as are their particular communities. In choosing Queensland schools for this study, one of our considerations was to look at the different configurations of languages spoken by people in different parts of the State, and then to look at schools in the context of their communities. So, for example, although Yarrabah and Cherbourg are both Aboriginal schools located in separate communities, their language contexts and community relationships are quite different. Both were ‘receiving centres’ where people were displaced from their land, but their language and community relationships differ. Cherbourg has residents from about 40 language groups and there is no dominant Indigenous group; and Yarrabah has two major language groups and a number of powerful families within these. Cherbourg State School has set up Indigenous Studies as a cornerstone of its curriculum, has brought Elders into the school, and plays a leading role in building social capital in the community by, for example, marching against domestic violence. Its motto reminds students to be ‘strong and smart’. At Yarrabah, however, there are cultural knowledges among Indigenous people that are not common, and partly because of this, the school does not have an Indigenous Studies curriculum, but is slowly linking with the local museum on this. The school operates from the basis that the community has its own relationships of social capital, and it needs to take the lead from the community. Indigenous identity work takes place largely outside of the school, and the school sees its role as providing access to SAE and school knowledges. Yarrabah has an LDC and whole-school language plan; Cherbourg, as yet, does not. This example illustrates that different schools and communities have different mixes of ‘capitals’. Policies need to be flexible enough to allow for local configurations of language and culture as well as local initiatives, and one approach is not likely to fit all.
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CASE 3: Cairns West State School and community alignment Cairns West State School is situated towards the inner city in the suburb of Manunda, and over the years its student profile has changed from being white middle class to being more culturally diverse and socio-economically disadvantaged. The student body is culturally diverse, with about 60% of the students being Indigenous. Many of these students are Islander, and along with SAE, at least five languages are spoken: Torres Strait Creole, the languages of Cook Island, Samoa and Papua New Guinea, and Aboriginal English. Torres Strait Creole is described as ‘the lingua franca of the playground’. A key feeder area for the school is Manoora, a very large public housing area which is currently the focus of an interagency Urban and Community Renewal Program led by the Department of Housing. Describing the Manoora area, the Community Action Plan identifies it as one of Queensland’s ‘pockets of intense deprivation where the problems of unemployment and crime are acute and hopelessly tied up with poor health, housing and education’ (Department of Housing, 1999:2). The leadership of the school favours a strong community focus, and much energy is directed towards building school-parent-community links. The school is a key player in the Manoora program, both in the adult education programs it offers and in interagency projects such as truancy and juvenile crime prevention. Working with Manoora, Manunda and surrounding communities means working with poverty, single parent households, third and fourth generation unemployment, transience, alcohol and substance abuse, and violence. Getting students into the school and building links with parents and the community are key activities for the school. To encourage attendance, the school works with a family support worker employed by the Community Renewal Program and also employs its own Indigenous staff to contact parents and visit homes. Taking the position that all children should be in school, even those visiting Cairns for short periods, the school reports truancies and works with other agencies to bring the truancy rate down. To build links with the community, it offers adult education programs funded partly by the Community Renewal Program and coordinated through an ASSPA Committee member. Courses which bring parents and other adults into the school include a landscaping and horticulturalist program certificated through TAFE; a basic computer course which links to an advanced course run through TAFE; and a literacy class for parents. The school does what it can to encourage parents and other adults to come into its grounds and classrooms, to overcome their own bad experiences at school, and to be positive adult role models for students. Building relationships is a priority for the school’s leadership. Nonetheless, Cairns West tries hard to reach like school averages on the Year 2 net as well as Year 5 and 7 test results, and falls below state averages on all tests. Uncomfortable though this is, the leadership is aware that ‘We’re hiding our heads in the sand if we don’t want ourselves to be compared’. For the issues facing schools like Cairns West, the policies and systems of Education Queensland are not context-sensitive. Tests which do not recognise second language speakers, label as illiterate those who are able to read in other languages. Counting enrolments on day 8 does not recognise that Indigenous students are not always prompt in returning to school after holidays away, especially to Islands. Administrative systems which drop students off the roll after a set number of days of absence place these students at risk of falling out the system altogether, not monitored by any school. In all of these instances, more differentiating policies are needed if equity is to be achieved for these students. That said, issues of parent and community responsibility also featured in interviews at Cairns West State School. Many of the staff are sensitive to the possibility that when the school assumes responsibility, for example for transporting students by bus from home to school, or taking them to the clinic, this means that parents and the community do not need to take responsibility themselves for caring for their children. This is a dilemma which the school works within.
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We saw in the previous section on sociolinguistic alignment that whole-school programs must be sensitive and responsive the sociolinguistic contexts of their communities and their students. We have made the case here that they must be extremely sensitive to and engaged with the other forms of community capital that need to be put in place for improved student outcomes. In the case of Cherbourg, for example, which was a trial site for Van Leer almost 30 years ago, it is clear that other community alignments had to be put in place before the English language and literacy program could fly. This meant establishing strong Indigenous school leadership, building school ethos in relation to the community, reducing school and youth violence and behaviour problems, and bringing attendance up. This was done with links to other government interventions, agencies and community partnerships. The alignment of community capital sets the seedbed for a school language and literacy program to take root and grow. Without the alignment of community capital, no matter how effective they might appear, sociolinguistic and pedagogical innovation will not have substantial and sustainable effects. With this in mind, we turn to our third point of alignment: the pedagogical/professional dimension of English language and literacy education. We arrive at it last – bearing in mind that most plans and studies would start with pedagogy. This is deliberate.
A PEDAGOGICAL/PROFESSIONAL ALIGNMENT We have deliberately put the core business of schooling and of language and literacy education – classroom teaching and learning – as the third and final piece of the puzzle that needs our attention. We have, across this report, noted and described practices that have the potential for improving Indigenous student outcomes. We have documented yet again previous approaches to Indigenous education and to English language and literacy education from the past three decades. We also have reviewed and commented on many current approaches currently in place: ranging from the use of ‘concentrated language encounters’, to genre-based approaches that use Hallidayan grammar, to specific adaptations of ESL/ESD/EFL methods. There is little new in this review. But we have introduced the concepts of “linguistic markets”, “cultural capital” and “linguistic rights” into the debates, and we have called for a systematic alignment of resources. In this regard, the recommendations here follow the overall orientations taken up in the Cape York Partnership Plan and other attempts to mobilise cross-government resources. Further, they call upon Education Queensland and other systems to better mobilise and coordinate intra-systemic resources, approaches and models than at present. It is not our purpose here to endorse any particular method. We have made the case, which we did in Literate Futures (Luke, Freebody & Land, 2000), that the selection of methods and approaches depends on teachers’ local professional judgement, their knowledge of the “sociolinguistic alignments” and of their learners. We have also argued that this professionalism needs to be supported and bolstered at every opportunity, both through systemic funding and local development and community engagement.
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It is our position that the resources for professional development and expansion through the building of whole-school literacy plans, as advocated in Literate Futures will improve student outcomes. We advocate the use of the four resources model in that document as a way of judging and balancing school-based literacy programs, to ensure that they deliver a balanced diet of coding, meaning making, pragmatic and critical engagements with written and spoken English language texts. A strong orientation to explicit teaching has arisen since the era of the Van Leer Project, ‘two-way schooling’ models, and 1980s adaptations of language experience and wholeschool models are featured in the four resources model (Freebody & Luke, 1990). We mention it here because we believe that it is an essential ingredient in whole-school programs for Indigenous literacy. There is a need for explicit pedagogy and balanced instruction in ‘coding’ aspects of reading. Many schools are using genre and functional grammar to give kids instruction in how to compose and construct written texts. Some of this knowledge, of course, has transferable effects to reading, particularly reading comprehension and critical literacy. However the principal problem identified in our earlier review of statewide benchmark testing was a sliding off of Aboriginal and Islander performance both by the Year 3 level, with further declines in basic reading by Year 5. Recommendation 7: On explicit teaching of coding – We believe there is a strong case for a consistent focus across speaking groups on instruction in coding, but not to the exclusion or isolation from semantic, pragmatic and critical practices. By coding, we do not refer simply to “phonics” but refer to instruction in alphabetic knowledge, the conventions of print, phonemic awareness, rudimentary word attack skills, sight vocabulary, lexical and syntactic conventions of English texts, and where necessary and appropriate in contrastive analysis. There is a strong consensus in the field that we cannot take for granted acquisition of automaticity in the code among those learners who come from second language and dialect backgrounds, and particularly those who do not have extensive early developmental exposure to written forms of those languages and dialects. This is the case with many remote and community-based children. However, this does not mean that simply purchasing any one of a number of commercially available programs for phonics instruction is a cure-all or will ‘solve’ early literacy problems. Heavy reliance on programs like THRASS, the Sound Way, Jolly Phonics and Letterland can lead to unbalanced, and culturally and linguistically insensitive programs. Over reliance on commercial packages can unbalance a program, badly impact on student motivation, relevance and the acquisition of other aspects of literacy. The four resources model (Freebody & Luke, 1990) suggests not only that there needs to be a balanced diet of literacy practices, of which teaching for automaticity of code breaking is but one strand or element. But, to reiterate, it will require some deliberate attention. Stuart McNaughton’s (2001) recent book Meeting of Minds, a New Zealand based study of early literacy for Maori and other ‘at risk’ children argues strongly for a balance of:
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• Implicit and explicit pedagogies: that while there needs to be a strong explicit focus on acquisition of early print knowledges and skills through direct instruction, this needs to be balanced by experiential, hands-on and more holistic activities that involve language and literacy across the curriculum; • Of culturally and community based and text-based activities: that while there needs to be a deliberate focus on how English-language texts work, their techniques and technology, this needs to be balanced with the study of community knowledge, engagement with traditional aspects of language and culture. McNaughton’s work actually provides us with an alternative view of what might constitute a ‘balanced program’. This concept of a pedagogy that is multiple, that ‘shunts’ in clearly marked ways from different orientations to texts and literacy was also reiterated in work that we did in the 1996 “Pedagogy of Multiliteracies” work (New London Group, 1996). That model also suggested that lessons and activities should have strong components of exposure to and immersion in texts, of explicit instruction that shows kids how texts work (including coding instruction), and gives them the opportunity to critique, reconstruct and ‘redesign’ texts, digital, spoken and print. We would add to this two further balancing acts: • The balancing of the four resources, to ensure that coding, comprehension, everyday functional use and critical analysis are included for Indigenous children; • A balancing of spoken texts, print texts and engagement with new, digital and online texts that will figure prominently in the linguistic markets of new economies and cultures. At the same time, our search for best practices and exemplary cases reported here found instances and examples of schools, communities, teachers and students making a difference. These schools had developed ensembles of practice that were both responsive to local cultures and languages, while at the same time providing suites of interventions that were improving student outcomes in language and literacy.
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CASE 4: Good Practice and the blended approach Many specialist teachers manipulate the use of ‘packaged programs’ by selecting relevant components from one or more program and using these in conjunction with school-developed practices. These ‘home-grown’ components are based on the identification of individual needs and most often result in a blended, context-specific pedagogy. Rose Callaghan, the ESL specialist at Cairns West State School is enjoying the success that comes from a program developed with these individual needs in mind. While she draws inspiration from packaged resources such as Feliks, the curriculum has evolved from her experience and understanding of the particular needs of her students. Rose bases her early childhood program on valuing the home language and “what the child comes with”. Her overall approach to the language and literacy curriculum is to support all learners without separating second language users, or using a particular pedagogy for them as a distinct group. She sums it up as follows: “if you aim to teach in a way that supports the ESL kids, all the kids will benefit”. Now in the second year of a three year ESL trial at Cairns West, the aim of the trial is for children to gain ‘independence’ by Year 3. Rose delivers weekly in-class demonstration lessons and resources to the year 1 and 2 classes. She is adamant that the early success of the program is due to the teachers being present for the lessons she models with their classes. She was and remains insistent that this is not non-contact or ‘pupil-free’ time for teachers but rather an invaluable PD opportunity for teachers to witness demonstration lessons by a trained specialist who works from programs whose efficacy are well established nationally. Early indicators have seen the techniques espoused by FELIKS and TESLIS (Walking, Talking Texts) generalised across the early childhood curriculum. Teachers across all levels of the school reinforced the notion of an on-site specialist teacher being more effective than visiting (specialist ESL) teachers, as they know the particular needs of the school more intimately. Rose has a strong ESL background and long-standing relationship with the school as a classroom teacher where her work is held in high regard. Her approach is to use packaged programs by tailoring them to the needs of the community in general, and to individuals in particular. Teachers in the middle school described this ‘individualising’ as being critical to the early perceived success of the intervention program on trial. They made the point that simply taking this (or any other) approach and transplanting it into another like-school, would not work as the success of programs is very much context-dependent, ‘You can’t bottle Rose and sell her to other schools. It just doesn’t work like that’ (Year 5 teacher). Strategic and concerted efforts to have children name, and identify with, their home languages are evident in classroom pedagogy and throughout the school. These efforts take the form of noticeboard displays in prominent, high-traffic areas and detail the different home languages of individual students. A classroom strategy that illustrates this is concerned with ‘the possessive s’: After the teacher pointed out that a student (Riccardo) forgot to remove his hat before returning to class after the lunchbreak, she wrote the phrase, ‘Riccardo’s hat’ on butcher paper, and drew a small picture of a hat beside it and discussed how this was ‘school talk’. She proceeded to ask for volunteers from the class how they might say it in their own ‘home talk’. A child from the Torres Strait offered, ‘e Riccardo hat’. Rose wrote this on the paper and noted its language type, as follows: e Riccardo hat (Torres Strait Creole) Another suggestion was made and recorded: Riccardo hat (Aboriginal English) (as Rose was scribing, she also modelled syllable and phonetic structure for the class. This is, of course, a general and non ESL-specific early literacy strategy, thus highlighting her philosophy of ‘what works for all kids will also work for ESL kids’). This approach is typical of FELIKS-inspired pedagogy where, at the ‘awareness’ stage, the aim is to separate the languages in use. This illustration highlights that while programming may have its nucleus in a package, good practice is about translation, interpretation and adaptation to children’s needs.
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We conclude with specific recommendations for the building and sustaining of professional communities that will lead to more effective whole-school planning. Recommendation 8: On whole-school language education plans – That schools with significant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations build whole-school language education plans – based on strong community audits and partnership agreements, on sociolinguistic alignments, and on principled and planned mixes of approaches drawn from first and second language teaching. These approaches should include a focus on explicit teaching of reading, recognition of the place of Indigenous languages in cultural and LOTE programs, and, where appropriate, a strong EFL/ESL/ESD component, as part of a balanced program using the ‘four resources’ model. The successful cases, we have noted here, have often occurred in spite of an overall lack of policy direction, systematic advice and programmatic approaches to Indigenous language education. In other instances, they were occurring under the auspices of other recent interventions (e.g., New Basics, Literate Futures, whole-school planning). In sum, much of the best practice was occurring through the professionalism and inventiveness of teachers and the commitment of communities, rather than systematic intervention per se. As in Literate Futures, our recommendations here pivot around trying to generalise and provide systemic guidance and endorsement around some of these programs and approaches, rather than to ‘mandate’ or seek single solutions, the sorts of which have confounded the field in the past. At the same time, we found out in the field that each region, language and community cluster had quite distinctive needs and approaches. We are wary of a ‘one size fits all’ model not only in pedagogical terms – but also to service and develop teachers’ professional networks and development needs. As a result, we argue here that each area and region will need to develop distinctive approaches to professional development centre. Recommendation 9: On professional development – That three or four key regional support/training/learning networks of varied structures and specific orientations be established to enable and focus professional development, whole-school planning, induction training for teachers, pre-service and in-service credentialing and the exchange of relevant cultural and curriculum materials. These networks are to focus on the implementation of Literate Futures and the proposed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Language and Literacy Strategy. The networks should be encouraged to take varying forms, shapes and configurations as relevant in particular school/community clusters and regional areas for the key nominated areas of Queensland. In the case of Far North Queensland, this might entail a focusing and expansion of the work of AIETA and the Yarrabah LDC to provide teachers with training sites, workshops and assistance in whole-school literacy, curriculum and ESL/EFL/ESD planning. In the case of the Torres Strait and Cape, another model for EFL support might be necessary – perhaps the establishment of a school-based site at Badu or another school outside of Thursday Island that is dealing directly with these problems and is readily accessible to other outer island schools. In the case of the Southeast corner, we would suggest another model similar to the Apple ACOT model: the establishment of a state and non-state linked pair of laboratory/ demonstration schools (e.g., Cherbourg, St. James, The Murri School), where urban pre-
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service and in-service teachers who wish to see community alignments, model pedagogy and effective whole-school programs can visit for training and networking. These are just suggestions – but we want to argue here that the State needs to avoid going down the ‘set up single resource/training centre/clearing house’ model and seek alternatives. Such models always run the risk of soaking up needed local resources and becoming fairly ‘set’ in their approaches. A return to a ‘centerist’ model of professional support and development will not as readily capitalise on the expertise in the field and address the diversity of local context and demand. Something more innovative, locally relevant and loosely coupled, with university and community partners is in order. Hence, we suggest a diverse but powerful approach to professional alignment, but one where different nodes would work off of a systematic state-wide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Language and Literacy Education Strategy, with adjunct materials support. We conclude this report by providing an outline of such a state policy – the rationale and conceptual bones for which we have provided here.
A BEGINNING: ALIGNING AND MOBILISING A SYSTEM This has been an exercise in “language in education planning” (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1999). That is, it has been our intention to augment our understanding of aboriginal education and policy with an overview of language corpus and language status planning, a preliminary, albeit empirically limited description of socio-demographics of Indigenous language users, and the state of current language education provision. We have tried to situate this view of language and literacy education beyond what are at times parochial and narrow disciplinary debates over pedagogical or instructional method – debates that reports like Learning Lessons (1999) recognise, can create a disenabling environment for effective policy and local practice. As Lin and Martin (in press) have argued, at this historical moment the engagement of those working within language-in-education policy and practice with larger issues of identity and political autonomy, capital and social power is crucial. It is only on this basis, together with existing knowledge about language learning and teaching that we can develop a programmatic policy agenda that does not, simply, chase bandwagons, present policy quick fixes or pedagogical magic bullets. This study was undertaken in a context where Indigenous social and educational policy is in transition. Following debates over the past three years around the Queensland government’s Cape York Strategy and imminent plans for autonomy for the Torres Strait Islands, there has been a strong push for enhancing the access to and capacity with mainstream cultural capital. This has been balanced by a continuing push to recognise and value Indigenous culture and languages. This means that there has a been a vigorous and strong push – from Indigenous forums, and from all of the Indigenous elders and educators consulted as part of this study to: • Improve the overall educational participation and achievement of Indigenous children across the board, as measured by a range of indicators. • Improve access to and capacity with Standard Australian English language competence and literacy practices as necessary prerequisites for improved academic performance, social participation, community-building, economic development and political power.
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What has been interesting to us in this study is that while there is continued concern about the place and the recognition of Indigenous languages and Creoles, the univocal voice of Indigenous Elders, educators and communities has said to us and others: improve the overall performance in English language and literacy. The report has been less troubled than previous efforts to describe or engage the field with issues of ‘whose language’ and issues of ‘which method’. It begins from a strong consensus on the need to value Indigenous languages with a strong orientation towards improvement of English language and literacy. We called it a ‘balance of rights’ premise. Nor did we encounter polarised debates over method. More typically, we encountered schools and systems, teachers and communities looking for an orderly policy framework that gives them some programmatic directions, choices and options that ‘work’. We found far too much ad hoc, accidental and local invention in the field, and a situation calling out not for central control, but rather a centrally enable environment where ideas, strategies, planning and professional development could flourish. But making policies that actually work and align, that generate productive change and aren’t simply resisted and ignored is tricky business. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language and literacy education is, like so many areas, a field of social policy where policies, statements, proclamations proliferate. All too often they don’t deliver on their promises. Our experience in the past three years working on projects like The New Basics, Productive Pedagogies, and Literate Futures has given us some keys to what appears to be working for Queensland schools and teachers. We need to set up policies that provide good strong conceptual frameworks, that provide what Native North Americans called ‘talking sticks’ for professional and community conversations to occur. Not straightjackets, not central mandates, and certainly not just lots of flows of cash. At present Queensland does not have a state ESL policy, nor does it have an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Language in Education policy. There is some good work and best practice occurring in the field. As we have documented here, we have 30 years of experience in ‘what works’, and many lessons from current and more recent work about the blends of explicit pedagogy, community/culture centred programs, ESL/ESD/EFL programs that actually can be brought together at school level to improve student outcomes. Our way forward is to propose a policy that is based on three alignments, each one of which covers a current area of systems development. These are: • A sociolinguistic alignment: This is a linguistic issue. We need to begin from the recognition and understanding of linguistic diversity and ‘linguistic markets’ and forms the basis of state and systems Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander EFL/ESL/ESD interventions. • A community capital alignment: This is a social, cultural and political issue. We need to recognise the significance of two way partnerships between communities and schools and begin to work synergistically and systematically to put in place other forms of capital requisite for students to succeed and communities to move forward. • A pedagogy/professional alignment: This is a teaching and learning, curriculum and assessment issue. We need to locally and regionally build teacher and school expertise at whole-school planning that blends available first and second language
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pedagogies, explicit and implicit pedagogies in ways that generate improved results for students. At the state level, ESL, language/literacy policy and syllabus design, professional development and human resource strategies, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policies need to come out of their ‘silos’ and begin working together. This map is one way of framing how they might fit. Regarding the sociolinguistic alignment, it is clear that any recommendations for how to redress the patterns of language achievement for Indigenous children are contingent upon our understandings of their actual language backgrounds, proficiencies and uses. We have in this report noted and endorsed many of these strategies. But their choice and blending depends on our knowledge of learners’ potentially diverse linguistic backgrounds and competences. Such an analysis will enable schools to make decisions about instruction, curriculum and assessment in language and literacy education based on a more systematic understanding of the cultural background knowledge, language ideologies and language competences that children bring to schools from community life, and the community, occupational and family contexts where these same students will use and apply language and literacy. Regarding community capital alignment, if there is a lesson from the last three decades of work on the ethnography of literacy and language planning – it is that language and literacy education are not matters simply of individual difference of skill, behaviour and cognition and finding the appropriate instructional method. Quite the contrary, who learns and uses which languages, with which effects, who fails, when, where and how in schools, are profoundly cultural and social matters. If necessary forms of economic, social, ecological and cultural capital are not available in schools – there is little way that pedagogy or sensitivity to language diversity can make a difference. This approach clearly aligns with Partners for Success. Approaches like Partners for Success and the Cape York Plan need to be pursued – but they need to have strong language and literacy education elements, strategies and targets built into them. It is an axiom that communities of speakers own and control their languages – but it is equally the case that if they wish to alter how and what next generations do with these language, they must take ownership of these processes, and not ‘leave them to the school’ Regarding the pedagogical alignment, our task in this report has been to try to provide a first cut of an overarching framework that might enable us to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders rights to English language and literacy as cultural capital, while maintaining their rights to Indigenous languages and dialects. For teachers, we recognise the need to do so in ways that take some of the ‘guesswork’ out of putting together effective school literacy programs for Indigenous children. This approach to pedagogy aligns with the whole-school planning orientation of Literate Futures. We see our work here as the first step in the statement and building of Queensland’s first Indigenous language education policy, and one that can act as a roadmap for teachers, schools and systems.
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Nettle, D. & Romaine, S. (2000). Vanishing Voices: The extinction of the world’s languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92. Northern Territory Department of Education. (1999). Learning Lessons: An independent review of Indigenous education in the Northern Territory. Darwin: Northern Territory Department of Education. Northern Territory Board of Studies. (1995). Walking Talking Texts, http://www.ntu.edu.au/education/csle/ Norton, B. (2000). Identity and Language Learning. London: Longman. Norton, B. & Toohey, K. (Eds.) (in press/2003) Critical Pedagogies and Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Osborne, B. (Ed.) (2001). Teaching, Diversity and Democracy. Altona, VIC: Common Ground. Pennycook, A. (1996). The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. London: Longman. Pennycook, A. (Ed.) (1999) Special topic issue: Critical approaches to TESOL. TESOL Quarterly 33(3), 329-609. Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical Applied Linguistics. Malwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Queensland School Curriculum Council (1997). Report to the Minister for Education, Statewide Performance of Students in Aspects of Literacy and Numeracy in Queensland 1995 and 1996. Brisbane: Queensland School Curriculum Council. Romaine, S. (1988). Pidgin and Creole Languages. London: Longman. Romaine, S. (1990). Language in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Romaine, S. (1995) Bilingualism. 2nd Ed. Oxford: Blackwells. Schieffelin, B.B. & Ochs, E. (Eds.) (1986) Language Socialisation Across Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shnukal, A. (1984). Torres Strait Islander in Queensland mainland schools. The Aboriginal Child in School 12 (3&5), 1-12. Siegel, J. (1987) Language Contact in a Plantation Environment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sirris, K. (in preparation) An analysis of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy in Queensland. Unpublished MPhil. thesis, University of Queensland, Brisbane. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1984) Bilingualism or Not: The Education of Minorities. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Smith, L.T. (1999) Decolonising Methodologies. London: Zed Books. Swain, M. & Lapkin, S. (1982) Evaluating Bilingual Education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Toohey, K. (2000). Learning English at School. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
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Turnbull, D. & Hudson, C. (2001) Bandscales for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Learners: Principals informing the project, Education Queensland.http://education.qld.gov.au/ WA Education Department. (1994). First Steps. Western Australian Government. Walton, C. (1996) Critical Social Literacies. Darwin: Northern Territory University Press. Williams, G. (1992) Sociolinguistics: A Sociological Critique. London: Routledge. Yont, K.M., Snow, C.E., & Vernon-Feagans, I. (in press.). Is chronic otitis media associated with differences in parental input at 12 months? Analysis of joint attention and directives. Unpublished Manuscript, Harvard Graduate School of Education.
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RESOURCES Department of Education., Employment and Training (2000) The ESL Report Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (2000) The National Indigenous English Literacy and Numeracy Strategy (2000 – 2004) Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (1999) Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-first Century Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (2001) English as a Second Language – New Arrivals Programme Arrangements Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs. (1997). Quadrennial Administrative Guidelines – 1997 to 2000. Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (2001) Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Programme (IESIP) Provider Administrative Guidelines 20012004 Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (2001) National Literacy and Numeracy Plan http://www.detya.gov.au/schools/LiteracyNumeracy/natplan.htm Board of Studies (2000) ESL Companion to the English CSF ACT Department of Education & Training and Children’s, Youth & Family Services Bureau (1986) English as a Second Language Provision – Implementation Guidelines. ACT Department of Education & Training and Children’s, Youth & Family Services Bureau (1998) English as a Second Language. Office of Education (Tasmanian Department of Education), (2000) :Literacy and Numeracy Plan 2000 – 2002. Board of Studies (NSW) English Syllabus. Education Department of Western Australia (1999) Solid English.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Glossary of Terms
......1
Case Studies: Thursday Island State School Thursday Island State High School Malu Kiwai State School Mer State School Kubin Village State School, Mua Island Weipa North School Koolkan Aurukun Community School Cairns West State School Yarrabah State School Garbutt State School The Marian School Cherbourg State School Mitchell Kindergarten and Creche Murgon State School St George State High School St James College
......4 ....11 ....18 ....20 ....22 ....24 ....30 ....39 ....45 ....52 ....57 ....61 ....66 ....70 ....75 ....80
Appendix ....88 Methods ....89 Variables involved in the selection of schools for project case study ....91 ESL Bandscales ....93 Smarter Use of ICT Technology in Aurukun ....97 Common Literacy Challenges for Indigenous School Leaders ....98 Complex School Leadership Challenges at Koolkan Aurukun Community School – Aligning Pedagogic, Linguistic and Community Capacity-Building ....99 Literacy Challenges for A Returning Non-Indigenous School Leader ..100
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GLOSSARY OF TERMS ACER – Australian Council for Educational Research ASSPA – CDEP – Community Development and Employment Program Coding – Early reading instructional focus on print and alphabetic knowledge, phonemic awareness, word recognition and attack Code-switching or Diglossia – When speakers shift from languages or registers fluidly in conversation. Creole/Kriol – Formalised and stabilised language that blends aspects of two languages and is learned by young as a first language. Cultural capital – knowledge, skill and competence that is valued and exchanged in communities and institutions. DEST – Department of Education, Science and Training, Commonwealth Government EFL – English as a Foreign Language ELA – English Language Arts as a formal Key Learning Area in the curriculum EMT or EFL– English as a Mother Tongue or English as a First Language ESD – English as a Second Dialect ESL – English as a Second Language Four resources model – Balanced approach to reading instruction with emphasis on coding, meaning making, pragmatics and critical literacy Genre – Text type in either written or spoken English ICT – Information Communication Technology IETA – Indigenous Education and Training Alliance IT – Information technology KLA – Eight key learning areas mandated in Australian state curricula LDC – Learning Development Centre (Education Queensland)
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Linguistic markets – Social contexts and institutions where language and literacy skills are used and valued L1 – A speaker’s first language L2 – A speaker’s second language LOTE – Language other than English in the formal curriculum. NESB – Non-English Speaking Background Pidgin/Pijin – Local or regional lingua franca that blends two or more languages for purposes of mutual comprehensibility and exchange SAE – Standard Australian English Social capital – Networks, relationships and infrastructure that have power and value in communities Vernacular – Indigenous or local language in unstandardised form
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CASE STUDIES Region 1:
Torres Strait
Thursday Island State School Thursday Island State High School Malu Kiwai State School Mer State School Kubin Village State School, Mua Island
......4 ....11 ....18 ....20 ....22
Region 2: Western Cape Weipa North School Koolkan Aurukun Community School
....24 ....30
Region 3: Cairns Cairns West State School Yarrabah State School
....39 ....45
Region 4: Townsville Garbutt State School The Marian School
....52 ....57
Region 5: South Burnett Cherbourg State School Mitchell Kindergarten and Creche Murgon State School St George State High School
....61 ....66 ....70 ....75
Region 6: Brisbane St James College
....80
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THURSDAY ISLAND STATE SCHOOL The school in overview Thursday Island State School (TISS) is the largest primary school in the Torres Straits, with around 515 students coming from Thursday, Friday, Hammond, Prince of Wales and Horn Islands. The majority of students are Indigenous, while the majority of teaching staff are non-Indigenous. The school strives to involve the local community, from grassroots to leadership, in its planning and operations. It is involved in a number of Education Queensland initiatives, including Partners for Success, New Basics Trial, and Community Compact Trial.
The students in overview The majority of students (86%) are of Torres Strait Islander descent, and 96% are English Second Language (ESL) speakers. Indigenous languages spoken include Kala Kawa Ya (KKY), Kawa Lagau Ya (KLY) and Meriam Mer. Some families speak Papuan New Guinean dialects, including Pidgin, Motu and Kiwi. The language most commonly used by students is Yumpla Tok (Torres Strait Creole). There is a tradition of student mobility and family itinerancy which affects the school. A 1997 survey showed that 50% of students had attended more than one school and had experienced up to 20 teachers. TISS results fall below state norms on all state-wide comparative tests. A major reason for this, in the school’s view, is that the students are working with English as their second language, and this is not recognised in tests. This does not mean, however, that the school is complacent about its performance, as the following comments by the Principal indicate: The fact is, we’ve done a lot and the results still aren’t coming with the Year 2 net. The team met, we talked things through, we shared resources, we eliminated variables (e.g., we’re using the same text instead of different texts), we worked together with teacher aides. In 1996 we started from 75% caught. So we’ve improved. But we can’t shift the 30% remaining who are probably 1 and 2 on the band scale. We’re now in a position to look more closely at who they are. But part of the problem with performance isn’t the kids. It’s us. It’s a reflection of the staff, and staff turnover. TISS undertakes a number of internal monitoring processes for setting goals and comparing student performance across years. These have included: Holbourn Vocabulary Test, Gap Comprehension Test, Indigenous Oral Language Bandscales (Year 1), ACER Maths Test (Year 1 and 2), and Progress in Reading Test Year 1 and 2. The school is currently working with a consultant from ACER to systematise the recording and use of test results and other internal monitoring processes. Individual student portfolios are kept from kindergarten to Year 7, recording development in key learning areas as well as ‘social/emotional progress’. Formal reporting to parents 4
takes place twice a year, where there are face to face interviews with reports for each student (including Year 2 Diagnostic Net Reports and Year 5 Test information). Informal reporting is encouraged throughout the year.
The staff in overview TISS has 16 classroom teachers, 14 specialist teachers, a principal and a 0.5 deputy. It has 4 permanent and 16 temporary teacher aides. There is a mix of beginning, experienced and long serving teachers, with 7 first year teachers in 2001. Continuity is a major staffing issue, with about one third of the staff turning over annually. The majority of the teaching staff are non-Indigenous (82%). The school has attempted to employ Indigenous staff where possible, and has used Commonwealth funding to employ teacher aides so that every classroom has at least one Indigenous teacher or teacher aide. The majority of the paraprofessional staff is of TSI descent (61.5%), and, as the Principal pointed out: The cleaners, the groundsmen and the admin staff are the most settled of all the staff here.
Broader political and social contexts TISS and its community are influenced by broader political, social and economic changes taking place in the Torres Straits as well as globally. In terms of regional politics, Torres Straits identity is shifting with moves towards greater regional autonomy as well as land and possibly sea rights. Along with shifts in identity, language allegiance is also shifting. In the words of one teacher who has been at TISS for more than 20 years: Twenty years ago, speaking English was regarded among students as being ‘smart’. Now it’s regarded as being a ‘show off’. Creole is a very strong identity marker. More English is seen as being less Islander. There’s a barrier to learning English. The same teacher commented that in his experience, ‘over 50% of TI kids I’ve taught end up going South as adults’. New technologies in the school have changed not only the information available to the Administration (who are networked into broader information and have a teacher responsible for IT); there is also evidence of IT in the curriculum. The school has at least three computers in each classroom, in addition to a computer room. It has a MALT plan, and also includes computer literacy in its school operational plans. Exposure to new technologies potentially links TISS and its students and teachers to dimensions of globalisation which would have been unimaginable a few years ago (and which may still be so for parents and/ or older members of the community). There is a degree of tension between the global (or wider world outside the Torres Straits) and the local (Thursday Island and other Island languages and Creoles, traditions as well as current lifestyles). In the words of one of the community leaders: There’s been a lot of changes around social justice issues, Mabo, a big focus on identity— the sense of ‘I don’t just want to learn English at the expense of my mother tongue’. Once there wasn’t a big thing about identity: ‘I’m an Ilun mun—school doesn’t give me my identity, it gives me opportunities for jobs.’
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By the staff’s accounts, there is a need for community and teacher awareness that second language acquisition is additive. Another thing in the last 18 months to two years, activism has more of a foothold in the Straits. Marching in streets is very new up here. Previously, challenges were always within the confines of the law. Now, people are starting to threaten to do more. Pacific Rim, Indonesia, Fiji where Indigenous people are asserting their rights. This is unique territory. There are no international comparisons. Yet there is evidence that indigenous language student needs are relatively well-researched in some areas. There is sufficient research to at least inform what Thursday Island State School is doing, and staff and administrators have been in regular contact with researchers and leaders in the field, seeking advice and materials. Another community leader pointed out the nuances of the global/local relationship as follows: At NAIDOC yesterday the comment was made that ”Yes, we’re Australians, but we’re not quite Australians.” We’re different from the rest of Australia or Queensland, and there are opportunities to do things differently. She went on to say, less positively: The push for mainstreaming is fine, but you need to marry this with the community and its language. Kids don’t know who they are. They’re taught technology but not basic things about social life and their environment. The TISS Principal is well aware of the climate of change, and posed the challenges facing the school in the following terms: This is a time of political and social change for the Torres Straits. This has escalated. With the political celebration of land claims, how does the school deal with cultural and identity changes together with the community? How do we unpack together what ‘neoliberalism’ means for us?
Community input into TISS TISS is committed to building relationships with its local community. As one of the teachers commented, ‘Whatever we do, we have to have the backing of the community’. The Principal and Deputy (who is Indigenous) made the point that they took every opportunity, formal or informal, to link members of the community with the school. Both also mentioned the importance of the school being in tune with TSIREC and TSIRA. The approach taken by the school is to engage with community members at both grassroots and leadership levels. There are a number of formal bodies which bring community involvement: • TISS has an active Parents and Citizens’ Association, chaired by a leading community member. • As a Leading School, TISS established a School Council in 1997, known as Keriba Kod (Our Place of Learning).
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• TISS is a community compact trial school, and in 2000, Keriba Kod developed a five year strategic plan as its Community Compact. The Principal regards this Compact as ‘crucial’ in terms of working with the local community to forge the identity and direction of the school. Like Keriba Kod, the Compact has a local language name (Au Zageth Ginar), and community members, leaders and Elders are encouraged to play an active role. • There is an Aboriginal Student Support and Parent Assistance (ASSPA) Committee which supports and assists Indigenous students with resources and excursions. As well as these reporting procedures, TISS also has a weekly staff and community newsletter, and a weekly program on the local radio station. A Home Liaison Officer communicates between the school and the wider community, and the school also uses the local newspaper for communication. Approach to Indigenous education
While the leadership of TISS shows considerable awareness of the importance of Indigenous culture and languages, the school is grappling with how to address its multilingual context. As mentioned earlier, the school has two Indigenous teachers and all of its support staff are Indigenous. However, there remains a divide between SAE as the language of the classroom, and Indigenous languages and cultures, which are most evident outside of the classroom. As an Indigenous leader and member of the P & C commented: We need to align community respect, traditional respect, school respect, English respect. It’s about how to show real respect for the community you’re in … . We don’t need ‘more people or more knowledge’ to do this. We have it already. It’s here in the cleaners, the office people and so on, and are we using them enough? Are we bringing them into classrooms? It’s not just a question of respecting or valuing them in the work that they do, their jobs, it’s about bringing them into the classroom…. In terms of SAE, growing Islander identity has led to greater emphasis by students on Creole as their preferred language. This identity is affirmed as students increasingly experience difficulties with SAE. As one teacher put it, ‘The more the kids fail English the more negative they become’. The response of another teacher was that the school needed to intervene more actively to support both English and Creole: We need to change the culture about English. We need to get a special name as a focus for building community support. For example ‘both ways’…
Recent and planned initiatives in language and literacy education At TISS there are debates about the best ways to deal with SAE and Creole in the classroom. There is general agreement with the view expressed by a senior staff member: Both language maintenance and SAE are needed. It’s important for the kids’ cultural heritage to be accessible. However, there are debates about how best to put this into practice. One view, put by a community leader, is that the school should move towards bilingual education. However,
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this is by no means a simple or uncontested solution, not least because Creole is not a written language. As another community leader pointed out, There isn’t just one Creole spoken at TISS. Because of these differences, the bilingual programme should be taught verbally and not transcribed. As the TISS Principal pointed out, bilingual education would require resources in terms of staffing, infrastructure (more classrooms if class sizes are reduced) and training of teachers. Thus, for her, however desirable bilingual education might be, it is not a realistic solution. An interim position already implemented at the school is to ensure that there is an Indigenous teacher or teacher aide in every classroom. While not fully embracing an ESL approach, TISS recognises that SAE needs to be taught in structured ways, particularly to enable code switching between Creole and SAE. The school currently uses FELIKS Making the Jump to promote this. There have also been a number of professional development workshops on aspects of teaching second language speakers, in an attempt to expose staff to ESL strategies without mystifying ESL as ‘specialist knowledge’. The principal’s view is that: ESL is a ‘specialist’ knowledge made all the more so by the ‘post-dinosaur’ cohort of teachers who have no formal knowledge of their own language structure. The reality is that teachers cannot either access or practice ESL pedagogy without foundational knowledge of language. They do not have it, the best teachers are clamouring for it. If we continue to pretend that anyone can do this, without the requisite PD and skills, we will not improve outcomes for these kids. The teacher charged with this PD at the school has expressed to me in my research her discomfort in this area as she “comes from a ‘literacy’ background not a language background.” I believe this is the crux of the problem- good ‘literacy’ teachers do not necessarily have good ‘language’ knowledge and it is this which makes the difference for all learners but particularly second language learners. I think what we are talking about here is teaching ENGLISH better for all kids. The Principal’s view is that aspiring towards being an ESL school is unrealistic, and that all teachers need to develop the general skills of teaching across different languages and cultures. In her words, The school does not need a specific program for oral language. FELIKS already addresses this and before that, there were other programs. We don’t need ‘a bag of ESL strategies’—they’re the same as strategies for effective teaching and learning. Some are the same but with second language learners we need more breadth and depth-again. Along with this, the Principal’s view is that Getting the adult to child ratio down makes the biggest difference especially in oral teaching strategies. Having at least one or more teacher aides in every classroom is an expression of this view, but both teachers and aides need to be skilled to be effective. TISS has language and literacy policies, and the Principal sees the challenge as being to put these into practice in more systematic ways, and to amend them where necessary. One such amendment, being planned at the time of our visit to the school, is the introduction of two hours of literacy teaching every day for all phases, focusing on the structure of English and grammatical features of oral and written English. This would be taught by all
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teachers, so that ESL teaching strategies do not become the specialist expertise of a privileged few, but part of the repertoire and responsibility of all teachers.
Language policies and provisions for LOTE TISS currently offers Japanese as LOTE (though not for all students). This is currently under discussion, and the school is considering moving from ‘language of trade LOTE’ to ‘community language LOTE’. One of the community leaders suggested that this should be Creole, but signalled that There are a lot of squabbles about which Indigenous languages the school would teach. It is interesting to note that Thursday Island State High School does not teach Japanese LOTE and offers KKY instead.
Overall curriculum structure TISS has restructured its curriculum program away from a lock step arrangement to a more flexible model with grades grouped into three stages. Stage 1 includes preschool, early education, and years 1 to 4. Stage 2 includes years 3 to 5, and Stage 3, years 6 to 8. This restructuring has enabled team teaching and the creation of a leadership team of teachers. Other noteworthy features of the curriculum are: • As a New Basics Project School, TISS is reforming its curriculum in line with the four New Basics categories, and is also working towards Rich Tasks. The highly contextualised nature of these tasks will be helpful in improving pedagogy. • As mentioned earlier, it has a MALT Plan and a Literacy Plan both of which are being continually developed • It has developed visual arts as an area for literacy links as well as ‘school to work’ opportunities. It has established the Kaziw Kuthinaw Art Gallery and currently has two artists in residence. • It is in the process of introducing a common literacy block for all stages.
Language education program implementation issues As the Principal pointed out, ‘HR is a major language strategy’ at TISS. The school has an active approach to human resource development for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff, and commits considerable resources to professional development. Teacher development activities have included: • New staff attendance at the RAIS conference in Cairns • Staff release for 2-3 ½ days for training • New Basics training • Student free days where teachers and teacher aides are encouraged to work together • Workshops on team working skills • Visits by a range of critical friends
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The school’s major human resource problem is the turnover rate of teachers. As one of the long-serving teachers stated, ‘It’s draining to put time and effort and money into teachers aides who are gone in 6 months.’ In response to the high turnover, the school has been working towards teaming to sustain learning programs and minimise the impact of staff coming and going. The possibility of developing district or regional solutions within Education Queensland was also raised by the Principal and a community education leader. In short, there is strong evidence that TISS teachers and community recognise the importance of language and culture in their context. They nonetheless struggle to implement their ideas, particularly where there is high staff turnover.
Specific recommendations for this project from school staff During a discussion with language teachers and a number of community members on the teaching of language at TISS, there was general agreement on the following points: • There should be a whole school language plan with agreement on what language aspects teachers should focus on at different phases, and what would be expected at each phase. Foundational to this is some understanding about first and second language acquisition. • Both English and Creole should be regarded as important. • SAE should be formally taught as a different language to Creole. • Students’ attitudes, motivation, identity need to be recognised as major issues in language teaching and learning. • The relevance of English to later life needs to be brought alive for students. • Issues need to be framed in ways that recognise the broader context. • Existing policy documents (e.g., TSIRAC, EQ and school policy documents) contain many good ideas. They should be ‘dusted off’, used, and updated where necessary. • The school needs to work with EQ, the district, other schools and the local community to establish what is required of teachers working in this kind of school and what kind of support is needed • At school and Education Department levels, there is a need for systems for teacher induction and development that address issues of Indigenous languages and cultures. With regard to the fruits of consultation, one of the community leaders made an apt comment: A lot of research is done on these schools, and everyone does it separately. We’ve been saying a lot of things for a long time, and when are we going to see what’s happening as a result?
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THURSDAY ISLAND STATE HIGH SCHOOL The school in overview Thursday Island State High School is Australia’s most northern secondary school, and provides schooling for around 330 students. Primarily non-Indigenous specialist teachers staff the school, with a relatively low (20 %) number of Indigenous teachers – most of whom were originally trained as primary teachers. In contrast, almost all of the support staff are of Indigenous background. Though general community involvement and parental contact appear relatively limited, the school operates a School Council, Parents and Citizens’ Association and Tuckshop. The current apparent retention rate from Year 10 to Year 12 is approximately 60%. Males, particularly from outer islands, are currently more likely to leave before completing Year 12 than are local residents and females.
The students in overview A school language profile conducted in August 2000 showed that students: • are culturally homogenous (98% Torres Strait Islander, 1% PNG, 1% Anglo); • linguistically nimble (71% are bilingual, 24% trilingual, 3% speak 4 languages); • don’t speak much English at home (72% none, 23% some, 5% only English); • speak the same languages as their parents (89%); and • prefer to speak with friends in languages other than English (72%). The linguistic and cultural pattern is set in Year 8. Approximately 45 (60%) of these students have previously attended either Thursday Island or Horn Island primary schools. The remainder of Year 8 students are from diverse Islander communities on outer islands, ranging from: • nearer island schools such as St Pauls and Kubin, • to a range of central islands such as Coconut and Yam, • to the eastern Mer islands group, and • through to larger north-western islands such as Boigu, Dauan and Saibai. The latter islands have significant family, economic, linguistic and cultural connections with Papua New Guinea. For students from the outer islands, English is a relatively foreign language. For most of these students, it is either their second or third language – for seven Year 8 students it is their fourth. In general, students from Thursday Island and Horn Island primary schools speak fewer languages – usually Torres Strait Creole and English. Even in this diverse context, the importance of English language skills are often acknowledged as being of considerable importance to most students: Kids know that English is the language of empowerment. ESL teacher However, with very few exceptions, outer island students present at the secondary school with much lower standards of English language (typically Bands 2 or 3 on the National
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ESL Bandscales). These levels are generally lower than for most students coming from Horn and Thursday Islands, except for the local learning support students. Many interviewees commented upon a dominant cycle affecting many students coming from the outer islands for their secondary studies: In the past, the issue of Island transition wasn’t specifically looked into, only Years 7-8 transition. The majority of Year 7 students from outer islands are taught by teachers from that island teaching in their own language and Creole… Kids who aren’t succeeding at the later stages of Year 9 or by the start of Year 10 go back to the outer islands where there are other kids who’ve dropped out of southern schools. What they see as their future depends on the Island. For some, it is Cray fishing. Indigenous teacher The attendance of the outer island students at the high school is facilitated through adjacent boarding facilities, which have been run by the Church of the Torres Strait since 1978. There are currently proposals to significantly alter this cross-sector arrangement: There is currently a TSIREC proposal for a state-run boarding school here, which has been endorsed by TSRA. It fits in well with the concept of autonomy. Originally, it was just for a boarding facility, but some want a boarding school to get greater control. Administrator A key contributory factor for this proposal is that a relatively large proportion of Year 7 students from across the Torres Strait islands are bypassing Thursday Island for schools on the mainland. According to school administrators outer Island parents insist that we perform strongly on English and academic outcomes, but it is clear that many do not accept that this has been achieved. There are many intersecting reasons for the overall trend, including family history and patterns, religious convictions, perceptions of higher mainland schooling standards (particularly in English language) and the availability of extended family support in key southern centres.
Broader political and social contexts It is important to consider this overview of some key issues confronting the school in the context of wider context of local and regional issues influencing its selection as case study school. Thursday Island itself is a significant administrative centre having to deal with the intersection of a diversity of local, state, national and international trends and issues. Undoubtedly, the key geo-political developments over recent times have been the High Court Mabo judgement overturning the doctrine of terra nullius, the advent of Native Title legislation and the ensuing success of several local claims over significant island land areas. Other legal claims are underway, including a significant one concerned with allimportant sea rights. The importance of education for young people as Torres Strait Islanders seek greater autonomy was often acknowledged, though not without key issues being identified: If the regional authority wants autonomy, they’re going to have to bring the value back into education. Indigenous teacher The rights agenda has not been pursued without significant community consequences, according to some interviewed: Everybody is split since Mabo – ownership stuff … People are now putting up fences; there are boundaries since Native Title. In a lot of areas, the power is in the wrong hands. Indigenous teacher
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A negative flowback to education from the rights agenda was also identified: The community sees the need for education to fill the autonomy gaps. But kids don’t necessarily see this. They don’t see the relevance. Head of Department Many of those interviewed attested that there had been fundamental drops in English language proficiency over recent times, caused by an intersection of generational and systemic influences: English was of great importance to us, and for survival in the world, and there was pressure from parents. Our parents told us schools were important, especially for getting good jobs. There was no TV or local radio. We read more. Elders told stories and we had to listen. But parental pressure broke down. Now kids don’t sit and listen to Elders. … The education system wiped out grammar. Now as a result of all these factors, English is valued less by students …. Indigenous teacher For this teacher (and others), the above negative pattern was viewed as being also linked with moves towards enhanced political autonomy, more separate identities and increased status of local languages: Today, students have poor writing and speaking, partly because they were told to speak in their own language. At some point the message came from some non-Indigenous people plus local political people about being proud of speaking your language (Creole) and speaking it all the time… But autonomy, communication with the wider world and technology all require English… According to many, the overriding assumption for many students appears to be that ‘the more English proficiency someone has, the less Islander they become’. However, not all view this pattern as a ‘zero sum language game’, identify other recent influences and are more optimistic about the outlook: There’s Americanisation, identity fusion though the internet. …Creole is definitely an identity marker, but that needn’t interfere with English. Administrator Over recent years, the school has responded to these trends affecting language education in a number of ways, by: • Acknowledging that many students are ‘linguistically nimble’ and thereby provide a considerable resource to the school and community; • Recognising Torres Strait Creole as a language in its right with features which need to be understood in relation to SAE; • Looking carefully at language achievement levels and recognising difficulties; • Debating the use of Creole as language of instruction to better understand how and what students are taught in primary, particularly in the outer islands; • Teaching KKY as LOTE to all students in Years 8 and 9, and subsequently as a elective; • Using the sociolinguistic profile survey at the start of Year 8 as a jumping off point for structuring the English program; • Using genre as an organised way of getting students into formal English language use; and
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• Using the Tertiary Aspirations Program to train 30 self-selected students from Year 8 onwards for two hours a week at night in public speaking, speech and drama, art (contemporary and traditional), singing and dancing, English, and also long term problem solving. A number of significant issues appear to have limited the cumulative impact of these initiatives. These include discontinuities in student learning: Now no one is pushing truancy. Kids go in and out of school. Parents keep kids at home to baby sit while they go and earn money. Truancy on the outer Islands is a bigger problem. Indigenous teacher There also issues with matching the curriculum progression to the capacities of different student groups: We might possibly expand the senior school to Year 13. The State would fund as ‘variable progression rates’ for 15-19 year olds. Administrator But by far the most limiting feature is the extent of discontinuity driven by policy initiatives, exacerbated by the turnover rate of non-Indigenous staff and the intensity of commitment required to be successful teachers in this context: My question was: How can Indigenous teachers who are here to stay be sure the vision will survive? Admin said they would try to put something in place for continuity…. There’s lack of understanding among many non-Indigenous teachers concerning Indigenous languages and culture. It’s evident with long-term non-Indigenous teachers – they have no trouble with the kids. Kids know they’re here to stay, so they don’t play up. New teachers have heaps of trouble because they don’t know the background of the kids and start right in with content stuff. Kids move in for the kill. Indigenous teacher The Department comes up with new initiatives and funding, and then the funding goes and the initiative dies out. Teachers move too. This means in-service to get people up to speed… You also end up getting only one good year out of most new teachers. The ‘crash and burn’ rate of beginning teachers is therefore very high. Kids here are difficult, and they aren’t very forgiving. They come from a strong cultural and language base and they don’t need outsiders. Head of Department At a strategic level, there’s TSIREC and the Council. TSIREC does speak for the community in formal ways, and we talk things through carefully with them. We wouldn’t go down a track without community support…. When I got here, I asked the Registrar to walk me round to meet the 30 most important people – political, business and P&C. And the first seven asked me how long I would be here. Administrator
Recent and planned initiatives in language and literacy education The School has a Literacy Committee made up of five or six interested people who, according to the ESL Teacher, are the dinosaurs of the school who know their grammar. Under the direction of the principal and the supervision of this committee, all teachers have to implement 10 minutes of English grammar and vocabulary building in each subject lesson. While it was controversial at first, there is evidence after six months of reasonable compliance in teaching practice and in classroom displays and materials with this initiative across the school. It was also designed to provide continuity and consistency in English 14
language priorities across the school, and to demonstrate the importance of developing English language proficiency to all students. The school is also participating in an ESL Action Research Project operating across 20 EQ schools. In Semester 1 of 2001 the school ran a trial. Students, mostly from outer islands, were taken off SOSE and English and had intensive ESL teaching in small groups. This included lots of reading, comprehension, English grammar work with written texts, and some critical literacy development. There was a control group of 10 kids, mostly third language speakers. The gains for the targeted Year 8s were considerable – with most gaining one or two levels on the national ESL Bandscales and outstripping the progress of the mainstream class of 26. According to the ESL Teacher: ESL is more than ‘good teaching’. It’s about teaching the structure of language, both English and Creole, explicitly. The level of success of ESL comes from teaching the structure of English. According to the principal, these improvements were: … not just evident in the target group, but also in the Excel (tertiary aspirations) group – with better use of grammar structure even for kids with English speaking backgrounds. We have anecdotal evidence of improvement across the school from these strategies, and now have Year 8 data to back it. For 2002, the proposed curriculum structure across the school is: • Yrs 8 & 9: Core – Literacy, Numeracy, Science & Social Science (12 sessions/week), LOTE, Technology, Arts & HPE (each 2 sessions/week); • Yr 10: 7 subjects, 3 sessions per week – variable progression & pathways • Yrs 11-12: 6 subjects, 3 sessions per week + 2 flexible contact sessions. It is planned put aside KLAs in Semester I Year 8 to concentrate on language, with up to two Excel classes (Level 3+ on the national ESL Bandscales), and to hopefully continue individual ESL support for students in need.
Key language and literacy education implementation issues There are some risks in this approach that language-based streaming may become set early in the secondary years for some groups of students. There are also significant overall school implications for class sizes, curriculum offerings and staffing arising from the proposed structure for the junior school: The existing pattern of class sizes between the junior and senior schools will have to change. We also utilize TAFE linking and work placement for rich educational experience, which allows us to target Year 8 to fundamentally change the opportunities available to these kids. Through the middle school core, our aim is to reduce subject specialisms, and also reduce the impact of staff turnover. It should work with primary trained teachers and the school intends to recruit more such teachers. Some Indigenous teachers should work in the middle school, and some at the top end. Administrator
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As far as Indigenous teachers trained through the Remote Area Teacher Education Program (RATEP), the principal has put a proposal to TAFE that students do a Certificate at Levels 3 & 4 before the RATEP part, so they can … get the study ethic and work ethic for school and have the necessary quality as teachers. There are other recruitment issues involved in the principal’s submission to EQ to be considered for a Unit staffed by a number of ESL specialists: … who are being recruited to come here from other primary schools. Inducements for them to come would be coming into a professional Unit, teaming, collegiality, being part of an important initiative. Their own chances for professional development would also be greater. The plan is for the Unit to be self-supporting through its training emphasis – it would provide practical ESL experience for teachers from other schools. In particular, it is hoped to influence ESL pedagogy in outer island feeder primary schools. There have been long-standing issues with student performance standards, particularly in English language, and more generally with assessment and monitoring. There is currently general agreement that results in previous years had been inflated to reduce the apparent gap between the school’s results and state averages. Cohort tracking has also been introduced to more closely monitor student progress. According to the ESL teacher, however: Assessment in the mainstream high school doesn’t give a true indication of competence in ESL. Kids at level 5 on the Bandscales still need help in the mainstream, and this school has kids coming in at less than level 2. By the end of Year 8, we would hope that 60% of kids are Levels 3 to 5, with the remainder at Levels 2 to 4. But some key assessment and reporting issues may also need to be addressed more urgently: Students don’t value their marks. They know they move on the next year… Parents don’t value reports, don’t even read them. We don’t get many parents at Parent Teacher nights. Indigenous teacher The school is attempting to influence the attitudes of parents and the wider community through a variety of means – including newspaper and radio stories, school newsletters, direct mail outs, academic and behavioural reports, behaviour management program feedback. In addition, a team of 9 staff is using DETYA funds to accompany 28 Year 10 students to 4 outer islands by charter plane twice this year to sit down with parents for senior subject selection and also to market the school. The school has a relatively large budget for its size, with a diversity of State grants (e.g., Literacy Enhancement, ESL, Behaviour Management, Teacher Relief, Minor Works), significant Commonwealth funding sources (e.g., ISEP, ASPA, VEGAS, PCAP and LESPSS) and reasonable levels of P&C-raised monies. Professional development of teachers accounts for about 5-7% of the budget, with literacy and vocational education accounting for the largest amounts and allocations being made to individual school departments. Unlike some other Indigenous community schools, employment of local teacher aides and specialist teachers are not the highest budget priorities.
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Specific recommendations for this project from school staff 1.
EQ should recognise it as a linguistically and culturally complex ESL school, and be staffed on a class size of 15 to be more comparable with ESL migrant programs.
2.
EQ should recruit specifically for these schools, with pre-appointment units and courses for beginning teachers – especially in language, linguistics, grammar, learning acquisition and ESL issues.
3.
EQ should see Indigenous education as a career path, rather than just use the RAIS scheme to deliver extra cash as an incentive.
4.
EQ should appoint more ESL trained teachers to schools in the Torres Strait
5.
EQ, the QTU and the universities should support the initiation and professional development of an Indigenous Teachers Association to provide better, ongoing support for such teachers.
6.
EQ should mandate the use of sociolinguistic student profiles, particularly in Indigenous community schools.
7.
Greater use should be made of mentoring processes for more effective succession planning in schools in this region.
8.
More effective use should be made of Indigenous role models to motivate students to both value education in general and extend their own into post-secondary spheres.
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MALU KIWAI STATE SCHOOL The school/community in overview Malu Kiwai school is located on Boigu Island, one of three upper-western Torres Strait Islander communities located within sight of the PNG coastline. As the school name suggests, the school community contains a significant minority population of Kiwaispeaking people originally from PNG. The majority of the Boigu Islanders are native speakers of KKY – the mother-tongue of the Western Islands group. Torres Strait Creole, however, also increasingly acts as a lingua franca – particularly among the younger generations, with English the official language of schooling and employment. The school is designated Band 6, with approximately 90 students being educated across pre-school to year 7. After completion of primary education, a yearly cohort of typically 10-12 young Boigu Islanders have to go away for secondary schooling, usually as boarders at state schools located at Thursday Island, Herberton, or Abergowie. Some also board at St Augustine’s or St Monica’s in Cairns, or stay with relatives and attend other schools in centres such as Townsville or Brisbane. The majority of the teachers, teacher aides and other school staff are local people, longterm island residents and experienced in the schooling system. At the time of visiting, an experienced senior local teacher was acting as the principal for a term, while the nonIndigenous female principal was on leave. An experienced non-Indigenous male staff member was on contract for this term, working with the senior class and providing ESL Bandscale assessments. In 2001 the school won the National Literacy Week award for Queensland, a significant acknowledgement of the achievements of school staff in raising student literacy standards through a whole-school approach supplemented by the extensive efforts of a full-time, trained ESL teacher. Monitoring of developing student literacy levels has demonstrated that ESL approaches to teaching and learning provided significant initial gains.
Key issues for community engagement and sustained school response Need to sustain ESL pedagogy change Much of the momentum gained through earlier coordinated efforts in ESL instruction are proving more difficult to sustain without continuing ESL staff and services available at the school. Though there is a whole-school literacy strategy in place, there has been limited transfer of teaching skills to Indigenous staff and difficulty in sustained scaffolding of effective learning strategies for students. The judicious use of KKY and TSK to assist student understanding of difficult concepts and ideas was seen as an important support for students – particularly in the early years of SAE acquisition.
Training of Indigenous Teachers and Teacher Aides is a priority It is apparent that the ESL teacher in 2001 has provided impetus and support for all classroom staff in the development of improved SAE language skills. However, more investment in knowledge and literacy skill development needs to occur, with a greater focus on effective networking of best practices in literacy across the top western cluster of
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islands. A focus on the training and development needs of Indigenous teachers and aides, who provide much of the continuing support for students, needs to be sustained.
Need for acknowledgement of limitations of state-wide testing data Unfair and inappropriate state-wide testing was the source of some annoyance and frustration to school staff and parents alike. Many of the items and contexts used in such tests were considered foreign and provoked much unnecessary anxiety among students. While school staff produced ESL Bandscale data demonstrating reasonable level gains for most students over the term, it was felt that too much status and emphasis was being attached to state-wide assessments. Nevertheless, it was acknowledged that the school needed to maintain the momentum of high expectations and improved literacy learning outcomes.
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MER STATE SCHOOL The school/community in overview Mer (Murray) Island is the eastern-most Torres Strait Islander community, renowned in recent times as the birthplace of Eddie Mabo who successfully challenged the doctrine of terra nullius and whose High Court case thereby paved the way for significant Indigenous claims over land and sea rights across Australia. The Island supports around 700 inhabitants, located in villages strung out along the coastline. Mer and neighbouring islands are based on extinct volcanoes, with fertile red soil supporting market gardens and extensive coral reefs providing rich fisheries. The majority of the Islanders are native speakers of Meriam Mir, though Torres Strait Creole also increasingly acts as a lingua franca – particularly among the younger generations. English is the official language of schooling, employment and government service agencies. The school is designated Band 6, with approximately 90 students being educated across pre-school to year 7. After completion of primary education, a yearly cohort of typically 10-12 young Mer Islanders have to go away for secondary schooling, usually as boarders at schools on the mainland rather than at Thursday Island. The principal and most of the teachers, all teacher aides and other school staff are local people, long-term island residents and experienced in the schooling system. The Indigenous principal is a primary teacher experienced in both mainstream and island school communities. He impressed as a quietly wise practitioner, with considerable academic knowledge and practical classroom skills in English language development. At the time of visiting, there were three non-Indigenous staff, including a recently-arrived ESL specialist experienced in Indigenous community contexts in Western Australia. The ESL teacher conducts both in classroom teaching support and withdrawal of small groups of students experiencing particular difficulties. The female non-Indigenous teacher had acted in the ESL role last year, but her lack of specialized training limited her effectiveness and comfort in the role. Most non-Indigenous staff typically stay only for a 2/3 year period on the island, with Indigenous teachers and teacher aides providing the continuity for students across their primary years.
Key issues for community engagement and sustained school response Need to develop an effective whole-school literacy strategy English language exposure, literacy competence levels and ability to effectively and accurately code-switch between Meriam Mir, TSK and English languages are key elements of the early experience of young children on the island. Young Islanders encounter Standard Australian English (SAE) as a foreign language, and usually as their second or third language at kindergarten, preschool or Grade 1. High turn-over of nonIndigenous staff, and limitations of the SAE competencies of Indigenous staff are affecting the capacity of the school to respond to these needs consistently. There is ready evidence at the school of expected ESL patterns of difficulties and confusions with SAE grammar, spelling, tenses and conjunctions apparent in classroom work of both an oral and written nature. The principal has prepared an extensive scope and
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sequence of structured and focused approaches to meet these needs, and the ESL specialist concurs on its utility as the basis for effective classroom literacy planning. An effective start has been in identifying needs for whole-school literacy planning, but It is acknowledged by all that a more disciplined and agreed scope and sequence of core learnings and teaching strategies will need to form the centrepiece of the whole-school strategy. Systematic, in-classroom observations and modelling will need to be completed by both the principal and the ESL teacher to provide scaffolding for the learning of teachers and aides.
Need for a structured, levelled school-wide reading program that links with writing The school currently does not have a sequenced, developmental approach to reading skillbuilding that is supported by appropriate text materials. This is agreed as a major initial priority for all classes, particularly if parents are to be encouraged to provide some effective support and extension of learning at home. Such reading materials are required to supplement in-class and library borrowings of interest reading materials. This will require an investment in discretionary literacy funding over several years, with guidelines for all teachers to follow. It will also require attention to linkages with writing development – including skills in handwriting, construction of key genres beyond simple recounts and narratives, and integration of word-processing skills and effective real-life use of other computer software packages. It will also require more innovative uses of the school newsletter and environmental print, and greater engagement of key community personalities and agencies to support and sustain the literacy focus.
Training of Indigenous Teachers, Teacher Aides and Community Tutors is a priority It is apparent that the ESL teacher has begun to provide systematic modelling support for all classroom staff in SAE development. This is appreciated, but its current limitations are also clear. More investment in knowledge and literacy skill development needs to occur – at the school site, via cluster meetings and through District-wide in-service opportunities. A greater focus on effective networking of best practices in literacy across the islands needs to occur. As a specific example, the principal’s notes on coordinated reading skills development would no doubt be appreciated by many staff across the District. A focus on the training and development needs of Indigenous teachers and aides, who provide much of the continuing support for students, needs to be sustained. In addition, the use of external funding to train and pay community tutors should also be investigated to augment work both in SAE literacy support and in enhancement of student learning of Meriam Mir language and culture. In essence, a whole-school literacy strategy for the Mer school needs to anticipate better succession planning for both Indigenous and nonIndigenous staff to ensure sustainable gains in student literacy outcomes.
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KUBIN VILLAGE STATE SCHOOL, MUA ISLAND The school/community in overview Kubin Village is one of two Torres Strait Islander communities on Mua Island, located approximately 18 nautical miles north-west of Thursday Island, and has a population of around 200 people. The school is located on a rocky headland area on the south-west edge of the island. Before contact with Europeans, the original people of Mua lived in five villages scattered around the island, one of which is near the current site of Kubin village. However, Kubin people have an unfortunate history of dispossession and having to cope with the influx of other groups into their island home. This history continues to affect some aspects of community development to this day. Most Kubin people are native speakers of KLY, though Torres Strait Creole increasingly acts as a lingua franca for most social interactionparticularly among the younger generations. English is the official language of schooling and employment. The school is designated Band 6, with approximately 60 students being educated across pre-school to year 7. After completion of primary education, a small yearly cohort of have to go away for secondary schooling, usually as boarders at either Thursday Island SHS or mainland schools. The principal and the majority of the teachers, teacher aides and other school staff are local people, long-term island residents and experienced in the schooling system. At the time of visiting, there were two non-Indigenous female staff – a young graduate teaching the Kindergarten, Preschool, Year 1 group and a more experienced teacher responsible for the Year 5-7 group. The wife of the principal, a community teacher, had responsibility for the middle group which also contained two hearing impaired students and a Down’s Syndrome child. Each teacher is allocated two Indigenous teacher Aides – one assisting with classroom work and the other focused on individual intervention work with students requiring more continuous and intensive support. At the time of visiting, Teacher Aides were finalizing the relocation of the well-equipped school library into a new location and introducing a computerized cataloguing system. The school has extensive computing resources overall, with 26 machines positioned throughout the school, five in each classroom area.
Key issues for community engagement and sustained school response Greater community engagement is required, particularly to ensure regular attendance This school is one of the few in the Torres Strait with significant issues caused by intermittent attendance by students from some families. With currently limited community involvement in the daily operations of the school and the overall complexity of early acquisition of SAE language skills, such intermittent attendance is a significant limiter of sustained development of the competencies of these children. As well, greater parental 22
involvement in supporting the school reading program is required, if student skill development in SAE literacy is to be sustained or accelerated.
Need to sustain ESL pedagogy initiatives within a whole-school literacy strategy Judicious use of KLY and TSK to assist student understanding of difficult concepts and ideas is seen as an important support for students – particularly in the early years of SAE acquisition. Teacher Aides generally provide this level of support for students. Much of the momentum gained through earlier coordinated efforts in ESL instruction are proving more difficult to sustain without continuing ESL staff and services available at the school. The school appears to have suffered from waves of initiatives and approaches to literacy instruction introduced by non-Indigenous staff which have not been sustained through a consistent whole-school strategy. Limited transfer of teaching skills to Indigenous staff and difficulty in sustained scaffolding of effective learning strategies for students appear to be key issues. This is despite considerable investment in The Sound Way system of videos and games for literacy development. Improved induction programs and limiting of individual freedom of teachers within a whole-school strategy appear to be called for to offset these continuing issues.
Training of Indigenous Teachers and Teacher Aides is a priority It is apparent that the ESL teacher in 2001 provided impetus and support for classroom staff in the development of improved SAE language skills. However, more investment in knowledge and literacy skill development needs to occur, with a greater focus on effective networking of best practices in literacy, at least across the cluster of islands bordered by Mua, Badu and Mobuiag. A focus on the training and development needs of Indigenous teachers and aides, who provide much of the continuing support for students, needs to be sustained. Certainly, the Diagnostic Net cluster meeting is valued as an important networking and development opportunity. However, more extensive and systematic learning and development for Indigenous staff needs to be a District priority if hard-won gains in student literacy performance are to be sustained.
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WEIPA NORTH SCHOOL The school/community in overview Weipa North State School is located towards the north-west top of Cape York and provides schooling for over 500 students across the P-12 range. The school commenced in 1966, following the forced eviction of many Wik families to make way for the commencement of the mining operations. Weipa communities now contain a diverse range of both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people. Nevertheless, the Wik people have maintained strong connections to this area. The school services a community of 2000 people in Weipa, the majority of whom are employed directly or indirectly by Comalco Mining and Refining. A significant proportion of families have both parents working. A wide range of socio-economic backgrounds – ranging from unskilled workers to professionals – is represented in the school community. The school also services an additional 900 people in Napranum, the majority of whom identify as Indigenous Australians. The Napranum students are transported to Weipa North by a school bus operated by the Community Council. There is reasonably strong parental involvement in many areas of the school – including the School Council, P&C Association and ASPA Committee. An experienced teacher from Kowanyama has recently been appointed to initiate and develop improved stronger Indigenous community links with the school. Following the successful Wik land rights claim to the High Court an agreement was signed early in 2001between Comalco and representatives of various clans of the Wik people that: • acknowledges the continuing ownership by Wik people of the land, • provides some redress for the dispossession, and • provides for significant contributions to the employment and training of Indigenous workers by way of continuing payment for use of the land for mining operations. Over 2001, the school has undergone several organisational changes: • A new principal experienced in a range of Indigenous school/community settings was appointed. • The primary and secondary libraries were subsequently amalgamated. • The preschool, primary and secondary administrations are now integrated. • Heads of Department positions and staffing were re-organised. • The school has become the hub site for the Western Cape College, a new organisational entity operating across four regional schools.
The students in overview More than a third of the school’s students are Indigenous, with both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community links. There is considerable family mobility within this group, resulting in transience in school attendance patterns and consequent school challenges in
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providing continuity in student learning. There has also been a proportional growth in Indigenous students attending the school over the past five years, particularly in the secondary years. Within the remainder of the school population, there is substantial cultural and ethnic diversity – with backgrounds ranging across Filipino, Fijian, French and New Zealanders, as well as the broader Anglo community. Retention rates for Indigenous students have been lower than non-Indigenous students for many years. There is also currently a separate junior secondary program for Aboriginal students who have either not experienced schooling recently or who are having difficulties with the mainstream curriculum program. This alternate program is currently under review, with changes anticipated for 2002. By Years 11-12, it was typical that out of a class of 15 students in an English class 10 might express an interest in tertiary study and only 5 might have a ‘realistic chance of success’. It was unclear whether any Indigenous student might be included in the teacher’s assessment of this tertiary-bound group.
School staff and structural issues in overview Over one-third of the teaching staff have attained ‘senior teacher status’, with very few in their early years of teaching. The school is fortunate to have almost twice the state-wide average of male teachers in its mix of teaching staff. Almost all the non-teaching staff are female, with teacher aides in particular having considerable experience at the school, though funded from a variety of different sources. The teaching staff turn over rate is typically around one-third in any given year. Despite this reasonably high rate, around onethird of staff have been at the school for more than three years, with a small group staying even longer. The new principal is currently completing a restructuring of the roles and responsibilities of middle level management away from a KLA focus to one based on sectors of schooling. It appears that he was deliberately brought into the position to make some of the ‘hard’ strategic and management decisions listed earlier. A rigid primary/secondary structural divide was previously entrenched, symbolically signalled by the requirement to cross the main road to move between the campuses. At the time of our visit, it was apparent that there was some factionalism developing among staff associated with adjustment to these changes. At the same time, there was considerable hope expressed among teachers that these changes, and particularly those associated with trial of the New Basics, might lead to significant improvements. Primary class sizes are generally around 22-25, junior secondary around 15-20, and by Years 11 and 12 attrition has reduced this to an average of around 10, with several specialist classes of five or less. This pattern of inverted class sizes is a point of some contention – particularly amongst some teachers in the early years. While these teachers appear reasonably supportive of individual student progress, they clearly struggle with the fairly large class sizes. By the middle years there is abundant evidence of an overall decline in selection of challenging pedagogic options, with an overwhelming focus on teacher-directed, whole-class pedagogies. By Years 11 and 12 more tailored and productive pedagogies are in evidence in many classrooms, as are significantly decreased class sizes for specialist teachers.
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There is evidence of individual teachers adopting pedagogies that are challenging, engaging, and encompassing of contemporary technology – including multimedia, video production, Power Point presentations, and so on. A few teachers are attempting to innovate within their sphere of influence. For example, in a Year 2-3 combined class, effective use was being made of learning centres, language acquisition games, and small group cooperative learning. Many other classrooms, where teacher-centred transmission teaching and student passivity is the norm, tend to counter such examples. Teacher induction and training for this setting appears quite variable. Over recent years, there has been an attempt to use a RAIS induction seminar to prepare new teachers for teaching and living in a more remote setting. However, follow-up training and induction appears limited and variable. The current principal has expressed a strong desire for a more targeted approach to teacher selection and induction for this setting, and has also reorganised middle management staff around roles and responsibilities for student outcomes in sectors of schooling. Professional development appears haphazard and unconnected to a clear plan or set of directions. It is largely viewed as an expensive activity available only away from the school, and as an individual ‘reward’ rather than as an opportunity for being trained in approaches that can be systematically shared with colleagues upon return. Thus professional development can become a source of contention and division, rather than an opportunity for harmonising or for cohesive team-building purposes. Overall, there is little evidence of shared approaches to innovation or of significant teacher risk taking in pedagogy at the school. While the New Basics are widely regarded by school staff as a hopeful change, this initiative may also challenge the existing curricular and pedagogical inertia. Both an influx of new teachers and improved models of professional development for existing teachers will need to be harnessed to meet the pedagogic challenges likely to be posed by New Basics and of parallel improvements expected in whole-school approaches to literacy.
Approaches to Indigenous education Attendance is the big issue mentioned by most teachers and administrators as distinguishing the quality of educational provisions and outcomes for Indigenous and non-Indigenous students at Weipa North. There are attempts by many teachers to select relevant content for classroom learning and efforts made to adjust their pedagogy by some teachers – particularly via the use of language experience approaches in the early language acquisition phase. However, school staff generally argue that the poorer attendance patterns of Indigenous students are seriously undermining the continuity, and hence the overall quality, of their education. There is some evidence that the school is taking steps to make better links between school and community to improve the quality of both learning and outcomes. An Indigenous assistant teacher often visits homes of some Indigenous students to encourage their regular attendance and other teachers sometimes visit families to follow-up on student absences. A few Indigenous parents are volunteering to read to children as part of the school’s program, and cultural cooking and story telling times form yet another bridge to the Indigenous community. But these efforts appear to be relatively recent, as is the appointment of a (non-Indigenous) staff member to facilitate better home/school links. In
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general terms, it would appear that Aboriginal students are treated as a clearly identified minority group, somewhat on the margins of the wider mainstream mission of the school.
Approach to language and literacy education While there is wide acknowledgement of cultural difference and diversity at the school, this plurality is not extended to language: not one Aboriginal language word was in evidence on any public paper available around or through the school. Standard Australian English is not just the language of instruction, it appears to be presumed as the sole language of wider communication – including that with parents. Moreover, while there is an English curriculum program there does not appear to be an overall literacy strategy or program for the school, and there is little evidence of widespread use of specific ESL approaches. As regards reading, promotional material such as the Reading is Deadly and Real Men Read posters published by DETYA are in evidence around the school, particularly in the administration and library areas. In-class, there is clearly an attempt to engage with highquality fiction. For example, Looking for Alibrandi, a mainstream young adult book and feature film that is also available on video has been selected for in depth study. Girls tend to relate better than boys to this and most other fictional material. Gary Crew’s Inner Circle, dealing with racism in relationships, has also been used recently. This older novel had a surprisingly powerful response from some students: at least one male Indigenous student angrily responded to what he perceived as another student’s inappropriate contention that racism was a problem for everyone, not just for Indigenous people. There is evidence from the school library that the collection is being kept up to date, and with appropriate Indigenous and multi-cultural thematic material being purchased in single copies. However, there is only limited evidence of Indigenous student borrowing based on interest and for recreational purposes. There are indications that such student borrowing appears to be driven by teacher/course requirements more so than student interest. Language-based initiatives appear to be relatively idiosyncratic to particular teachers, rather than being the outcome of considered action by the whole staff or even a significant sector. There is very little in the way of shared or mandated approaches to language work in evidence at this school. A recent audit of curriculum programs, for example, indicated that selection of themes and resources by teachers has been haphazard. Even though a form on the staff room entry wall invites teachers to write in their theme titles for terms of the school year, this appears to be motivated towards more coordinated use of library resources rather than by concerns for improved curriculum scope and sequence for better student outcomes.
Assessment, standards and monitoring Weipa is considered to be part of that category of Education Queensland Like Schools that services a significant percentage of Indigenous students across the P-10 or P-12 range in more remote locations. In comparison to other such Like Schools (e.g., Aurukun, Yarrabah, Cunnamulla), Weipa’s three-year trends in state-wide comparative data on the Year 2 Diagnostic Net and the Years 3, 5 and 7 Tests are indicative overall of an average to above-average profile. This data might appear initially to provide support for those teachers who believe that little needs to change at the school in relation to standards of literacy and numeracy. However, 27
Weipa has several comparative advantages over most schools in its Like School category, with: • a lower comparative percentage of Indigenous students, • significantly fewer students attending school for the first time who encounter English as a foreign or second language, • a location in a larger, more affluent and more sophisticated township, and • a lower overall rate of teacher turnover each year. Moreover, when Weipa’s results are compared to State averages on the standardised literacy and numeracy indicators listed, its student performance profile slips significantly to an average to below average level. Little apparent use was made by teachers of ESL Bandscales (national or Indigenous versions) for assessment of student oral language development, and school-based assessment appeared to be premised on standards that either varied by individual teachers (primary) or by subjects (secondary). While the current principal has plans to improve on mechanisms of communication with and accountability to parents and the wider community for school outcome standards, he is faced with a several aspects of a dilemma. At the same time that results for Indigenous students remain within the broad average range, parent surveys indicate that their parents are reasonably satisfied with the schooling of their children, and many teachers appear to not wish to change their current approaches. So there appears little current momentum for change to strategies for assessment, monitoring and reporting outside of a limited circle of administrators and senior staff.
Funding and resource issues In common with most schools servicing remote communities with significant Indigenous student populations, Weipa North receives significant funding from both Commonwealth and State sources – much specifically targeted for improvements in language and literacy education. Maintaining such a strategic focus across the P-12 years is a key challenge – with contentions by some teachers that insufficient funds are available at classroom level for discretionary purchase of materials and by the principal that too much is wasted in travel and accommodation costs for external professional development. There are considerable issues involved in balancing competing priorities and claims for effective use of available funds across the full P-12 schooling range. As well, since much of these funds are provided to assist Indigenous students there is a moral imperative to ensure that real and sustained improvement in educational quality and outcomes result for these students.
Change issues and recommendations At the time of our visit, the school appeared to be in a state of somewhat confused transition in several respects. The re-structure of positions, staff and areas of curriculum focus appeared to be generating a simultaneous sense of shock over changes to longaccepted practices and a hope for improvement driven by the New Basics three-part agenda for curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.
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It appeared that some momentum and impetus for renewal were being built within an environment characterised by considerable diversity in teacher practice. As a result, few clear systemic recommendations were forthcoming for future actions regarding language and literacy programming and support required for Indigenous ESL learners – other than the need for more effective models of teacher selection, induction and professional development. The fundamental challenge for Weipa North is to build a more cohesive and inclusive school culture, underpinned by whole-school planning and agreement on common approaches to tackle endemic issues related to the quality and outcomes for Indigenous students. This will require a broader change agenda than the current structural concerns, and a clearer linkage with a more disciplined and strategic focus on student literacy outcomes. As the hub site for the new Western Cape College, it is clear that this is an urgent challenge for teachers and administrators working at Weipa North.
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KOOLKAN AURUKUN COMMUNITY SCHOOL The school/community in overview Aurukun is a community of approximately 1200 people located on the upper western coast of Cape York Peninsula. The Moravian missionaries established the original settlement. Aboriginal people were encouraged to come in to the mission for medicine, schooling and mission teaching. In general, the present day inhabitants of Aurukun have traditional ties to the land as members of Wik clans. On the 24th December 1996 this fact of continuing Native Title throughout the present shire of Aurukun was formally recognised by the High Court of Australia. River and sea rights claims across the Western Cape region are pending under Native Title provisions. Land use management agreements have been concluded in 2001 between Wik clans and Comalco in Weipa. This compact also aims at providing training and employment opportunities for post-secondary students in the Western Cape region. To that end, the Koolkan Aurukun Community School offers vocational education facilities and opportunities in light engineering, marine studies, hospitality and catering. Wik language is a strong first language and culture for all students in Aurukun. There are five distinct Wik clan groups and dialects in the Aurukun region, and the school was structured on a Clan Schooling Model from 1993 to 2000. In 2000 a review of the existing Aurukun Model was undertaken. As a result, the school was re-organised around more discreet year level classes from Pre-school to Year 10. However, fluctuations in student attendance lead to modifications in this structure to meet student needs and to provide appropriate staff/student ratios. The school is a P-10 Band 9 school, operating under a Partnerships Plan with the community. It is also a trial school for Partners for Success, thereby committing the school to continuous improvement of education and employment outcomes for Indigenous people. The approach aims specifically at developing effective partnerships between school staff and local parents and communities. The partnerships established in Aurukun are based on respect and acceptance of mutual responsibility, and emphasise a shared vision of the value of education and training for Aurukun students. The school is a member of the Alliance of Cape York Schools that includes Coen, Kowanyama, Lockhart River, Palm Island, Pormpuraaw, Yarrabah, Mapoon, Jessica Point, and Weipa. Along with the last three schools listed, Aurukun is a campus of the newly established Western Cape College, with roles and responsibilities of administrators being clarified across the four campuses to sustain initiatives across and throughout the schools.
Key general issues for community engagement and school response There are, however, many current symptoms of social dysfunction – including abuse of alcohol, drugs and petrol, and health, gambling, domestic violence, and noise issues – which impact both on community living and the at risk status of students. So school and education in this community can not operate in isolation. Continuing and strong links with
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agencies such as the Community Council, Health Clinic, Police and Justice Personnel can ensure that benefits are achieved for students, parents and community members alike. If education is viewed as an important part of whole-of-government strategies there are opportunities for important synergies and the chance to interrupt or even break down the effect of negative cycles impacting on school and community life. For example, the building of a new integrated childcare and pre-school facility to bring young children and parents into an earlier relationship with the school may be able to enhance school readiness and early language learning, in addition to providing an important community resource and avenue for valued employment. There are, however, considerable negative impacts from many issues relating to the current provision of education for Indigenous students. The most dramatic limiting factors are significant fluctuations in both enrolments and attendance patterns. Overall, school attendance is strongly influenced by the yearly cycle of wet / dry seasons, with Terms 1 and 4 characterised by higher school attendance levels, and the middle school terms characterised by lower attendance as many families move to outstations during the dry season. Current Education Queensland policy dictates that after 15 days of continuous absence, a student’s enrolment lapses. Regarding enrolments for 2001, the current high point for enrolment was in early February at 227, by June it was 194, and by September it was 146. If the pattern of past years is repeated, enrolments will increase towards the end of Term 4 when popular tradition of MacKenzie Night signals the ending of the school year and the awarding of book prizes for high attending students who achieve well in academic areas. There are also fluctuations in attendance patterns across both school weeks and terms. On a weekly basis, highest attendance is usually (though not always) on Mondays and the lowest attendance rates are typically on Fridays, with fluctuations occurring on the midweek days. The Table below outlines the relevant data across the current term:
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Attendance/Enrolment Percentages for Each Week Across Term 3 2001 Week Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
* Note:
Friday Date for Monday Attend/Enrol Friday Attend/Enrol the week Proportion % Proportion % 13 July* 96/194 49 0/194 0 20 July* 66/185 36 0/185 0* 27 July 86/183 47 44/172 26* 3 August 2/170 42 22/141 15 10 August 70/144 49 37/137 27 17 August 0/137* 0 19/129 30 24 August 93/150 62 54/148 36 31 August 96/160 60 31/154 20 7 September 71/146 48 32/146 22 14 September 75/145 52 52/145 39 21 September 79/149 53 4/143 3 2 – 93 / 0 – 54 / Range 0 – 62 0 – 36 137 – 194 137 – 194 67/159 27/154 Mean 44 18 Three student free days were negotiated in this term: Friday 13 July, Friday 20 July and Monday 13 August.
Complicating the seasonal variations in enrolments are the impact on student attendance of key community and family events such as births, deaths and funerals, and the arrival of major social security and tax cheques. Regarding the latter, many students have to stay around home when cheques arrive to ensure they receive money needed for food, clothing and other items. There is also considerable variation across families in the extent to which community and family business is allowed to take priority over attendance at either school or place of employment across the year. Attendance levels at school obviously affect both the quantity and quality of schooling experienced by a student, often with serious impacts on their subsequent life chances. English language exposure, literacy competence levels and ability to switch between Wik and English languages are key elements of this. Wik is clearly the dominant language of social organization, while Standard Australian English is the language of instruction at the school involving SAE first language speakers, as well as for training and employment outside of Aurukun. The majority of Koolkan Aurukun Community School students encounter English as a foreign language. In response to this, the school has a strong focus on effective teaching and learning practices within ESL approaches developed in Indigenous contexts. To further enhance this focus on support for English language development, the school has been a New Basics trial school since the beginning of 2000. While learning experiences at the school have usually been sensitive to the students’ contexts, New Basics is providing a stronger framework for unit planning and continuity of practice across the school. Making connections and links to what students are doing at school, and to the community in which they live and operate in, are of paramount importance to teachers at the school. Just as Standard Australian English (through an ESL approach) is a major focus of classroom learning, so too is the school’s ability to provide relevant and appropriate educational experiences across the curriculum.
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However, student retention to Year 10 at Aurukun is currently quite low, and a very small percentage leave the community to obtain further education or training. The majority of these return to Aurukun before completing any post-school qualifications: young women in particular have few opportunities for employment in the community, so early family formation tends to be a pattern. The Aurukun Community Council Strategic Plan emphasizes vocational education and training, opportunities for employment under the CDEP scheme, literacy and numeracy development in the workplace and continuing adult learning, and targeted enterprise development. While the factors outlined earlier continue to negatively impact on school life, there are risks of a continuing cycle of lower expectations for schooling outcomes, particularly regarding English literacy levels.
Current school staff profile, teaming and sustainability issues Keeping in touch with the views of the local families and community members is clearly a major current challenge for both administration and staff of the school. For the school to be more widely viewed as a ‘community school’ in more than name, this aspect has to be a major priority activity – something that has been quite variable over the life of the school. Recent employment of an educated young graduate as community capacity building officer may provide opportunities for more effective school / community engagement and joint problem-solving through both formal and informal mechanisms. There are also plans to involve some of the secondary students in community roles that acknowledge their young adult status and provide opportunities for exercising their responsibilities for improving community life. The current principal is experienced in teaching in Indigenous community school settings, though Aurukun is his first official appointment as a principal. He brings a quiet professionalism to the role, with considerable expertise as a determined change agent in primary curriculum and pedagogy. The Deputy Principal has a background in vocational education and applications of computer technology to teaching and learning, and the Head of Department is experienced in junior primary learning and resource support. It is anticipated that the current administrative team will remain in place until at least the end of 2004, with a staggered departure likely to assist with sustainability of reform initiatives. The current administrative group has developed a ‘critical mass’ teaming concept at the school, made up of several small teams clearly represented and interpreted as ‘the school’. The synergy that is created by and from the small teams generates the capacity for quality outcomes, many of which are starting to be achieved. These teams are: P-3, 4-7, 8-10, Vocational Education, grounds, administration and the whole staff. Each teaching team comprises registered staff and Indigenous staff – either as community teachers, assistant teachers or teacher aides – each team having access to a member of administration (Principal, Deputy or HOD) as a mentor, facilitator / professional colleague. The current registered staff profile of 19 teachers is a useful mix of late-career staff experienced in Indigenous settings and learning issues, mid-career primary and specialist secondary practitioners, and recent primary graduates. The teaching profile also has a good balance by gender and length of service in Aurukun. In general, teaching staff are staying longer in Aurukun: it used to be for two years, now it is more likely to be three years or longer. Teaching staff turn-over rates are also more variable: last year it was around 25%, this year it is more like 50% – but across the junior, middle and secondary teams. By
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organising in teams the remaining staff have been a significantly larger number than the incoming group, thus providing for a balance of both continuity and further development. Amongst the Indigenous and non-Indigenous support staff there is much greater stability of tenure and lower rates of turnover. In an environment of considerable student, family and school staff transience, the ‘critical mass’ approach of the current team structure is likely to provide a key safeguard against the failure to implement thoroughly that has characterised so many earlier reform initiatives. Each of the teams are encouraged and expected to: • Deliver seamless planning and provide professional support both within the team and across to the other teams. • Provide strength for each of its members and in turn to the strength of the school team to ensure and maintain a ‘critical mass’ for implementation. • Own and influence the school’s direction to suit the needs of their students, parents and community service organisations – particularly in planning and implementing the New Basics initiative. • Take risks, both as individual practitioners and as a team to achieve quality outcomes. • Display unity, yet still allow individual styles and professionalism to be displayed and flourish. • Provide an increased level of pastoral care for their students. • Deliver ‘common messages’ that have been decided upon as a team in literacy, numeracy, technology and behaviour. • Establish and maintain core routines and scaffolding in classrooms, and within and across the teams. • Take pride in the outcomes of their students, as individuals and as a group • Engage actively in pedagogic reform and implementation. • Use academic and social data to inform their teaching practices. • Provide professional development experiences within the group and across the teams. At Koolkan Aurukun Community School this ‘critical mass’ approach of teaming is evident to any observer and is beginning to show some positive benefits. The building of teams within the school has created a more cohesive group of 45 adults directed towards mutual support and encouraging better practice. As well, Indigenous staff members are often well placed to remind staff of the fate of previous reform initiatives and can provide some continuity beyond each administration and teaching regime. The longer-term benchmarks for such team efforts are: • Increased Indigenous staff attendance • Increased student attendance, • Reduced impact from staff turnover, • Smoother induction of new staff into school routines and philosophy,
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• Increased number of parents who visit their child’s class, and • Successful implementation of New Basics units across the school.
Shared and individual pedagogies for language and literacy education The overall goals of the three-year School Literacy Strategy are to: • Move the majority of the students from oral language dependence into more independent written and multi-media English competence • More systematically immerse students in various forms of text, and • Encourage a use of code breaking skills for more complex meaning making, text use and text analysis. These goals involve the consistent use of the following strategies: • Key roles for two Total Education Coordinators in coaching and mentoring within the teaching teams and through modelling and demonstrating in the classroom, • Use of the FELIKS scaffolded approach to language development, developed for Indigenous learners and proven successful in community school settings, • School developed routines, scaffolds and common ESL strategies that each team implements – with a particular emphasis on oral language development, including strategies that explore Wik/European language use and cultural differences and systematically scaffold English language knowledge and competence, • A school reading program involving Reading Recovery levelled texts, a resource collection based on New Basics social contexts that provide for more engaged and connected student learning, and student-produced texts available via the library and the Books in Home project, • More considered scaffolding of repertoires of practice in classrooms via the use of productive pedagogies for integrated planning, explicit teaching, and development of student confidence and self-esteem, • A more systematic approach to developing student multi-literate competencies through use of technology – by increasing access proximate to all classrooms, and staff competencies and familiarity with a range of techniques and strategies (from keyboarding, word processing, publishing, using software packages, internet & email), • Development of more confident public performances so that students have key experiences that enable them to make more informed choices about life pathways and orbits (Aurukun/Western Cape and Cairns/the World). Classroom areas of the school are generally characterised by quiet, orderly routines, with very little overt need for behaviour management or for public control instructions. This represents a significant improvement on patterns observed earlier in 2001, particularly in the junior secondary classes. Lessons generally feature tutorial opportunities, with significant individual scaffolding and support for completion of activities. There was evidence of effective point-in-time intervention and pacing of lessons to suit individual students, as well as a broader sensitivity towards more aspects of Indigenous learning styles and selection of culturally-appropriate topics.
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In addition to the fact that several of the teachers have significant, long-term experience with Indigenous learners in other States and Territories, some also have a broad repertoire of teaching strategies to scaffold student achievement. For example, in the junior secondary area a range of strategies were in evidence: •
‘Integrated learning packets’ that make effective use of contemporary music,
• Imitative reading of a cassette tape of a story, • Story boarding to scaffold student writing on topics of interest, • Critical television viewing of ‘Behind the News’, • Training of students as cross-age tutors, • Effective and negotiated use of the talents of the Indigenous Assistant Teacher, and • Provision of early transition time for students entering classroom from difficult family or community situations. Overall, the use of common teacher messages to all students (e.g., using the same key spoken terms, similar expectations for student behaviour and risk taking) are designed to reduce the level of dependency of students on teachers for all their learning over time.
Current patterns of curriculum resource selection and use The library is a purpose-built, air-conditioned space that is located to the edge of the teaching areas. Teacher resources are housed separately from the library, in the preparation area of the administration block. The library has a base budget of $5 000 a year, augmented by targeted use of some New Basics and Commonwealth allocations. It is currently staffed by the Head of Department on a part-time basis. She devotes two and a half days-per-week to sorting out and updating the collection. This is the first year of the transition from traditional clan classes to a core team model, and the current collection reflects the idiosyncratic requisitions of the past model. Many of the books are dated in both readability and appeal to students’ interests. As a result, the HOD has been purchasing newer high-interest, low vocabulary books with a thoughtful balance of visuals and print at appropriate levels, particularly for adolescent readers. Currently, however, the library collection is dominated by younger primary-oriented material. Classes are scheduled for in-library borrowing for thirty minutes a week. Students have limited support in selecting reading material, as there is limited linkage between classroom teachers and the library function. The part-time role of the HOD is the key limiting factor. Current borrowing patterns indicate a downward trend from junior primary, through senior primary to secondary, with primary classrooms generally supporting reading through inclass work and book corners and junior secondary classrooms containing mini-libraries of reading material. The library does not appear to be viewed as a reading-for-pleasure area by many students. Students are able to browse through 40 titles available and select their top three for book ownership twice a year under the DETYA-funded National Books in Homes scheme. There is also a school based program that provides a bag of books on a rotational basis to 20 families, delivered by school staff.
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There are plans for future enhancement of the library, specifically to turn the school library into an expanded resource centre that includes community access to word processing and training and to the internet. As junior primary students progress through the New Basics program into later years of the school there are also expectations of enhanced use of the library facilities for research and presentation purposes.
Current assessment and monitoring issues for standards and outcomes Early statewide benchmarking conducted through use of the Year 2 Diagnostic Net and the Year 3, 5, 7 tests create a consistent self-fulfilling cycle of poor comparative achievement in literacy and numeracy. In essence, an ‘opposite paradigm’ applies to this school in comparison to most others across the state: which students have progressed on sufficient indicators NOT to be ‘caught in the Net’ and which one or so students are able to perform at average or above levels on particular dimensions of the tests. There are many limitations of these diagnostic and standardized instruments and the conditions under which testing is carried out that are of considerable concern to teachers at the school and others working in Indigenous education. However, all data is collected, analysed and used to inform teaching practices to provide overall targets for dimensions of reading, writing and number in the school’s Annual Operational Plan. Greater emphasis is placed on the use of diagnostic instruments other than the current statewide and standardized mechanisms to provide more useful information to teachers. The ESL Bandscales and developmental continua are used for monitoring individual oral language progress throughout the school. Members of the school teaching staff have recently been trained in the use of the PM Benchmarking Kit for external validation, to set internal targets and to monitor progress against milestones (e.g., in expected reading levels for students in P-3, 4-7, 8-10 sectors). However, the New Basics Rich Tasks are rapidly becoming the school’s real assessment framework. In each team, members have completed a backward mapping of assessment to identify particular repertoires of practice that require systematic development through a set of school based tasks leading up to completion of the Rich Tasks. Each teacher has responsibilities to deliver specific repertoires of practice: the degrees of freedom or autonomy for individual teachers is grounded or limited within the New Basics framework, particularly in the first year of teaching at the school. Discontinuities of student attendance by different students are anticipated, and multiple opportunities are available to achieve each repertoire of practice Ongoing teacher based monitoring of attendance and relative success in skills development are used to inform student portfolios. The PM Benchmarking Kit can be used to provide key assessment data for monitoring purposes. Structured parent information and greater awareness of New Basics and Rich Tasks needs improving before reported outcomes are likely to be accepted and understood. This task is likely to bring teachers into closer contact with school/community liaison officer, and also heighten the accountabilities within school staff to student, their parents and wider community.
Funding and resource issues There are considerable funds available for language and literacy education from both Commonwealth and State sources through this school raised and other. Over half of the $700 000+ budget available is provided through cash conversion of staffing resource. This 37
discretionary budget converts into approximately $4 000 – $7 000 per student – a very large amount in comparative terms with other schools. However, the remoteness and high cost of service for any item add up to a heavy surcharge on any school initiative. Any small gain in basic indicators (e.g., in attendance, literacy levels, technology upgrades or maintenance) is likely to be very costly and require clear priority use of funds: too many initiatives operating simultaneously may require so much expensive professional development as to be difficult to maintain and sustain. The advent of the Western Cape College may provide a useful mechanism for both economies of scale and improved accountability for priority activities. This should lead to more streamlined and targeted use of funds, and provide an ongoing structure for sustained reform and improvement in outcomes.
Language and literacy program issues and recommendations Implementing such a multi-faceted approach to changing literacy practices in the Aurukun setting requires significant support for teachers in changing their approach and classroom practices for literacy development. Key implementation issues and recommendations currently include: • Maintaining shared ownership and a density of leadership – within and across the school teams, to survive staff turnover trends, • Maintaining alignment of administration representatives – both vertically within the school and laterally across Western Cape College, • Addressing teacher recruitment and pre-service issues – including the current lack of any pre-service teacher trainees in the Western Cape College and the need for innovative partnerships with selected universities (both in Queensland and perhaps overseas) to provide internship opportunities, • Improving the current model of teacher induction to involve an initial overview of living and working in Indigenous school/community settings, followed by more specific professional development (e.g., to FELIKS and to strategies tailored for Aurukun students), with more in-depth cross-school professional development offered around the Easter break (as per the previous RAIS model), • Further development of a model of professional development focussed on improving student expectations and achievement of outcomes, via a balance of school based and outside networking and a requirement for subsequent sharing across teams and whole staff to ensure the knowledge base is enhanced and leadership density is furthered, • Further development of the New Basics critical friend model to operate across the Western Cape College in supporting cooperative planning of curriculum units, greater use of more productive pedagogies, and in preparing students for Rich Tasks completion, and • Putting into place integrated and sustainable systems across curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and reporting – to maximise sustainability beyond the current administration term.
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CAIRNS WEST STATE SCHOOL The school in overview Cairns West State School is a P-7 school with a Special Education Unit for hearing impaired students. It was once a member of the Cairns Consortium of schools, but is now an active participant in the Manoora Community Renewal Program. The Shopfront Campus which it once ran as part of the Consortium no longer operates, partly due to staff leaving.
The students in overview The school has 628 students, of whom 220 are Islanders, 133 Aboriginal, 31 both Aboriginal and Islander, and 244 non-Indigenous. There is considerable cultural diversity in the school, with students coming from a range of language backgrounds: SAE, AE, Torres Strait Creole, Cook Island, Samoan and Papua New Guinean. Many of the students come from remote communities (including Islands), and for some of them, transience is an issue. There is a core group of students who are stable, staying at the school right through; many of these students tend to be fairly settled both in academic performance and behaviour. As well as this, there are transient students who attend for anything from a few weeks to six months. Indigenous students periodically spend time away, and often return late after time in remote communities, partly because of the costs of transport. Truancy and poor attendance are issues which the school actively addresses. It employs liaison staff, does home visits, and follows up on students who are absent. It also works with the Manoora Project on this, and with a Cairns West Attendance Committee made up of people from the Community Renewal Program, Family Services, Police, Balaclava State School, and Emmanuel College. It reports truancy, on the premise that all children should be at school and the school has some responsibility for this. However, in the view of one of the staff members involved, The actual percentage of truancy doesn’t shift much—but that’s because of the social problems of the community. Interventions don’t make a great deal of difference. Nonetheless, this staff member and the broader school community believe that interventions should continue, and this is a key area of activity for the school. Results on the Year 2 Diagnostic Test as well as tests in Years 5 and 7 in 1999 were slightly below like schools, and this is a sensitive issue for the school. It has appointed a part-time staff member to ‘crunch the Year 2 data’ and work on interventions to improve performance. At the same time, the school has experience of students who cannot read English being able to read in another language, and this highlights the inappropriateness of standardised testing in an ESL (and ESD) context. Most students who complete primary school move on to Trinity Bay High School. Cairns West staff believe that the transition to high school is not easy for their students: At Cairns West, the majority of the teachers are committed to being here; they care for the kids; there’s a low staff turnover. High schools are bigger, less caring, ‘teaching subjects rather than kids’. (Teacher)
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The staff in overview Cairns West State School has 35 teachers; 2 of these are Aboriginal and 8 are Islander. It has 25 teacher aides and tutors, about half of whom are Indigenous. They are associated with particular classes and also have target students whom they assist with understanding of lessons. The school does this in full-time in-class mode rather than part-time withdrawal. The school uses ‘all spare money’ on support staff. Its thrust in this regard is to shift towards ‘professional rather than paraprofessional’, and the principal’s aim is to employ Indigenous teachers, rather than teacher aides or tutors, with funds such as IESIP. In the principal’s view, ability to communicate in SAE is crucial for staff. Language is the only thing that holds Indigenous teachers back. Unless teachers are proficient in SAE, they form the outside group in staff rooms, in PD and so on. They drop out as they are left out. An implication of this is that ‘RATEP should demand a higher level of ESL proficiency’. There is low staff turnover at Cairns West. This brings advantages of stability, and in the school’s experience, students do not handle staff movement well—even temporary staff absences cause difficulties for some students. The school’s leadership sees the need to work with what is possible for existing staff, and to encourage team work and group planning where possible. Teachers are involved in regular team planning activities. Currently, there is multi-age teaching in Years 1/2, and in Years 6/7; in the years in between classes have stayed the same.
Community input Cairns West State School puts much emphasis on parent and community involvement. In the words of the principal, I’d like this to be a recognisably Indigenous school. To be a community school where parents come in to do classes as well as work professionally linked to TAFE. You can get success with children through parents. The Manoora Community Renewal Program resonates with the school’s goals, and there is mutual benefit drawn from the school’s involvement. Adult education programs to bring parents and community members into the school are actively promoted, as are visits by adults to the school. There is an active ASSPA Committee, whose chairperson is currently the coordinator of adult programs and is also employed by the Manoora Program to liaise between the community and the school. There is pride about the school’s activities to involve the community, with the ASSPA chair reporting that ‘Last year we had a cultural night, and there were 1000 people. Even the Minister of Education heard about our cultural night.’ Nonetheless, there is recognition that achieving parent and community involvement require ongoing effort and successes are hard won.
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Approach to Indigenous education As mentioned earlier, language is an ‘upfront’ issue in the school, and building cultural awareness, acceptance and respect are articulated goals. Much of this is achieved through hymn singing in different languages, which is the focus of Indigenous Studies up to Years 4 and 5. This orientation is the result of the school’s emphasis on building relationships and its willingness to ‘go with what works’, and the principal recognises that a more systematic approach would be preferable in Years 6 and 7. In terms of Indigenous staffing, the principal’s view is that ‘Role models are so important—that’s why we must have good Indigenous teachers’.
Languages Profile As mentioned previously, there are at least five languages spoken at Cairns West State School, as well as SAE. Half of the Year 1 children are Level 4 or under on the Indigenous ESL Bandscales, and ESL teaching strategies are used broadly in Year 1/2. This profile represents a diverse community, which includes transience. Teachers repeatedly asked that we interpret their outcome figures with caution as only a percentage of a current student population can be regarded as long-term Cairns West State School students. It is estimated that 60-70% of Indigenous children converse in a LOTE at home, with the majority of children at Cairns West using Torres Strait Creole as their first language. A number of students are able to speak Torres Strait Creole as well as their home language, and this is one reason why it has become ‘the lingua franca of the playground’ (ESL Teacher). The ESL teacher raised the interesting possibility of teaching Torres Strait Creole as a LOTE, saying ‘Who says a LOTE program has to be written down? Why can’t you value oral language as much as written language?’
Classroom organisation The school breaks both its early childhood and senior school into multi-age classes with both Year 1 & 2 and 6 & 7 combined. It is believed that this allows for an extra year for children who may have reached the end of Year 2, for example, but who are not ready for the demands of Year 3 level curriculum requirements. The early childhood teachers feel that this approach caters for the needs of the children that this school serves, agreeing that ‘many children fall into this category’ (Year 1/2 teacher). The school has removed the year denominators and has renamed the multi-age class groups after Australian birds, thus removing pressure to progress up the grade system in a linear fashion.
The positioning and use of ESL expertise The overall approach to language and literacy curriculum can be summed up as follows: ‘If you aim to teach in a way that supports the ESL kids, all the kids benefit’ (ESL teacher). The literacy program in Years 1 and 2 has an ESL component that is highly valued by classroom teachers across the school. Its advocacy is based on local need.
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This is the first year of a three year ESL trial at Cairns West whose aim is for children to gain ‘independence’ by Year 3. A specialist indigenous support (early childhood) teacher delivers weekly in-class demonstration lessons and resources to the 1/2 classes which individual teachers follow up throughout the following week. The principal advised that this position has not been made available through existing funding but is rather ‘bankrolled by the school’ in response to the identified need. The support teacher in question has a strong ESL background and long-standing relationship with the school as a classroom teacher where her work is held in high regard. Teachers across all levels of the school reinforced the notion of an on-site specialist teacher being more effective than visiting (specialist ESL) teachers, as they know the particular needs of the school more intimately. The ESL teacher at Cairns West uses existing programs (FELIKS; Walking, Talking Texts) and tailors them to the needs of the community in general, and to individuals in particular. Teachers in the middle school described this ‘individualising’ as being critical to the early perceived success of the ESL intervention program currently on trial. They made the point that simply taking this (or any other) approach and transplanting it into another like-school, would not work as the success of programs is very much context-dependent, ‘You can’t bottle [the ESL teacher] and sell her to other schools. It just doesn’t work like that’ (Year 5 teacher).
Staff Logistics and Curriculum Development The ESL specialist is adamant that the early success of the program is due to the teachers being present for the lessons she models with their classes. She was and remains insistent that this is not non-contact or ‘pupil-free’ time for teachers but rather an invaluable PD opportunity for teachers to witness demonstration lessons by a trained specialist who works from programs whose efficacy are well established nationally. Early indicators have seen the techniques espoused by FELIKS and TESLIS (Walking Talking Texts) generalise across the early childhood curriculum.
Pedagogy Valuing the home language and ‘what the child comes with’ is a fundamental premise on which the ESL program is based. Strategic and concerted efforts to have children name, and identify with, their home languages are evident in classroom pedagogy and throughout the school. These take the form of noticeboard displays in prominent, high-traffic areas throughout the school, and detail the different home languages of individual students. In the early childhood area, one strategy to teach ‘the possessive s’ was to take the SAE phrase “Riccardo’s hat” and have children translate it into their home language e.g., e Riccardo hat Riccardo hat
(Torres Strait Creole) (Aboriginal English)
and so on until all languages represented in the class had been given voice. It is believed that this approach heightens the self-esteem of children. It is important to note that while the home language is acknowledged and often incorporated into classroom discussions, the language of use in the classroom is officially SAE during didactic instruction.
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Teacher training and Languages Other Than SAE in the classroom Aboriginal English (what the children refer to as ‘Yarrabah talk’) and TS Creole are often present during groupwork. Some of the early childhood teachers commented that this allows children to ‘make the jump’ to SAE. As stated, this is the first of a three-year trial period and as such, outcome figures for this approach are unavailable. While staff remain optimistic and committed to this approach, they repeatedly noted the lack of specific training at a pre-service level, as the following comment illustrates: ‘When working at a deeper level, teachers need more than a superficial grasp of SAE’ (Year 4 teacher). One teacher commented that ideally, what is really needed is ‘a specialist linguist dimension…to identify the different language issues present’ (Year 5 teacher).
Curriculum Initiatives The view was expressed that many teachers in the school felt that they were ill-equipped to deal with LOTE issues in the classroom. Further, they were sceptical about their capacity to deliver even structured pre-packaged programs – even when their efficacy has been proven – citing the need for specialist teachers who could provide PD as well as hand-on classroom demonstration teaching. However, teachers at Cairns West generally agreed that the recent innovation of a daily, literacy-dedicated period of at least one hour and often two hours (‘the language block’) would improve outcomes. In this whole-school approach, learning is self-directed around various language centres that are selected by the teachers. It replaces the long-held strategy of ‘streaming’ students into ability groups for their language and literacy instruction and appears to be more strongly valued by younger teachers than those who have been at the school for many years. According to the teachers of Years 4 and 5 (who collaboratively plan the literacy block), the advantage is that this provides for a focussed and dedicated literacy period for both students and teachers. While they noted that many of the curriculum implementation decisions are ad hoc, they also commented that teachers must work collaboratively for the program to be successful. This is providing the basis for a more coherent whole-school language philosophy which in turn, provides focus and direction to future decision making.
Funding and resource issues The school receives a range of State and Commonwealth grants (such as LESPSS and IESIP) but only receives ESL funding for migrant students, which is a point of dissatisfaction for the school leadership. The school spends most of its money on employing additional staff for a range of purposes including classroom support and homeschool liaison. It also employs a part-time specialist ESL teacher who works mainly in Years 1/2 and also runs PD workshops for staff on ESL issues.
Specific recommendations • Schools with high Indigenous populations should receive fuller funding for ESL. • There should be more training in ESL for schools with high Indigenous populations. • These schools should have access to a linguist to support and advise classroom teachers on ESL.
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• There should be more specific induction on language for people teaching in these schools. They should be exposed to programs which build language awareness (such as FELIKS). • Professional development opportunities on ESL should be provided (e.g., TESLIS). • All teachers should be assisted in the explicit teaching that goes with ESL. • Schools should be supported to develop their own programs to suit their local contexts. • The system of having an experienced teacher trained as an ESL expert has worked well in Cairns West State School and could be expanded as a model. • EQ should financially support the development of a plan for a traditional Aboriginal language, or Torres Strait Creole, or Aboriginal English as an official LOTE, which could then be picked up by others.
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YARRABAH STATE SCHOOL The school in overview Yarrabah State School is a P–10 school located on three sites in the Yarrabah community, which lies to the east of Cairns and about 60 kms away by road. Its closest commercial centre, Gordonvale, which also has the closest high school, is 38 kms away. All of the students are Indigenous, and the majority of Yarrabah’s population of 3000 are under 20 years old (School Annual Report, 2000). According to those interviewed, the population is relatively stable, and although visiting Cairns is common, most people do not leave Yarrabah on a long term basis. There are complex dynamics within the Yarrabah community. Yarrabah became a mission in 1872 and was later one of four ‘receiving centres’ for Aboriginal people forcibly moved from their land. There are three major groups of people, namely the Gungganyji, the Yidinyji and the Historical Group (including Islander people) who were moved from elsewhere. There has been contestation by Gungganyji and Yidinyji for Native Title, and particular knowledge of language and culture have been associated with land claims. This has implications for what the school may and may not teach in terms of Indigenous languages and culture. The power relations between strong families within the major groups also play out in the school, as do the effects of alcohol and violence for some of the children. Within this context, the leadership of the school takes a long term view and places importance on building trust between the school and its community.
The students in overview Yarrabah State School has 592 students; 99 at the preschool/kindy, 352 in Years 1-7 and 87 in Years 8-10. There are 12 ascertained students in a Special Education Unit. Learning support is provided to 60 students (21%) in Years 4-7. 5 The school is committed to internal monitoring processes and systematically records and analyses a range of data on teaching and learning. Individual progress is mapped for all students in Years 1-7 and class profiles are recorded each semester. An HOD Curriculum assists with monitoring student progress and program implementation. The school monitors attendance closely, and links this to test performance. Generally, attendance averages between 75% and 80%. At the time of our visit, attendance was estimated at 73%, attributed to difficult events which had taken place recently in the community. The relationship between attendance and test results was set out as follows by one of the principals: It would be nice to have brilliant Year 2 Test results. Last year, 48% got caught in the net. This year, 78% got caught, and one of the reasons for that is attendance.
5
Figures as supplied by principals in November 2001.
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The majority of students who complete Year 7 go on to the secondary campus, with small numbers attending other secondary or boarding schools. At the end of Year 10, about a third move onto the Community Development Employment Program (CDEP) once they are age-eligible. Gordonvale has the nearest secondary school for those who attend beyond Year 10. Yarrabah remains the final destination of most of these students, and given that there are almost no commercial enterprises in Yarrabah, employment possibilities are limited. As stated by one member of Yarrabah community, Only a few people ever leave Yarrabah. Those who do are the successful ones. Those who can’t code switch don’t leave. They send the younger generation to go shopping because they only speak AE. It’s not just code switching talk; it’s also in the way you act. The transition between a small Indigenous school and large, racially mixed secondary schools is not always easy for students. In the words of one Indigenous teacher, who had herself studied both outside and within Yarrabah, When kids go away to Year 11, they don’t really cope with the switch. High school is a big shock because they don’t cope with the culture. They have to speak SAE all the time, they can’t read and interpret, and there’s no catering to individual differences. Very few make it to Year 12 and do OP scores. Only about two people in Yarrabah have OP scores. Mostly they do easy subjects and not 6 Board subjects. Those who make it out, a lot of them are women. All of the [current] RATEP [graduate] teachers are women. This view sharpens the notion of what high schools often term ‘shame’ in relation to Indigenous students’ public performance in class. Following this interpretation, ‘shame’ relates not simply to cultural practice but also to competence in SAE. One of the principals gave a different perspective on why Indigenous students often perform poorly at high school: Kids go from here to other schools. The problem is that when kids are seen to come from Yarrabah, other teachers may stereotype them. We raise expectations here. Others at high school may not understand what the kids are able to do because they have no knowledge of Yarrabah. Some high schools are more user friendly. Middle schooling, if done properly, is probably more user friendly and may assist students. Whatever the interpretation, it remains the case that only a small minority of students progress through secondary education and on to tertiary.
The staff in overview Yarrabah State School has an experienced principal and deputy (currently sharing the principal’s position while the principal is one of two group principals for Cape York). They have been at the school for ten and six years respectively. However, there is generally a high turnover rate for staff, with one of the principals estimating that between 2000 and 2002, the majority of the teaching staff will have turned over. As she pointed
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out, ‘We rarely have people here longer than 3 years’. This turnover is costly for both staff and students. In the words of the other principal: We get teachers who have never seen an Aboriginal person, never talked to an Aboriginal person. A big mind shift is needed. It may take months for them to understand what kids are saying. The first term is a survival thing for new teachers. Talking about the situation in remote Indigenous schools more generally, this principal went on to say: The most inexperienced teachers are coupled with the most inexperienced principals in our most difficult schools. It’s not a good experience for teachers, but it’s also not good for kids. With all teaching it’s about relationships you build with kids. Kids can’t keep forming relationships with people who leave. The community see people come and go. The primary school has 18 classroom teachers, 5 of whom are Indigenous, one Indigenous assistant teacher as a liaison person, 3 Indigenous assistant teachers, 15 Indigenous education assistants in classrooms, and 3 ATAS tutors. There are also part time positions for reading recovery, learning support, the library and ESL. There are 2 special education teachers and 2 assistants. The high school has an Indigenous HOD as head, 7 classroom teachers (one of whom is Indigenous), an Indigenous ATAS tutor, a reading activity tutor and 2 Indigenous teacher aides. The school is committed to employing Indigenous staff, and across its three campuses has 7 qualified Indigenous teachers, 2 community teachers, 3 assistant teachers and 24 education assistants. Indigenous tutors and teacher aides are mostly paid for out of State and commonwealth grants, particularly IESIP. This staffing policy brings an Indigenous staff presence to all classes. More importantly, it is a dimension of the long term perspective maintained by the school’s leadership: We have a core of people who have come through the school. There are 5 qualified RATEP teachers, 2 more will be available at the end of the year and there are 2 more after that. Community teachers have certificates from RATEP. Some of these are successful, some aren’t—the same as in the big world. You have to take a long term view of what’s best. A significant achievement is the number of Aboriginal people employed in the school. Giving people employment opportunities, access to articulated courses… (Principal)
Community input The identity of Yarrabah State School takes shape in the interplay between the complex dynamics of its community and the policies and practices of Education Queensland. The leadership of the school does what it can to build relationships of trust with the community, and this means being accommodating towards the mood of the community, and containing whatever outbursts may erupt within the school. Though there is
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community involvement with the school, this is not necessarily extensive or continuous. As the Indigenous teacher quoted earlier stated, There’s not much community involvement because they’ve had bad experiences of school…. They see the school as a white dominated environment, where they can’t speak properly and teachers know more than them. A lot of parents don’t think school is that important. Social issues are more important than education. Our way is that relationships are more important than education. In Aboriginal society, especially Yarrabah, we value first of all relationships, kinship, extended family. That comes first. White culture values education. Getting ahead is number one goal and family is secondary. Though the school has a council, this was not operating at the time of our visit, partly because one of the driving members had left. The P&C is not particularly active, but runs the tuckshop. The ASSPA Committee was not fully functioning when we visited but is nonetheless a presence in the school, as one of principals noted: They are very assertive, extremely influential, very powerful. It gives people the power to question things. It’s one thing where they have responsibility and a significant amount of money. It’s currently in the doldrums but that has to do with family issues, personalities. A number of interviewees noted that the community had expectations that the school should teach students SAE and open the same opportunities and choices as any other Queensland school. In the words of the same principal, ‘The underlying thing is that whites are visitors. We have a role and they trust us to do the job.’ As to the effects on students of alcohol and violence in the community, the following teacher comments sum up one set of views: The violence here is dreadful. There’s teasing, name calling, bullying and irrational responses. It’s inside the school as well as outside. Kids are mirroring what they see. 80% of the kids are good. But some are highly aggressive and angry. The school’s leadership was careful to point out that violence and alcohol abuse are not widespread in the community, but rather are centred around a handful of families. They cautioned against making judgements about the community as a whole on the basis of the behaviour of a minority.
Approach to Indigenous education The leadership of Yarrabah State School is sensitive to tensions around local languages and cultural knowledges and tries to move on this terrain without invoking conflict. On the one hand, it seeks to acknowledge the importance of local context in language development, and local culture as a basis for understanding and self-esteem. This is expressed in attempts to formulate a Cultural Studies program within the curriculum, and in an Action Research Project which has attempted to engage the local community around ESL. On the other hand, the school has pulled back from defining the content of Cultural Studies itself, preferring to take the slower route of working in collaboration with the community through the local Menmuny Museum for guidance on content, and in some cases, actual teaching.
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The presence of Indigenous adults in every classroom is an important affirmation of Indigenous identity, and the encouragement for local people to gain RATEP qualifications is part of the leadership’s longer term view of the school contributing to the community.
Languages Profile Given the sensitivity of language in Yarrabah, the school makes no attempt to teach an Indigenous language. Moves towards language revival are taking place outside the school and this is generally regarded as appropriate. An Indigenous teacher expressed this as follows: We’d like to see an Aboriginal LOTE. But which language would it be, and would the Elders be prepared to hand it over? The push is to take ownership back, and have teaching using the Elders. In the words of another, There has been a resurgence of languages – their demise is a legacy of ‘the dormitory years’ when families were separated to live in the single-sex dormitories. Our people were not allowed to speak their language so the culture went underground. Children at Yarrabah State School speak Aboriginal English. This is characterised by the use of Aboriginal tenses where the features of an Aboriginal language are transferred into Aboriginal English. The most obvious differences from SAE centre around tenses and the uses of plural and singular forms. These are semantic features not often present in Indigenous languages; for example, the statement was made: ‘we‘re just present people, there is no future tense’ (Indigenous teacher). Within this vernacular, one teacher noted variation between those who speak ‘heavier and lighter Aboriginal English’. This is attributed to the influence of the town‘s proximity to the city of Cairns and that as more children spend time in regional centres such as these, ‘their Aboriginal English lightens’ (ESL teacher). Several teachers noted that the ability to ‘code-switch‘ between Aboriginal English and SAE was an important skill. An Indigenous teacher commented that the students who could successfully do this are more often the ones to ‘go on to make it in white society’. Interestingly, the same teacher highlighted that the term ‘code-switching‘ meant more than just being linguistically nimble. To make it in ‘white society’, the term also meant taking on some of the traits of the dominant culture, ‘it‘s not just code switching – it‘s body language, assertiveness …in Aboriginal culture, it‘s not our way to be pushy’.
Classroom organisation When arranging class groups, there is a deliberate emphasis on literacy. In the upper school, there is provision for an extension program for an identified group of the ‘top kids from Years 6 & 7’. Activities focus on physical challenges and problem solving as much to extend learning as to instil self-esteem and pride.
The positioning and use of ESL expertise The role of specialist ESL teacher is shared between two teachers at Yarrabah State School. The role of this position is to guide and assist language and literacy curriculum
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development. One of these teachers commented that while they are able to assist teachers to develop their programs, it is difficult to maintain continuity when there is high teacher turnover.
Pedagogy While teachers at Yarrabah State School are taking on board ESL pedagogies, many of them mentioned that their approach was not identical to the articulated literacy program. Several teachers commented that their own, personal approach differed from the school approach by strongly emphasising context. These personal foci privileged only sections of standardised programs (e.g., Walking, Talking Texts) by locating them in the home experiences of the children. While these teachers said that their approaches differed, in fact their approaches appeared quite similar, driven by the same core philosophy that language learning must first locate itself in ‘what the children come with’ (ESL teacher). Forget Grimm’s fairy tales, use something that the children know, use that as a starting point…I start with prior knowledge as a base. For example, we look at traditional foods – things they know… But a whole school plan is needed so that the kids don’t do bush foods in Years 2, 4 and again in Year 7. (ESL teacher) Yarrabah State School runs an oral language program that involves the children presenting at the school assembly and to groups of younger children at other schools. This provides other ‘real‘ contexts to practice SAE. This is been well received by the teachers and students but the principal noted that ‘presenting parade has taken 6 months. It had to be completely structured… we wrote down what they had to say first. This was edited, practiced and recorded on tape’. The emphasis here has been on providing real-life opportunities to use SAE: ‘They don‘t have to speak SAE here to survive…we try to create situations where they have to’ (ESL teacher).
Curriculum initiatives As mentioned earlier, the school and the community are working together to develop a Cultural Studies program. The long term vision is to incorporate aspects of the resource FELIKS and the program, Walking, Talking Text, with the Cultural Studies program. The philosophy which guides this approach is based on a notion of ‘contextualising‘ the learning of all subject areas around this whole-school approach.
Language and Literacy Program The staff has recently had in-service on the use of Walking, Talking Texts. While some teachers use it prescriptively, others are incorporating parts of it with their own programs and their favourite sections of FELIKS. The influence of Walking, Talking Texts is evident in the lower primary classroom displays which reflect a philosophy of text and print immersion. Additionally, Yarrabah is trailing a daily 2 hour ‘literacy block‘ every morning in years 13. Children work through a series of literacy centres that are based on techniques and strategies from Walking, Talking Texts. This is currently in the second year of a three year trial period.
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Funding and resource issues As mentioned earlier, the school uses much of its targeted funding to employ Indigenous staff.
Specific recommendations • Schools where the majority speaks AE should be funded as ESL schools. • ESL should have a mandatory position in all schools with a second language or second dialect majority • Teachers should be informed about ESL methods and approaches through professional development in ESL • Education Queensland needs to support a good induction program, particularly for new teachers moving into schools with high Indigenous student numbers. This program should build cross-cultural and ESL awareness for new teachers. • Preservice teacher education needs a language component, an ESL component, and exposure to programs that make a difference, like FELIKS. Consideration should be given to an 8 week internship where preservice teacher trainees could work with experienced teachers in a mentoring environment. • More attention should be given to the transition of Indigenous students from primary school to high school, both in terms of curriculum and in terms of an environment which caters for Indigenous cultural differences. • There needs to be more recognition of difference in education policies. Low socio-economic, migrant and ESL students are invisible in most of the policy documents. • EQ needs to understand that the current arrangements put the most inexperienced teachers with the most inexperienced principals in the most difficult schools. • EQ levels of support have diminished over the years and this should be recognised. • EQ should consider a range of different ways to support schools like this. For example, if a number of inexperienced people are brought in, support should be provided so that school leadership is not overburdened with giving professional and personal assistance. • EQ should explore a range of different incentives to attract and retain staff in these schools, for example flying people to a major centre every second weekend. • These schools need to be more favourably staffed. If all of the infrequent attenders came to school at once there would not be enough resources. Smaller class sizes would enable more positive interactions between teachers and students. • Relevant resources should be used in schools such as these e.g., fiction and materials related to the history and geography of the area.
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GARBUTT STATE SCHOOL The school in overview Garbutt State School in Townsville is located in Education Queensland’s Townsville North and West District and services the community of the suburb of Garbutt. Garbutt is recognised as being in a low socio-economic area with high unemployment. It traditionally has had among the largest Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student bodies, though this has shifted in the last several years because of an influx of lower socio-economic AngloAustralian children. There is a growing number of low density unit dwellers and pensioners and an increasing population of Cook Islanders in the suburb. The school is committed to the community and to its place in it. Although Garbutt prototyped Townsville-area commitment to indigenous community participation and teacher aides almost two decades ago, it has only brought together a whole-scale community focus in the last five to seven years under the present leadership. Accordingly, various programs have addressed specific problems such as truancy, absenteeism and lack of food. These programs have been brought together systematically with a total literacy program, that combines direct instruction in the code, coordinated teacher professional efforts and in-service, systematic entry-level and formative evaluation of students’ progress, with a focus on culturally appropriate and exciting content. This has meant a creative local combination of the Sound Way program for phonics, aspects of Reading Recovery, Concentrated Language encounters and a strong indigenous culture unit. In recent years, the school has achieved marked success with its literacy curriculum initiatives and enjoys a productive and engaging relationship with the Garbutt community, at large. These positive outcomes may be attributable to the unique combination of components of community outreach and pedagogy that have been developed by the staff in response to the identified needs of the community. Garbutt State School receives additional funding through the Literacy Enhancement Special Program School’s Scheme, the Indigenous Education Strategic Initiative project and the Community Access School’s Project, which is a partnership agreement between Housing Queensland and Education Queensland commencing in 1999-2001.
The students in overview Of the 184 students in attendance at Garbutt, approximately 50% are of Aboriginal decent and 15% of Torres Strait Islander descent. A significant number of the indigenous students live in single parent families or their main caregivers are other family members. The school’s population is characterised by some degree of movement between Garbutt State School, Palm Island and the Cape and Torres Straits. The raw mobility rate of students during 2000 was 83%. Every year, Garbutt has a certain number of students (usually 20-25 in number) who have experienced many changes of schools and do not have basic reading skills. Sometimes these students only remain at Garbutt for a short period of time. The school has responded to the needs of these students with intensive programs, to improve reading accuracy and comprehension for students with very limited literacy skills.
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Cross-agency referrals are used extensively at Garbutt, This has been largely at the initiative of the current Principal who has responded to the health concerns of the student body through the establishment of a Special Needs committee. Within the last two years, 25% of the indigenous students have had hearing loss documented and a Soundfield Amplification System has been acquired for use in the school.
The staff in overview A preschool teacher, 8 classroom teachers, a learning support teacher, a cultural studies teacher, a librarian and a Principal are employed at Garbutt State School. Years of service range from 2-25 years. Garbutt is allocated 52 hours of General Teacher aide time per week, plus an additional 20 hours of Teacher Aide time per week due to the percentage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander attending the school. The amounts to 10 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Tutors at the school who offer direct assistance to classroom teachers. Guidance Officer and Behaviour Management Support Teacher services are available on a regular basis. Two parent Home Liaison Officers are employed at the school to assist with student issues and a Community Development Worker is employed on a casual basis to encourage the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community to be more involved in their child’s learning. The focus for Professional Development and training in 2001 is to work toward implementing outcomes based education.
School Organisation The Garbutt State Preschool is located off-campus some 3 kms from the Primary school. Garbutt State School runs traditional year cohorts from Years 1-7. The school is currently trailling a program where the classroom teacher of Year 5 takes their students through to Year 7.
Community Input Community liasing has virtually eliminated chronic absenteeism and truancy. The school maintains contact with parents and the community through a number of avenues including newsletters, assemblies, noticeboards, letters and meetings, the P & C, the ASSPA Committee and through media reports about the school. The community has many opportunities to be involved in the school and this is evident in the literacy plan outlined below. The current administration has been successful in making the school the responsibility of the whole community, ‘…it’s sort of like the Musketeers – all for one and one for all’ (Community Elder). The suburb of Garbutt is currently being refurbished and revitalised by the State Government under the Urban Renewal Program.
Approach to Indigenous Education Cultural diversity is celebrated and respected within the Garbutt school community. Curriculum offerings ensure cultural diversity is strongly embedded within the school ethos. The Cultural Studies Program is a boutique program tailored to exclusively meet the
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needs of the Garbutt community. In the last year, the literacy outcomes of Garbutt have surpassed expectations with indigenous students’ school reports recording significant improvement in all areas of literacy.
Languages Profile Many of the Indigenous students at Garbutt speak Aboriginal English or Torres Strait Creole as their first language. Many of the children seasonally return to communities, breaking up their continuous literacy instruction. Making the transition to SAE and school in general, is reportedly a simpler task for speakers of Creole than Aboriginal English. They (the children from the Torres Strait) don’t seem to have any language barriers… they don’t speak heavy Creoles. Aboriginal kids don’t seem to have the same fondness for school. In Islander families, school is highly prized, many of the kids go on to be school captains (Year 2 Teacher).
The positioning and use of ESL expertise Garbutt State School has an active special needs committee that is spearheaded by a Learning Support specialist. 8 of the Teachers at the school have specific ESL education and there is active recruitment of Indigenous staff. The Special Needs teacher also is a trained Reading Recovery tutor and the coordinator of the school literacy program. She works closely with the Indigenous teacher who develops and implements the indigenous studies program and materials across all grades. What this means is that there is a much better overall coordination between the literacy-based areas and other curriculum and pedagogy training and implementation than in other comparable schools visited.
Language and Literacy Program A significant number of children have not been exposed to books before starting school. The staff has recognised that a book culture to teach reading had to be consciously created at the school, ‘when I get my year 2’s at the beginning of the year, they are about the level of mid year-one and many have not been to preschool’ (Year Two Teacher). And, “literacy does not have personal meaning for them. When they come, it’s their first introduction to books’ (Learning Support Teacher). In response to these issues, Garbutt State School has established a highly innovative total language program. The Garbutt Literacy Program aims to improve literacy outcomes for students. The initiative integrates three processes: intensive courses of sequential lessons to develop basic literacy skills; a community/cultural emphasis and use of appropriate resources and information technology. In recent years, it has been built around the trailing and implementation of the Sound Way program – a Queensland developed phonics-based program that uses videotape for intensive instruction in word knowledge, attack and recognition skills. The rationale for this approach has been that it has brought staff and students together for concentrated literacy instruction. The principal focus on teaching coding skills has been balanced with indigenous curriculum, concentrated language encounters, and some community-based language study in the middle and upper grades. The Sound Way program has generated some visible improvement in student results, though some teachers reportedly preferred less structured and repetitive materials and approaches. The rationale for the program derives from an investigation of national and school concerns regarding literacy outcomes. Several criteria have been used to track literacy outcomes, including standardised testing for reading and spelling, school records and anecdotal notes. 54
The needs of students are addressed within an awareness of the unique social and cultural environment of Garbutt, ‘engagement with literacy is what is needed…honour them in their knowledge and their culture’ (Cultural Studies Teacher). The literacy program involves a whole school approach but while the Special Needs Committee and the ASSPA Committee oversee the program, classroom teachers are responsible its implementation. I use a lot of scaffolding…hands on, try and discuss…lately I’ve been using big books followed by modelling and scribing…whatever works! (Year 2 Teacher). Although the language program sits neatly within a whole school plan, some concern was expressed that although the plan is prescriptive in nature, it is still open to interpretation with the potential of skewing the results.
Curriculum Initiatives The Garbutt Indigenous Literacy Program is part of the Garbutt Literacy Improvement Program The program targets all indigenous students in years 1-7 and was developed in response to low indigenous student attainment in literacy, especially in comparison to likeschools, and from data from the Diagnostic Continua across years 1-3, the year 2 net, the years 5 and 6 tests and school based student reports. The initiatives are structured to cater for the unique composition and challenges of students at the school. The initiatives fall within three broad strategies:
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Improving basic literacy skills • DETYA tutoring: an in-school homework program staffed by skilled indigenous tutors. • Reading Improvement Program based on Reading Recovery guidelines staffed by highly trained teacher aides. • The Sound Way: A multi sensory, multi modal program aimed at all year levels. Some areas of focus include phonics, punctuation and handwriting. • Phonemic Awareness: 27 identified students receive individual phonemic awareness instruction from a speech-language pathologist on a weekly basis.
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A focus on community involvement in improving literacy • Cultural Studies Program: A Literacy skills program taught within a Cultural Studies framework. • Volunteers: Indigenous members of the community make themselves available for reading assistance. • Community projects including a school-published newspaper, the Country Women’s Association International Country and Study Competition, NAIDOC week activities. • Concentrated Language Encounters: community excursions are linked with integrated units of study. • NAIDOC week activities: Garbutt State School is considered the centre of such activities in Townsville. • An active ASSPA (Aboriginal Student Support and parent Awareness) committee. • Community Garden • Mentoring • Parent liaison officers
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Resources and Information Technology • culturally appropriate texts • new computers and literacy related software • internet connection
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THE MARIAN SCHOOL The school in overview The Marian Primary School is a Catholic co-ed school in the inner western suburbs of Townsville. The school was formed in 1988 and is the amalgamation of four local parish schools. Its campus is in the suburb of Currajong and is well known as the ex-St John Fisher’s Christian Brothers College site. Some of its buildings date from 1952. Marian children live in every suburb of Townsville except Magnetic Island. About 40% live in approximate suburbs. The sense of community at Marian is palpable. Many families, although not Catholic, choose Marian for their children on the strength of its humanist Pastoral care program and for the value its places on community-building and maintenance. The school enjoys a good reputation and currently boasts a waiting list for enrolments.
The students in overview Of the 352 children who attend Marian, 16 are indigenous with approximately 4 of those from being from the Torres Strait. 51% of the student body are girls. Although most families are ‘working class’ and almost one child in four lives below the poverty line, Marian families represent an emergent, aspirational middle class who have high expectations for their children. The actual diagnostic work has been put together locally with advice from the Diocese Indigenous unit. Specifically, school staff are sceptical of the value of state testing – which is in the process of being introduced. There is no provision for Reading Recovery-type assessment nor is the Year 2 Diagnostic Net mandated for all students and teachers. The Learning Support teacher uses Neale Tests, as recommended by Diocese, to assess individual children. This was an environment where the small cohort of Aboriginal and Islander children was known and well looked after. All staff seem aware of the cultural content and domain limitations of this instrumentation – however, it appeared that teachers, staff and administration had an astute capacity to identify and ‘place’ students – particularly the indigenous students. In part this was because of the ethos of the schools, but also because of the size of the cohort. The Year 2 net is not mandated. While it is an excellent tool, it is resource intense (Director, Catholic Education Office). Because the lack of mandated diagnostic approaches, it appeared to us that the School was still developing and searching for systematic benchmarking and diagnostic feedback on their students’ overall progress.
The staff in overview There are 14 full time and 5 part time teachers, 4 teacher aides and a part time school counsellor, a part time APRE (Assistant to the Principal Religious Education) and a part time Teaching Principal in addition to two administration and two grounds staff. Staff turnover at the school is low.
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School Organisation Until 2000, Marian was a two-stream school from Pre-School to Year 7 and was traditionally organised into age cohorts (grades) of 25 or less in the ‘Infants school’ and a maximum of 30 children in classes in the rest of the school. There has been four years of multi-aging in years 6/7 as a model for the rest of the school in addition to outcomes based reporting to parents for the same period of time. In 2001, the school entered a multi age school trial. The need for restructuring was evidenced by poor results on both literacy and numeracy and benchmark testing despite school refurbishment, resource updating, the introduction of IT (Information Technology) and staff development. The Middleton Report provided focus for this redirection. The essential elements of the school restructuring centre around the development of an articulated whole school curriculum, extension of the learning support team, outcomesbased curriculum planning and parent reporting in addition to the introduction of new year levels: Junior school years 1-3 Middle school years 4-5 Senior School years 6-7 The school has removed the year denominators and has renamed the multi age class groups after Australian animals in order to reduce pressure to move up the grade system in a linear fashion.
Community Input The identity of Marian takes shape in the interplay between the dynamics of its community, its outreach programs and the school’s overall approach to curriculum. The school actively involves itself in NAIDOC week activities and has a vibrant Indigenous dance troupe which performs at the mall. The school has developed a reputation for being culturally inclusive, ‘this is the best school for that kind of thing’ (Teacher). The Principal affords these cultural pursuits the highest priority by involving the entire school in cultural activities of this kind. In addition to community programs of this kind, cross-agency support in the form of medical professionals (Pathologists, Paediatricians etc.) have been mobilised in order to address health issues of the student body. This has largely been a result of initiatives set in place by the current Principal and has been a response to the identified needs of the community ‘a lot of parents send their kids to this school because they know they can get help’ (Indigenous Teacher Aide). Approach to Indigenous Education When asked to talk about Indigenous education, teachers at Marian focus on testing: ‘The way the tests are worded is unfair’, was a sentiment repeated often. While students did not necessarily have difficulty with the actual concepts per se, they encountered difficulty with the way the questions were worded, and the insistence on independent working. ‘Language is this big, big problem’ (learning support teacher). The opinion that
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children would show better outcomes on the continua if the tests were administered to small groups of between 2 and 3 students, where a familiar teacher read and if necessary, re-worded the questions (effectively, providing prompts) was expressed more than once: If you could just word the question for them in a different way, they’d know the answer…like in the case of the numeracy test for ‘few’. The children will say to me, “is that the one that means ‘less’?” and I’m not allowed to answer… I spend so much time befriending them, how can I ignore them? They lose confidence in themselves and me. So it’s a maths concept but it’s REALLY language that is being tested, isn’t it? (learning support teacher). In noting the inappropriateness of such testing, it is also acknowledged that testing is nonetheless a necessary evil: ‘Testing may not be culturally appropriate but (there is the notion that) if we don’t do some, then we have no way of knowing where the kids are at’. Further, the reliance on testing exclusively for content knowledge was questioned: What we really need is a test that allows you to look at what strategies the kids are using…this would give us a better idea of what they CAN do (Catholic Education Cultural Awareness Officer).
Languages Profile As noted, the percentage of Indigenous children at Marian is small at 16. While about 5 children have Torres Strait Creole as their L1, the majority of the remaining indigenous families speak variations of English which switch between ‘light’ Aboriginal English and Standard Australian English, with the variance between them not clearly distinguished. Marian is an urban school and the students languages profile reflects this positioning: these are very much ‘town’ kids, they pretty much always use Standard English …some use a little Aboriginal English but they wouldn’t know it. If you asked them, they’d say they were talking just like you (learning support teacher). While language variance across the student body is small, the building of cultural awareness, acceptance and respect are articulated goals. This orientation is the result of the school’s emphasis on building sustainable relationships with the community, at large….
The positioning and use of ESL expertise Given the small number of children at Marian who speak a first language other than English, there is no provision for an ESL specialist in any capacity: … the ESL students represent a selective cohort, the range and scope of problems they experience is not diverse…Our approach (in the junior school) is child-centred and the transition from pre-school is seamless (Year 3 Teacher). Any language or literacy ESL support that may be required is subsumed under the jurisdiction of the Learning Support team. This consists of four teachers, four teachers aides and the school pastoral care counsellor. The coordinator supports teacher aides, liaises with teachers and administrators and assists with the development of individual learning programs. Her role does not extend to modelling specific strategies – for example, through demonstration lessons, ‘I’m not an expert – I’m just a classroom teacher…(demonstration lessons) might not be appropriate’ (Learning Support Teacher). 59
Indigenous teacher aides are present in the school and one of their responsibilities is to access culturally appropriate resources from the Cath Ed clearinghouse and act as cultural conduits between the community and the school.
Language and Literacy Program The first two hours of each day are known as ‘sacred time’ across all year levels. This is time spent on literacy and numeracy and is not to be interrupted by LOTE, sports or office requests, though learning support pull-out continues unabated. Teachers in the junior school plan together in a process that is driven in part, by the supply of resources as much as identified curriculum gaps, with teachers expressing frustration at their inability to source appropriate reading schemes: we are at a loss for a basal reading system in the lower school…we are using bits and pieces from everywhere…even the old Endeavour series from the 70’s. You know, Pam and Sam and Digger (Learning Support Teacher).
LOTE The Marian school runs a full Languages other than English curriculum with provision for Japanese, French and Italian. These languages are offered to all students, with no streaming.
Specific Recommendations • Years 1 & 2 are too little for formal tests, assessment should be based on class work. • Professional development opportunities on ESL should be provided. • Schools should be supported to develop their own programs to suit their local contexts. • The need to ‘grow our own indigenous teachers’, with specific and focussed pre service education, was identified.
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CHERBOURG STATE SCHOOL The school in overview Cherbourg State School is a K-7 community school which serves an Indigenous population. The School has an Indigenous principal whose goal has been to build a strong Indigenous identity alongside good academic performance. The School’s motto, ‘strong and smart’, underpins both academic and behaviour management activities. Academically, the School aims to generate good outcomes that are comparable to other Queensland schools. In terms of identity, it aims ‘to nurture a strong and positive sense of what it means to be Aboriginal in today’s society’ (School Annual Report, 2000, p. 3). In the three years that the current Principal has been at the school, he has made a concerted effort to turn the school around, and has addressed a range of issues to change the school’s culture. These include: • building a shared vision of Aboriginal identity and achievement (being ‘strong and smart’) • improving attendance and reducing truancy • establishing systematic teaching and learning • deepening community involvement • creating safe and cared-for premises • building staff and student morale The school is now focusing in more depth on its curriculum, including language teaching and learning. A notable feature of the current curriculum is Aboriginal Studies, which is a key part of students’ learning. As well as the Principal, there is a strong presence of Aboriginal staff. The Elders have their own room on the School premises, indicating the importance of the community in the life of the School.
The students in overview Cherbourg State School has approximately 185 Indigenous students, all of whom live in Cherbourg. Most who proceed to secondary school attend Murgon State High School, where their retention rate has been low. Results on the Year 2 Diagnostic test have been improving steadily. For Reading, 85.2% of children were caught in the net, and 66.7% were caught in 2000. In 2001, 42.9% of children were caught in the net and the school expects to improve on this in 2002. Year 5 and 7 test results show the legacy of earlier poor performance, with 2000 scores being below like schools as well as state averages. Improving the attendance patterns and reducing the numbers of unexplained absences have been important in turning the school around. According to the Principal, ‘aggressive strategies’ including an incentive program, have steadily reduced unexplained absences from 1186 in Term 3 of 2000, to 125 in Term 2 of 2001. According to the Principal:
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This has been a big influence on classrooms. We’re more like a school should be; kids enjoying themselves at school. In classrooms, kids are working much harder than before. We’re not letting the kids set the agenda. We’re not here to feel sorry for the kids, we’re here to get results and that means getting them to work harder so they can compete academically with any other child when they get to high school. Teaching is more structured, yet flexible enough. Kids are getting into routines. Before, we were just babysitting. Kids would take a look into the classroom, and leave if they didn’t like it. Now, if they’re at the door we chase them in. For the first couple of months I was here, the school didn’t look like a school at all. I tell them, ‘To look white kids in the eye, you’ve got to learn. Otherwise you get walked over.’ While changes in the school are welcomed by staff, they are nonetheless aware that ‘Academically, our kids have a long way to go.’
The staff in overview The school has 5.5 non-Indigenous and 5 Indigenous teachers. Three Indigenous teachers are RATEP graduates. As part of its approach to staffing, the School has fourteen Community Development Employment Program (CDEP) staff, and where possible, it adds another 15 hours of paid work to their 15 CDEP hours in order to make up full-time jobs. These staff, and others, are released for two afternoons a week to attend the local TAFE College for level 4 studies, with the aim of articulating these studies with university programs. This staffing practice has been important in building Indigenous capacity, and also means that it is possible to have two to three teachers in every classroom. In the Principal’s view: Being full-time gives them more dignity and the message is that they’re valued. This has really had an impact on the School. It’s also changed the way teacher aides see themselves and this in turn, is changing the way the children see themselves. 2 Indigenous teacher aides, one male and one female, are also used as family support workers. Their role is to assist students by attending to matters that are anchored by social or community issues. This ensures that the Teachers and Teacher Aides can get on with the business of learning and teaching inside the classroom. The school has a Cherbourg Induction Program for new staff. It has a core of stable staff and though it has had teacher turnover, it has not experienced major problems with this in the past few years, partly because of its stable core.
Community input The Principal and a number of staff mentioned the importance of working with, and having the support of, parents, Elders and the Cherbourg Community Council. As mentioned, Elders have their own room on the school premises, and staff are employed to liaise between the School and the community. Each term, an ‘Elders’ Parade’ is held, where the students hold performances and show their work to Elders, parents and community members. The School encourages home visits to discuss students’ reports and progress. The school has an Aboriginal Student Support and Parent Awareness (ASSPA) Committee through which parents and community members may participate in school decision-
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making processes, and one the Principal’s goals is to strengthen the functioning of the ASSPA and P&C committees. From discussions with teachers, Elders and the Principal, there is little doubt that community problems including alcohol and other substance abuse as well as domestic violence impact upon students’ attendance and performance at school. The school tries to work against these practices. It participates in the annual Domestic Violence march around Cherbourg, and tries to build an understanding among its students that alcoholism and domestic violence are not part of Aboriginal culture. Teachers and Elders interviewed confirmed that the vision of being ‘strong and smart’ is being talked about across the school and community. The school maintains ongoing contact with a range of community agencies, including Jundah Women’s Organisation, Youth and Community Care Action (YACCA), Barambah Aboriginal Community Care Agency (BACCA), and Wunjuada Alcohol Rehabilitation Centre. It also participates in interagency initiatives. The ASSPA Committee runs a well-supported breakfast program.
Approach to Indigenous education A central goal of Cherbourg State School is to build positive Aboriginal identity within a culture of academic performance. In line with this, it has a whole-school Aboriginal Studies program, which covers issues such as Government Policies and Practices, Contemporary and Future Cherbourg, Identity, and Art, Music and Dance. One of the purposes of the program is to build understanding of the challenges of maintaining traditional Aboriginal cultural practices in contemporary western society. To do this, it looks at both traditional and contemporary culture. In the Principal’s words: Alcoholism and domestic violence are major issues that we address through Aboriginal Studies. Child abuse hangs like a dark shadow—you know it’s there, and you see how it manifests in school, but it is an issue that is not really tackled front on.. The major focus is to get kids to look around them, to understand the place they live in, and that alcoholism, domestic violence and abuse, are the legacy of other historical processes and not the legacy of being Aboriginal. You can be Aboriginal and be successful. It’s also important for them to understand the complexity and sophistication of the people they come from, so that kids don’t undervalue being Aboriginal. Kids get loud messages about their surroundings, and they don’t hear enough to appreciate the full complexity of what being Aboriginal means, and what it means in today’s society. The school’s vision of being ‘strong and smart’ and the Aboriginal Studies program are important whole-school moves to build positive Aboriginal identity and cultural understanding. Having Aboriginal staff in every classroom and encouraging the presence of Elders at the school are also integral to building a strong and positive Aboriginal identity.
Language policies and provisions for LOTE The School registers all of its students as English Second Language speakers. It is involved in the trial of the new Language Syllabus, and teachers in the lower school have participated in THRASS literacy programs. All staff have attended an in-service program
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on language. The school is at the point of developing curriculum leadership, and one of its goals is to develop a formalised whole-school literacy strategy. According to staff and Elders, the form of Aboriginal English (AE) spoken in Cherbourg is similar to Standard Australian English (SAE), with differences evident mainly in tone, emphasis, ‘short cuts’, and ‘limited vocabulary’. The close proximity of Cherbourg to Murgon as its commercial centre was suggested as one reason for the language similarity. Staff mentioned difficulties with standardised assessment, and in particular noted that ‘there isn’t any accurate way of recording kids’ abilities in Aboriginal English’. The Year 2 Oral Profile was mentioned as being particularly problematic, in that it does not reflect students’ abilities in their home language. A Year 1 teacher commented that children’s reading prediction was much greater in a text she had compiled in AE than it was in SAE texts. The school’s policy is to affirm students’ work in AE, but to build the capacity and point out the need to code switch to SAE. The Principals’ view, supported by staff, is that: We must never get to a point of saying to kids ‘that’s wrong’ and putting a big red pen across the book. We accept the language form they use. We say, ‘This is how you say it in your way, but if you were writing for a job you’d do it this way’. By the time they’re in Year 7, they should be able to use SAE. This is what parents want—access to employment and opportunities opened by SAE. As much as we value the language they bring into the school, the rest of society wouldn’t value this as much, even if it’s working for them up here. There was general agreement that the students’ use of AE impeded their performance in SAE, particularly in reading and writing.
Overall curriculum structure In 2000, the school embarked on the development of new curriculum frameworks in Key Learning Areas (KLAs). It has separate classes for Years 1 to 4, and combined Year 5/6 and Year 6/7. There are specialist teachers for Aboriginal Studies and Library/Music and both of these teachers have specialist knowledge in Aboriginal culture. The school has begun a Year 7 to Year 8 Transition Program together with Murgon State High School. The two Principals are currently planning a camp for Years 7 and 8 Cherbourg students, and are confident that this will help the transition, which has a history of difficulty. In 2000 the school developed a new MALT plan which outlines student performance targets that are aligned to District Office Student Achievement Levels. In the lower school, student access to computers is on a 1:5 ratio, which reduces to 1:2 in the upper school. All classrooms have access to a server with educational materials, and upper school students have extensive internet access.
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Funding and resource issues As mentioned earlier, the school uses its targeted funding to top up CDEP salaries and employ Aboriginal people, particularly as teacher aides and community liaison staff.
The future? Cherbourg is a school in the process of self-improvement. For the Indigenous people interviewed, it offers real hope for the community: In five years time, these kids will be fine. They’ll be better educated, and have more confidence in themselves. There’s more community involvement than before. And the contact with Murgon High School is positive. We feel very proud having an Indigenous person leading us. There have been big changes since …[the Principal] has been here. We’ve cleaned up the garden. There’s less graffiti and windows broken. Kids appreciate the school more now. They have a sense of pride. The Principal’s response is important to note: I could facilitate changes because of what was here already. I trusted what was here already and opened up more opportunities. I gave it value, and brought in community values as part of the establishment. Being Aboriginal is truly a great thing and you don’t have to be stuck at the bottom. The strong vision of a positive Aboriginal identity coupled with achievement is driving a change process which has brought visible results in Cherbourg State School and its relationship with its community. Sustaining this and strengthening the curriculum are the challenges with which it is now engaging.
Specific recommendations • ESL classification for Indigenous community schools • More help with teaching SAE in schools where the entire population speaks a different English and there is no commonly agreed upon Indigenous language for the school to promote
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MITCHELL KINDERGARTEN AND CRECHE The township of Mitchell is located in the Darling Downs region of Queensland and has a current population of approximately 1200 people. The Mitchell Kindergarten and Creche was established in 1976 through resources donated by the Save the Children Fund to establish a playgroup for Aboriginal children. In 1977, it commenced as a kindergarten that was open to all children living in the district with further funding from the Save the Children Fund and guidance and support from Creche and Kindergarten Association Queensland. Today, the operation of the Mitchell Kindergarten and Creche is managed through funding from the Commonwealth Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA) with additional funding being sourced from Creche and Kindergarten Association Queensland.
Specific local and regional issues The Gunggari Land Council has lodged a Native Title claim for land that surrounds Mitchell. Included within this claim are areas known as the Top Yamba and Bottom Yamba. Both were areas where people lived. The bottom Yamba was a reservation up until 1967 when the area was bulldozed. Older Indigenous people look back at the times they lived at the Bottom Yamba with a great sense of nostalgia, despite the fact that there was no electricity or running water in the community. “We had a stronger sense of community when we were there – all that has been lost.” “They were the best days!” Part of the nostalgia relates to the sense of community, others highlighted the full employment that was evident at that time with stock and station work, saw mill and domestic work all being sources of employment. In addition to the Land Council, the Nalingu Aboriginal Corporation is active within the Mitchell Community, raising issues of cultural and heritage importance and coordinating NAIDOC Week activities within the town.
Demographics The Mitchell Kindergarten and Creche has an enrolment of 15 children within an age range of three to five years. The majority of the children are three years of age and attend ‘Kindy’ prior to going to pre school and then on to school. Eight of the children attending the Kindergarten have an Indigenous background. Five children were in attendance on the day of our interview. Sessions operate from 9.30 am until 12.00 pm each day at a cost of $3.00 per child per session.
Community input The Kindergarten and Creche has a Committee of Management that meets on a monthly basis. The Committee is responsible for: • selecting and appointing the Kindergarten Director and Assistant; • buildings and resources maintenance; and • community activities and fundraising. The Kindergarten was originally established as a service to Indigenous families, and this background is still evident within the constitution of the Committee of Management that still requires that at least 50 percent of its membership are Indigenous.
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The Kindergarten retains a strong relationship with its community through newsletters, family days and special activities and celebrations during NAIDOC Week and other community events.
Approach to Indigenous education As English is the language of homes, the community and the Kindergarten, there are no particular language issues for the Indigenous children it enrols. 6 Instead, the Kindergarten retains a focus on developing social and pre literacy readiness for pre school and school. The promotion of Indigenous culture is highly apparent in the Kindergarten through the murals that are featured as part of the main building, stories and songs that are provided for the children and regular cultural activities, particularly during NAIDOC Week.
Approaches to language and literacy education The children are involved in a range of pre-literacy activities including songs, stories, puzzles and matching/sorting activities. Other areas of major emphasis of activity within the Kindergarten program relate to the development of: • social skills as precursors to schooling: • playing together, taking turns and sharing; • fine motor coordination skills: • finger painting, drawing and using scissors. Programming remains the responsibility of the Kindergarten Director who receives guidance and support from: • the Creche and Kindergarten Association of Australia based in Toowoomba; • licensing, programming and professional development activities; • Tropical North Queensland Institute of TAFE, through which the Director is currently undertaking a Certificate 3 in Education. In order to gain the position of Director of the Kindergarten, the Committee of Management requires a qualification in education or for the person to be engaged in study in education. The current Director has completed Language and Literacy Certificate 3 through the Remote Area Teacher Education Program (RATEP) and is currently studying a General Certificate in education at Level 3. Support is delivered through a weekly telephone conference and a fortnightly visit from a tutor based in St George.
Relationship of language education to overall curriculum structure The Director does not offer any specialised language or literacy activities for the Indigenous children, as she believes their English is quite strong. This understanding was reinforced through discussions with community and school representatives. “English is used in the homes and in the community, when our kids start to fail you have to look for other reasons not language problems” 6
The Kindergarten has no knowledge of the extent to which the English spoken at home is Standard Australian English in contrast to Aboriginal English.
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Language education program implementation issues Within the Indigenous community of Mitchell, there is a strong drive to resurrect local Indigenous languages. Historically, the extent of Indigenous language tuition has been limited to whatever has been passed down informally from one generation to the next in the home and visits by elders to the school during NAIDOC Week. The drive to resurrect local Indigenous languages exists on two fronts. Firstly, within the broader community, a Language Access Worker has been appointed to the town Library. This person has the responsibility to coordinate community language activity and work with linguists to tape and document local languages. Secondly, there is a strong interest in offering Indigenous language as an alternative Language other than English (LOTE) to Japanese in the Mitchell School. Where Indigenous language activities have been provided in the school in the past, they have proven to be very popular with both Indigenous and non Indigenous students, particularly on field trips in search of bush tucker. “Most kids are right into the language activities, they really enjoy it and get a lot from it” Although Gunggai is the main language group, others such as Bidjara, Kooma, Kunja and Mandananji are represented in the town. As a result, these groups carry an expectation that all languages will be covered as part of the LOTE program. This represents one of the major issues in moving from an ad hoc program to a fully functional LOTE program being delivered in the school. The other major issue relates to resourcing – accessing and funding a qualified person to deliver the LOTE within the existing resource structure of the school.
Funding and resource issues Apart from a small annual grant from Queensland Creche and Kindergarten Association, most of the funding is delivered to the Mitchell Kindergarten and Creche via the Commonwealth and is based on a census that is forwarded to DETYA in August each year. The census of existing enrolment then determines the level of funding for the following year. The Committee of Management expressed some frustration with this system as invariably enrolments in one year do not correlate with actual enrolments in the next. For example, the census in August 2000 indicated an enrolment of 19 children, however this number had reduced to 15 by February 2001. As a result, DETYA requires that funding allocated for the four additional students be returned. Whilst the committee of Management is accepting of this situation, the frustration arises when the reverse situation occurs and no additional funding is forthcoming. On a more positive note, the Committee of Management is appreciative of additional funding that has been received through the Commonwealth and State Literacy and Numeracy initiatives.
Specific recommendations The key recommendation from Mitchell Kindergarten and Creche relates to changing the approach to funding by DETYA to ensure that it correlates with actual enrolments for the current year rather than the current model that is based on retrospective funding from the previous year. In relation to the development of a LOTE program featuring Indigenous languages, stakeholders identify three areas that need to be accommodated in order for a functional program to be established: • community support for program development and implementation; • the provision of a trained teacher to manage program delivery; and
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• funding to support the development of LOTE resources. Stakeholders suggest that, in Mitchell, the provision of a trained teacher is the key factor in moving the development of the program from a vision to a reality, and therefore strongly recommend that the training of Indigenous teachers, or teacher linguists skilled in Indigenous languages, become a priority for Education Queensland.
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MURGON HIGH SCHOOL: CASE STUDY The school in overview Located in the district of South Burnett, Murgon High School is a rural secondary school which draws students from primary schools in Murgon, Cherbourg, Wondai and Kilkivan. A number of students travel for up to an hour from surrounding towns such as Proston. South Burnett is an area of low income and high unemployment, and the school principal wishes to align the school with the Council’s Economic Development Strategy (2001). The intention is to support the development of an entrepreneurial environment in the community with the purpose of strengthening future possibilities for Murgon High School students. The school attempts to cater for different student needs through offering a strong vocational curriculum alongside its university-oriented academic program, through its Workplace Committee activities and through the two alternative education programs it offers with the Edmund Rice Foundation targeting at risk Indigenous youth.
The students in overview The school has 362 students, 122 of whom are Indigenous. The students come from rural backgrounds, and many travel from some distance away particularly for Years 11 and 12. The school leadership and P&C, together with EQ, is currently analysing what happens to school leavers and working out strategic directions for the school. Approximately 45% of students, many of them Aboriginal, have specific learning needs, and 13 students are ascertained for disabilities. The retention rate of Indigenous students through to Year 12 has been identified as an issue of concern. Of those who do stay to Year 12, almost none do BSSSS subjects to achieve OP scores. The leadership of the school expressed awareness that Indigenous students may struggle in the transition from all-Indigenous to mixed classes, and also with the greater levels of autonomy and moving from class to class in the high school structure. To address this, it has introduced a ‘Transitions’ program to work with Year 7 and 8 students, and is also building relationships with primary schools, particularly Cherbourg in this regard. However, literacy problems are not only experienced by Aboriginal students. In the words of the principal: There are literacy problems among white kids, but there isn’t the support for them that there is for Indigenous kids... The type of industries in the area haven’t needed a high literacy component and therefore it’s not valued by some parents. They don’t read to their kids, or explore reading and language.
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The staff in overview Murgon High School employs 28 full-time equivalent teachers, and 38 non-teaching staff. It has one Indigenous teacher, two Indigenous teacher aides and an Indigenous community education counsellor. Its outreach programs involve greater numbers of Indigenous people. According to the deputy principal, ‘It’s difficult to get Indigenous staff. We advertise and ask but have a lot of trouble.’ The school has a low staff turnover and a number of staff have been there for many years. In the deputy principal’s view, ‘Most people on three year contracts stay on if they get past the first year’. The school employs teacher aides in most classes where possible, and particularly in the core subjects in Years 8 and 9. One reason for this is to offer Indigenous students opportunities to build closer relationships with a teacher or teacher aide. The belief that building relationships is important for Indigenous students in particular was mentioned several times by the school’s leadership.
Community relationships The school does not currently have a council but does have a P&C; ‘We were drawing largely on the same people’ (deputy principal). There is an active Ladies Auxiliary which does a lot of work. As part of its concern to build future possibilities for its students, the school has a Workplace Committee with membership from the community, local businesses and TAFE, and a full time workplace co-ordinator. Where possible, the school favours community service as an alternative to suspension, and a number of community members mentor students. Involvement of Indigenous parents from both Murgon and Cherbourg is low. In the words of an HOD, ‘We try to get Murgon and Cherbourg communities together where possible— but there’s not a great deal of communication.’ As mentioned earlier, Murgon High School runs two alternative education programs together with the Edmund Rice Foundation, supported by seed funding from DETYA. • ‘Future Options’ targets students at Grade 8 level who are identified by factors such as poor attendance together with poor literacy and numeracy, ‘social company factors and attitude’, and juvenile records. There are currently 15 students from Cherbourg on the program. The program runs off-campus for two days a week, and includes work activities in Kingaroy, literacy, numeracy and computer skills. The assumption is that on the other days, students attend school, though this is not always the case in practice. The goal is for students to exit the program able to move back in formal education at school or TAFE. • ‘Outreach’ began through the Edmund Rice Foundation, working with boys from juvenile justice who expressed an interest in education. It caters for 25 boys and 25 girls in the 14 to 22 age group. It runs programs on literacy, numeracy, and computer skills, combined with other activities of student interest, preferably linked to TAFE, for example in areas such as hospitality, sport and recreation. In the view of the principal, ‘The only rules are that kids are safe and not under the
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influence to attend class. It’s having a big role in turning those kids around. The target group in future will be kids dropping out at year 10.’ The leadership of the school views these alternative programs as an important part of the school’s activities, but is aware of their vulnerability. DETYA funding is not ongoing, and without the volunteers, financial and institutional support of the Edmund Rice Foundation, the programs would not be able to operate.
Approach to Indigenous education The school runs Cultural Studies with an Aboriginal teacher as part of its ‘Transitions’ program in Year 8. Beyond that, Indigenous students are supported in literacy and in alternative programs. When the BSSSS developed a subject in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies, the school was accepted into the pilot. However, student interest was low: with only two applicants, the school was unable to staff the subject.
Language policies and provisions for LOTE Currently, Murgon High School does not have a major LOTE offering. One reason for this is because its small feeder schools do not offer LOTE; another reason is the difficulties it experienced previously in offering German as LOTE. There is some exposure to Japanese as a ‘language of trade’ LOTE in the Year 8 program, and LOTE is still under consideration. As mentioned earlier, the school has a number of students who experience problems with literacy. Its current approach is to identify Year 8 students considered to be at risk, and work with them on a one to one basis in a tutoring program. In the words of the deputy principal, Previously, we didn’t withdraw kids. Now we’re going ‘back to basics’. Instead of going to English they go to a tutor. This program helps about 14 students. We’ve done lots of everything else so now we’re experimenting with this approach—back to phonics. The relationship between tutor and student is crucial. We have tutors in the core subjects in Years 8 to10 and in many other classes. A number of teachers spoken to were somewhat despondent about lack of student motivation, about subject teachers not really feeling competent to teach literacy and numeracy. As one stated, We’re trying to teach subjects to kids who can’t read. High school teachers aren’t trained to teach reading, let alone ESL. People are willing, but don’t know what to do.
Overall curriculum structure Following on a whole school curriculum review, Murgon High School has recently implemented curriculum changes in order to cover all KLAs in Years 8 and 9. It is considering moving Years 8 and 9 towards middle schooling. Along with this, there is timetable allowance for a subject called ‘Transitions’ to work with Year 7 students in feeder schools to bring them into Year 8 as smoothly as possible. The idea is that Year 10 would be used in different ways: ‘For those who haven’t achieved KLA outcomes, we do 72
them again in another way. Those who have achieved start Year 11 work.’ (HOD) The use of Core Tasks and Extension Tasks in Humanities enables differentiation within the junior part of the school. In Years 11 and 12, mainstream-type university preparation subjects are offered, sometimes in combined Year 11/12 classes and through Distance Education, which is currently the case with Economics. The school also has a strong vocational education curriculum and has achieved awards in vocational education. The goal is, according to one of the HODs, that ‘As far as possible, for every university preparation subject, there’s a vocational education program.’ Vocational offerings include Agricultural and Horticultural Studies, Business Studies, Hospitality, Trade and Business Mathematics, and Manual Arts. Vocational Art will be introduced in 2002. One of the school’s achievements has been its ‘M Struct’ program, where the Manual Arts curriculum is run as a business. About 30-40 students undertake building projects around the school, going through the process from quoting to construction. This has been important in developing skills as well as self-esteem. The majority of senior students opt for Board registered studies with associated workplace learning, with about two thirds of students including at least one vocational subject in their Year 11 and 12 studies. As its behaviour management strategy, the school has developed the ‘Responsible thinking classroom’ (RTC) approach based on the work of Ford. As described by the HOD responsible for this, The idea is that the classroom is only for kids who want to be there. Kids often self-refer to RTC especially if they have a bad night. Part of RTC is to get quality time, closeness with somebody, somebody to care. In her view, Aboriginal students in particular may need support: Some kids don’t know where they’ll sleep tonight, whether there will be food. This is widespread.
Funding and resource issues As mentioned earlier, Murgon High School runs its alternative programs with seed funding from DETYA and with support from Edmund Rice. Without this, leadership of the school fears that running the programs would not be possible.
Specific recommendations • Funding is needed to continue with alternative education programs that suit at risk Indigenous students. This needs to go beyond short term seeding funds. • In schools with high Indigenous student numbers, the ratio of staff to students needs to be lower. • More assistance with strategies about what to do with students who have poor literacy and numeracy levels, particularly since most teachers are subject teachers who don’t know how to teach literacy and numeracy.
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• More specific support is needed, including staffing provision, in the area of ESL. • Overall policies which allow flexibility at school and community level are needed. A staff who had been teaching for some time expressed a degree of pessimism with the current IECB research projects, which evoked support from her colleagues: We’ve had these things before and nothing comes of them.
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ST GEORGE STATE HIGH SCHOOL St George is located in the Darling Downs Region and has a population of approximately 2500 people.
Specific local and regional issues The Kamilaroi Land Council is the peak Indigenous body in the St George district. The Land Council covers an area that crosses New South Wales and Queensland state boundaries and includes regional centres such as Gunnedah, Tamworth, Moree and St George. Currently, there are no land claims being raised by the Kamilaroi Land Council. Whilst the elders of the Indigenous Community are reported to be quite strong, it is the youth within the community that are regarded as being of ‘high risk’. The school has submitted a proposal to the Department of Employment and Training (DET) as part of the Balonne Further Education and Training Group Inc. to establish a vocational education and training Skills Centre at the school. The application has been developed in association with the Kamilaroi Employment Aboriginal Corporation (KEAC) which is a local training provider offering literacy and numeracy to vocational education and training students as required, as well as traditional Aboriginal arts and crafts. However, KEAC does not have the resources in terms of both personnel or facilities to offer training in areas of high demand, as determined through a survey of employers such as First Aid, Basic and General Mechanics, Communication skills, Computer skills, Occupational Health and Safety in Cotton Ginning and Diesel Mechanics. The school argues in its application that training needs in the district are not being met through existing services, and the costs associated with block release programs and travel lessen the likelihood of Indigenous students participating in training. Another important aspect of the proposal relates to the creation of business opportunities through the operation of a Business Development Unit within the centre. “Culturally inappropriate training strategies will be redressed in the Centre with the assistance of KEAC and other volunteer tutors from the Remote Area Teacher Program (RATEP), and the Business Development Unit will provide entry into sustainable employment or small business opportunities for students.”
Demographics The St George High School has a student population of 210 students, with approximately 40 students in each year level 8 – 12. The school has approximately 30 teaching staff, with a similar number of non teaching staff. Staff turnover is at around 10 to15 percent per annum, with four new teachers being employed in 2001. Student retention is quite high, although there is attrition of students with behavioural difficulties throughout the year. In excess of 90 percent of the school’s behavioural problems are reported to be with Indigenous students. The school employs a number of teacher aides and brings additional staff into classrooms through Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Program (IESIP) funding and Community Employment Development Program (CEDP) funding.
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Community input into schooling St George High School retains a strong relationship with its community through the formal functions of the School Council and Parents and Citizens Association, as well as informally through newsletters and special events such sports days and fundraising activities. The relationship with the Indigenous community is facilitated through the auspice of a Community Education Committee (CEC) position and an Aboriginal Student Support and Parent Awareness (ASSPA) Committee. The ASSPA Committee has a nominated representative on the school council, although the person currently filling this position finds attendance at school council meetings to be a highly challenging experience and involvement, therefore, is irregular. Additional activities include a community ‘Partnership for success’ project and a ‘Living Involves Families Encouraging (LIFE) program’ for Indigenous youth at risk. The LIFE program involves a partnership with Education Queensland, Department of Families, youth and Community Care and Queensland Health (Roma District) supporting the social and education growth of families of students at risk. The program has specific links with the Mitchell Outstation Project that supports Aboriginal students at risk of leaving the education system before their 12 years of schooling.
Approach to Indigenous education Attendance represents a key issue for Indigenous students. The school is somewhat ambivalent in relation to this issue as it stresses the importance of regular attendance yet remains supportive of student involvement in family activities. Major family activities, deaths or the involvement of siblings in sporting activities outside of school often leads to withdrawal from the school program. High levels of absenteeism have a tendency to manifest as low levels of school achievement and contribute to behavioural difficulties. That is, as a result of regular absenteeism, students miss significant chunks of the teaching and learning experienced by their peers that, in turn, contributes to behavioural problems as the class programs have little relevance, leading to disengagement and dysfunctional behaviour. The school is conscious of a pattern of behaviour breakdown that starts with suspensions and ultimately leads to exclusions. Alternative approaches have been implemented in an effort to retain students within education programs. This includes the use of community resources such as Youth Advisory (Centrelink) tutors to work in 1:1 programs with students and a mix of school, training and work placements for other students. The school has introduced Aboriginal Studies as an elective subject for students in Years 9 and 10. Eight students are currently enrolled in the subject that is delivered by the school’s CEC. The program revolves around discussion and hands on activity – little use is made of text-based teaching and learning. For example, discussion of Aboriginal symbols has led to the development of dot paintings and a flat sculpture that is featured at the entrance to the school. Health issues and bush tucker are planned as future program activities, with community elders becoming integral to program delivery. The program has led to improved attendance for the students involved with examples of two days per week transforming to four or five days being cited.
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“The kids really enjoy the program, it gives them a chance to explore their language and their cultural identity. They feel valued for what they are able to contribute.”
Approach to language and literacy education The school places a concerted effort into addressing the literacy needs of students in Year 8 through the deployment of two learning support teachers. For students in Year 8, these teachers offer classroom support as well as small group withdrawal programs. Programs are developed through consultation with class teachers, and parent permission is sought before support is initiated. A major emphasis within the withdrawal program is directed towards literacy activities. “The kids we work with seem to have a greater difficulty with written work and reading for information.” The small group withdrawal option has been determined through the recent experience of the teachers involved. Indigenous students can experience a sense of shame when they are singled out for special assistance within the classroom and are often uncomfortable with 1:1 withdrawal. Small group withdrawal has therefore proven to be the most constructive means of providing assistance to needy students. For other year levels scaffolding, modified programs and assistance from aides and support readers are a means by which Indigenous students receive additional support. Where scaffolding is offered, learning support teachers or teacher aides assist with breaking tasks down, assist with locating resources and provide reading support to enable information to be gathered. Learning support teachers also provide advice to their colleagues on the development of inclusive curriculum and strategies to engage Indigenous students in teaching and learning programs.
Relationship of language education to overall curriculum structure The school has developed an integrated approach to curriculum delivery for students in Years 8 and 9. Two full time teachers and one part time teacher work with the students across the full spectrum of the curriculum. This minimises disruptions and movement from one class to another. “Its more like primary school than secondary school.” Units of work are organised around a particular theme that ‘integrates’ teaching and learning across a number of subject areas. For example, the most recent theme, ‘Sustainable land use in the Ballone Shire’, involved activity across Science, Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE) and some English genres culminating in a ‘rich task activity’ along the lines of the requirements of New Basics. Teachers stress that the integration of subjects only occurs where the linkages are highly apparent and complementary. Where this is not the case, for subjects in Mathematics and some genres in English, subjects are taught in stand-alone format. The school believes that by organising Years 8 and 9 in this manner it provides a highly motivational and supportive environment for students coming into the school that is reflected in high levels of achievement.
Language education program implementation issues Within the school, there is a consciousness of Aboriginal English as a distinct means of communication, however, this understanding appears to come from experience and
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interaction with students over time rather than specific training in the language of Indigenous students. That is, although teachers receive regular cultural awareness briefings, particularly new teachers to the school, this does not appear to include professional development related to the use of language by Indigenous students. “I just assumed that when they come here [Indigenous students come to school] that they just speak English [SAE] at home.” “When you hear Aboriginal students speak it sounds like English but it is more haphazard.” “We get used to the way the kids speak, so it doesn’t come across to us as something different.” “Code switching is something that kids seem to do intuitively.” Beginning teachers at the school stressed the absence of teaching strategies for working in schools with high proportions of Indigenous students in pre service training. “I learnt a lot about Indigenous issues at Uni, but nothing about how to teach Aboriginal students”. Similarly, induction of beginning teachers does not encompass teaching strategies that may be more effective with Indigenous students. “I learnt the hard way that you don’t ask Aboriginal kids to make presentations to the rest of the class – there is too much shame in that – they don’t like it.” Where Indigenous students access learning support programs, no distinction is made between learning difficulties associated with language and learning difficulties associated with gaps in learning that may have arisen for other reasons such as absenteeism. Appraisement processes and records passed on from primary school do not draw this distinction. There is little knowledge of the extent of SAE spoken at home and, as Indigenous families are often uncomfortable with meetings at school, teachers are unable to gain these insights through parent teacher interviews. Intuitively, the school believes that, where learning difficulties are apparent, they are more likely to be linked to factors such as absenteeism, family breakdown or substance abuse within the family rather than difficulties associated with language. “We don’t know the causes of learning difficulties, or focus is on meeting the needs that present to us.” Students in Years 11 and 12 are compulsorily required to undertake studies in English. However, unlike other year levels, these students are able to choose between standard English, which focuses on literature and uses essays as the major form of assessment, and English Communication, which focuses on the functionality of English as a means of communication and uses competency standards as the means of assessment. Given the choice, most Indigenous students would elect not to enrol in either subject, however, given that participation in an English subject is compulsory, most opt for English Communication. This subject is deemed to be more flexible, particularly in the area of assessment where competency related work completed, rather than passing or failing with a given mark, is the basis for measuring achievement. Despite this flexibility and the
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practical nature of the content in English Communication, teachers report that Indigenous students do not enjoy the subject, see little relevance in its content and are rarely ‘engaged’ in the teaching and learning within English Communication classes. “It points to the need for a third strand of English, one that focuses on English from and Indigenous perspective, highlighting culture and language and assessing kids in ways that they can demonstrate what they learn.” To a limited extent, choice also exists in relation to LOTE. The school has a policy that enables Indigenous students to withdraw form LOTE (French) classes where they may be experiencing learning difficulties in LOTE or other classes. Where this occurs, alternative classes are offered in literacy and numeracy as well as ‘Life Skills’ programs.
Assessment and reporting Where assessment processes require oral presentations, teachers of Indigenous students in Years 8-10 will often accommodate student anxiety 7 by offering alternatives such as presentations to a small group of friends at lunch time rather than the whole class. “The Murri kids often fail because of the mode of assessment. They can sit and tell you orally what is required, but can’t write it in ‘correct’ English or present it to a whole class.” As students progress to higher year levels, this flexibility tends to diminish. Indigenous students are often disenfranchised from assessment processes because of the way in which presentations may be marked. This is particularly the case where entertaining and informing an audience carries the same weight in marking as the actual content of what is delivered. Equally, students are routinely marked down in moderation processes that require work samples to be assessed against state-wide samples. In these instances, Aboriginal English predicates a reduction in marks through its disregard for the conventional grammar of Standard Australian English. Indigenous parents are also unable to engage in the assessment and reporting process through their discomfort with traditional reporting processes. School reports are often inaccessible for people with low levels of literacy, and Indigenous parents find parent teacher interviews a disconcerting process and, as a result, choose not to attend.
Funding and resources issues St George High School makes use of funding resources, both State and Commonwealth, in order to maximise the human resources available to the school. By working in partnership with other agencies such as KEAC, the school is able to build a strong case for additional resources to be based at the school. This is the basis by which the application for the Skills Centre has been developed, and the school is confident that approval funding will become available in the imminent future.
Specific recommendations Aboriginal English Where students with an Indigenous background are located in sufficient numbers to form class groupings, an opportunity exits to offer these students an English elective subject that 7
Related to shame associated with an individual presentation to the whole class.
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has the content, mode of delivery and approaches to assessment that will engage students in the learning process. “We have specialised areas in Mathematics, and Sciences why can’t we have specialised offerings in English?” It is envisaged that all students would be eligible to participate in the subject with the content focussing on Indigenous culture and establishing the links between Aboriginal English and Standard Australian English. The subject could also build on the competencybased mode of assessment that is evident in English Communication.
Teacher training, induction and professional development Beginning teachers at St George stressed their lack of preparedness in catering for the learning of students with an Indigenous background. Though appreciative of the cultural awareness elements of induction and professional development activities, they made strong recommendations regarding the need to enhance pre-service training, induction and ongoing professional development to ensure they retain the necessary skills and methodologies to engage students in the learning process.
St George High School is fortunate in having a CEC with an Indigenous background deployed at the school to service this need. However, teachers were of the view that they should not be dependent on such an appointment and recommended that a more detailed approach, at both a school and systemic level, was required to ensure all teachers have the knowledge and skills to engage and sustain Indigenous students in their schooling.
Assessment and reporting processes The adaptations that teachers make to assessment processes for students in Years 8 – 10 in order to accommodate their learning needs are, at present, not able to be carried forward into the final years of schooling. Teachers stress that this is a significant factor in Indigenous students withdrawing from schooling. Whilst the maintenance of rigour and validity remains unquestioned, teachers recommend that alternative approaches to assessment need to be developed.
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ST JAMES COLLEGE The school in overview Located in inner city Brisbane, St James College is a Catholic school which has undergone significant change in the last decade. Symbolically, the 125 year old Christian Brothers School closed down in 1993 and opened in 1994 as St James Practical Education. From an all boys school with declining enrolments, low achievement levels, a traditional academic curriculum, and deteriorating premises, the school has become coeducational, with viable enrolments and results, a modular curriculum which includes both academic and vocational subjects, and well-maintained facilities. Assisted by an external review and a continuing Action Research process, a raft of changes has been worked through the school over a period of time, with the result that it has a focused ‘Brief’ and a range of processes, structures and strategies to give expression to this. St James College calls itself ‘a post-primary co-educational learning facility’ rather than simply a school, and it aims to provide a flexible program for a wide range of students, particularly those who are socially disadvantaged. Among the envisaged clientele are students with English language needs as well as students who would benefit from a ‘second chance’ in a different educational environment. The school views itself as grounded in Christian values and concerned with the personal development of students. Its counselling and support programs, which operate alongside and within the traditional curriculum, aim to build student responsibility for their own learning.
The students in overview The school has 420 students from suburbs across Brisbane, some of whom travel a considerable distance. It has 37 Indigenous students, with 8 coming from the Torres Strait and many coming from other islands, making it one of the largest Indigenous student populations in Queensland Catholic schools. There are a number of different ‘target groups’ that the school caters to in its curriculum and support systems: Indigenous, Literacy and Numeracy Needs, Special Needs, English Second Language, and Full Fee Overseas Students. About 60% of students do vocational education in the post-compulsory years. One of the challenges the school faces is to continue to attract students to its academic curriculum, so that it maintains a balance between academic and vocational. Another challenge is to balance attracting students with special needs of various sorts, as well as attracting ‘mainstream’ students. The retention rate of Indigenous students is considered high, and certainly no worse than other students. Indigenous student attendance rates are also good. According to one of the Indigenous staff members: [The school] has a good record of students going through to Year 12. Those who come in Year 8 tend to go through to Year 12. At least some go through. When they leave here, they go to TAFE, the workplace etc., apprenticeships, including school-based apprenticeships. One or two fall through the net, but there is hope when they leave here for what they can do.
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In the words of the Acting Principal, ‘Once they’re here, they’re fairly consistent. This is partly the nature of the school, plus the pastoral care for Indigenous students’. Students speak a ‘light’ form of Aboriginal English, and any who need support in Standard Australian English are catered for along with other students in the school’s literacy and ESL programs. As observed by one of the Indigenous staff members: Kids speak Aboriginal English outside, in the playground, when they want to communicate with themselves. Most have enough command of SAE. Some speak it well but can’t write it. Others do have difficulties. Some have problems anyhow. The school does pick this up for example through tests and the monitoring system. The school does address this through modified programs. According to an Acting Deputy Principal, ‘We enter and exit 100 kids every year’. About 80% of new students enter in Year 8; the rest enter at other levels. In her words, ‘We aren’t a school of first choice for a lot of people. We get students who don’t fit the mould, who the traditional education system has failed.’ The school embraces this as a positive part of its identity: We offer opportunities to succeed. Our structures don’t mitigate against people entering the school….We have a wide spectrum of students, and some don’t come with good reputations in terms of attendance and behaviour. They come with a clean slate. They know the rules of the school and that if they don’t follow them they won’t be able to stay. But we tailor the program for the student. How they begin their journey from there and move on [is up to them]. Most do take the opportunity.
The staff in overview St James has 43 teaching staff, including 5 teacher aides. The Catholic Education Office provides a staff member for 10 hours a week for ESL and also assists financially with two Indigenous pastoral support coordinators who do a range of work with students including personal counselling. One is employed by the CEO as a Participation Officer, and based at the school. The other is employed by the school and funded by the CEO to liaise with families as well as students and teachers, and provide cultural support for Indigenous students. Staff turnover fluctuates, but there is a stable core of committed teachers. Employing staff who fit the vision of the school is important, and staff whose approach to curriculum and students is not compatible with the school’s Brief have tended to leave.
Approach to Indigenous education The school does not offer a special curriculum for Indigenous students, and picks up Indigenous students with specific needs in its broader support programs. The school’s approach is to link personal development with academic support. In the words of the acting principal, ‘A key aspect here is that for kids to [be able to] access the study program, they have to feel good about themselves and the place. The culture of the school is really important…. The two must merge.’ That said, the school leadership places particular importance on supporting Indigenous identity. There are two Indigenous staff members whose job is to provide personal and
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academic support to Indigenous students, and they and their work were mentioned with respect by all of the staff we interviewed. One of pastoral coordinators, a mature-age Indigenous man, described his role as follows: I deal with students at school, also teachers and parents. I’m working on building relationships s between the three groups. Parents have a high degree of trust in me, know I have the best interests of their kids at heart. I start with the children. St James has a proactive leadership team with a strong sense of social justice. Because of that, there’s a lot of positive outcomes. This staff member is available to Indigenous students throughout the school day, and is available to meet with parents when they come to the school. He and the other pastoral support worker run an after-school homework club where three or four volunteer teachers work with students, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. On Mondays and Tuesdays, he drives some of the Indigenous students home: It amazes me that the kids, where they are, sometimes have to travel an hour. I drive to Ipswich, Acacia Ridge, Inala, Pinkenbah. I don’t get home until 8 or 9 on Mondays and Tuesdays. I enjoy it, it builds relationships, it tells the community that we care for and look after the students. This staff member has clear sense of the day-to-day lives of Indigenous students in present day Brisbane, their living circumstances, and what the community patterns are in terms of employment, income and family structures. He views building a positive identity as crucial, and responded as follows to the question of ‘What makes a difference for Aboriginal kids?’ If kids are happy, and can easily identify from a cultural point of view, that gives an identity. [You build on] self esteem, values, spirituality, a base of any sort. Where there’s … a sense of identity, self-worth and values, you build from that base. You don’t present archaic pictures of Aboriginal culture that [people] don’t value. This staff member spoke clearly about the importance of the school valuing Indigenous students: The school really does value individuals and their cultural backgrounds, and gives everyone a fair go. Everyone here is given opportunity to experience some level of support. There are academic choices, sporting choices, social and spiritual development. Kids may come with behaviour problems, but we work with that and we’ve seen dramatic changes. Kids know who they are and are valued here…. There’s always an opportunity for some measure of success so they don’t feel valueless. This isn’t the case at all schools. As a recommendation for Indigenous education more broadly, this man’s view was clear: I’d recommend that in every school in Australia there be some Indigenous person on staff for students to identify with, relate to, in their identity process.
Language policies and provisions for LOTE According to its Brief, St James specifically caters for students ‘who would be advantaged by specialist English language courses’ and those who ‘wish to upgrade their skills in literacy and numeracy’. It also has a number of full fee paying overseas students (FFPOS).
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A Head of Department (Teaching and Learning Support) has the brief of overseeing the different target groups in the school. There is a co-ordinator for ESL who works for ten hours a week, and another co-ordinator for FFPOS. The school puts extra time into English teaching and the HOD for Teaching and Learning Support relies on English teachers to get an idea of student difficulties. In Year 8, students have one teacher for English, and this helps with identifying needs. Usually by the end of Year 10, every English teacher has taught all of the students and has some knowledge of them. Because the school operates on principles of inclusion, the ESL teacher goes into classrooms rather than pulling students out. She helps teachers to plan and sometimes team teaches alongside them. By being in classrooms she is able to identify needs as they arise, and she also responds to requests for assistance from teachers. The view of the school is that a lot of ESL approaches are good for all students, and should be used by all teachers. As the ESL teacher stated: A lot of what I do boils down to just good teaching techniques anyway. Starting with the known, deconstructing and looking at language features, modelling, then do it together, then go away and do it yourselves. These strategies must be shared with other teachers and used by everyone as much as possible. As well as working with teachers, the ESL teacher also runs a parallel English class in Years 9-10 for students who need ESL. This is fairly straightforward to arrange because of the modular structure of the curriculum. The class targets students who speak a range of different languages at home, and includes some Islander students. Selection for the class is based on enrolment information as well as Year 8 results. There are no specific language interventions for Aboriginal students. The ESL teacher commented that ‘There are some Aboriginal students I’d like to extend my time to, but in this school we’re so aware of different needs kids have, so it’s less of a problem.’ A number of staff mentioned that since the Aboriginal students are fairly urban, their Aboriginal English is not a strong version, and most seem ‘good enough at SAE’. The ESL teacher generally spends Mondays in Year 10, and is able to give personal attention to students: I tend to know the kids in the class well, and if they have anything in another subject that will be hard for them, I take them aside at lunchtime and go through things. Sometimes I know that science will be hard this term. But I don’t always know. The ESL teacher feels positive about her work in the school, saying ‘Teachers here are fabulous. They’ll do everything that works, and pick up all the good ideas …. They’re generally positive about [my role] and generally appreciative.’ Her only frustration is her time allocation of ten hours. Her sense is that while the number of students needing ESL support is not declining, her time gets whittled down as ESL is absorbed into general literacy. Nonetheless, her view is that the ESL strategy of the school is working.
Overall curriculum structure St James runs a modular curriculum with mixed classes where students of different levels are in the same class, working at different outcomes based levels. This together with 84
inclusive classrooms requires different teaching strategies from staff, including greater use of group and individual work, and less whole class work. The school believes that taking students out of lockstep age cohorts gives greater flexibility to students and allows them to build individual programs to suit their strengths and interests. The compulsory phase begins with a core program in the first semester of Year 8, which touches on all of the 8 programs in the school. From second semester, students choose stand-alone modules, doing 6 modules a term for 10 terms in Years 8 to 10. There is a compulsory requirement that every student does language, numeracy and faith and personal development every term, and it is compulsory to do a science and a SOSE module every semester. Each of these areas offers a number of different elective modules, and students are assisted to develop individual education plans which reflect their choices. The school issues a Year 10 certificate. In the post-compulsory phase, the school provides multiple pathways. Students are encouraged to study towards a BSSSS Senior Certificate through a range of Board Subjects, Board-registered Subjects, and TAFE Approved Courses, and the school also offers its own School Subjects which have school-based certification. Some students choose the route of OP scores; others choose TAFE or VETEC accredited modules as well as Board-registered modules. Industry Placement is provided for students studying industry-linked programs, and this opens access to a number of nationally accredited Certificates. Students are assisted by the careers counsellor, teachers, pastoral coordinators and heads of departments in drawing up individual education plans and working out their own study priorities. Operating a flexible curriculum across the school means having good information about every student, where they are in the curriculum, and how they are progressing. Students are interviewed before they enter the school at Year 8 or later, and special needs are identified. The school asks parents for full disclosure on special needs, on the understanding that applicants will not necessarily be excluded on these grounds. Developing individual education and support plans is mandatory for ascertained students, but is done for other students as well. Information on every student in the school is entered in a data bank to which only HODs have access. The HOD (Teaching and Learning Support) keeps track on all targeted students, identifies their module choices at the start of each semester, and consults with teachers about specific needs. Personal and social development are integral to the curriculum, and the school has clear policies and guidelines for student management. The Acting Deputy Principal articulated her vision of this as follows: Our whole school is organised around empowerment, taking kids on a journey. It’s hard to leave us. We don’t have zero tolerance on drugs, but if they endanger the safety of this school they must leave. We deal with drugs better than other schools. If a student must leave, we try to help them to go somewhere else. For drugs we suspend and investigate. The ‘detectives’ in the school are very good. We believe in relationships, we are in relationship with our students. We encourage teachers to go into the playgrounds, to leave behind the traditional roles of teachers. Our notion is that the behaviour is bad, not the child.
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Community relationships St James profiles itself as being inclusive of different languages and cultures, of different academic and vocational abilities, and of students who have experienced difficulties at other schools, including non-catholic, independent and state schools. Valuing diversity is part of the ethos of the school, as is providing a supportive and personalised environment as a basis for access to the formal curriculum. In a situation where many students have difficult home circumstances and a record of problems, the school aims to build a sense of personal value and responsibility, and achieves what it considers to be a good level of success. As an inner city school, St James draws students from across Brisbane rather than its immediate neighbourhood. It invites parents in for orientation days, barbeques, a multicultural week and multicultural dinners. Its experience is that parents come ‘in force’ for social events, but not for parent-teacher nights. As a school that offers a vocational curriculum and industrial placements, it places importance on building work-related links. Its homework centre provides after hours support for students, and has developed a web project with other schools, including Kuranda and Bamaga. The most significant community-related work of the school is its pastoral care program, with two Indigenous staff devoted to building positive relations with parents, students and staff, and to providing personal and academic support to students. Valuing Indigenous cultures as well as other cultures and building self-esteem are integral to the school’s activities.
Funding and resource issues St James is a fee-based school. However, given its commitment to working with disadvantaged youth, it has many families which receive fee rebates or pay no fees at all (estimated at 35% and 11% respectively in 1999). The school receives support from the Brisbane Catholic Education Office, particularly in terms of staffing for pastoral support, as well as the Christian Brothers and the Edmund Rice Foundation.
Recommendations Two comments by teachers are pertinent here: I’d recommend that in every school in Australia there be some Indigenous person on staff for students to identify with, relate to, in their identity process. In our system here we seem to meet the needs of Indigenous kids.
Concluding comment The Deputy Principal summed up his view of the school’s approach to its students as follows:
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We can’t change society and we can’t change what they’re going to do and where they’re going to go. But we’ve given them the opportunity and they can stay connected to the school…We know that what some of the kids are going through is going to limit their opportunities. The school can do only so much …. We know that learning is lifelong, flexible. Building up self-esteem, providing basic literacy and numeracy, being comfortable at school and happy. Then they might be able to take up an opportunity that comes along later.
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APPENDIX Methods
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Variables involved in the selection of schools for project case studies
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ESL Bandscales: An Overview
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Smarter Use of Ict Technology in Aurukun
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Common Literacy Challenges for Indigenous School Leaders
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Complex School Leadership Challenges at Koolkan Aurukun Community School – Aligning Pedagogic, Linguistic and Community Capacity-Building ..106 Literacy Challenges for A Returning Non-Indigenous School Leader
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Methods The brief from the IECB required the research team to: 1. Conduct interviews and focus group meetings with a variety of stakeholders across all sectors in a minimum of nine sites; 2. Analyse cross sector data including ESL enrolments and distribution and literacy and numeracy outcomes; 3. Develop case studies of a minimum of 9 schools with effective practices; 4. Review sector policies, reports and projects; and 5. Review academic literature. These parameters were approached as follows: 1. Conduct interviews and focus group meetings with a variety of stakeholders across all sectors in a minimum of nine sites The initial selection of research sites was based on the following selection criteria: 1. Their employing authority (Education Qld, Catholic Education, Independent, Creche and Kindergarten Association); 2. Regionality; 3. School size; 4. Percentage of indigenous enrolments; and 5. The predominate language type. On the basis of the above, a provisional selected-site proposal was created. This proposal was influenced by sector contacts and subsequently confirmed with IECB members in order that the selection of schools conformed with sector share and project needs. These prescribed needs initiated the inclusion of a minimum of 9 schools, though this was subsequently increased to 17 schools on the basis of renegotiation of project parameters. Schools which fall under Education Queensland jurisdiction needed to be approved through departmental protocols which included obtaining ‘permission to approach’ documentation before letters of request could be sent to principals across the State. Catholic Education offices in both far North Queensland and Brisbane were approached as independent concerns for approval to research in their schools. Approval to approach, in each case, was granted on the basis that several research indicators had been provided. These included citing of University of Queensland Ethical Approval Protocols and a list of intended questions for interviews and focus groups and for survey in schools and communities. Questions generally focussed on opinions about implementation of LOTE with Indigenous students, clarifying content of policies and programs, use of funding and identifying major issues in policies and school practice.
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2. Analyse cross sector data including ESL enrolments and distribution and literacy and numeracy outcomes Documents from sector contacts and QSCC were considered in conjunction with 1997 Census figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics in order to ascertain the number of self-identified speakers of various language groups. Although inherently inaccurate, this data provided a starting point for quantifying individual language usage and was crosstabulated with other relevant statistics. Use of these data sources enabled the analysis of major trends and issues (e.g., in location and enrolment distributions and student outcomes); the identification of schools with successful student literacy and numeracy outcomes over several years. 3. Develop case studies of a minimum of 9 schools with effective practices For each of the schools visited a structured profile of relevant data was developed. This included data on demographic and programmatic indicators and detailed inclusion of policies and practices. Additionally, edited records of structured data with a variety of stakeholders (e.g., sector contacts, school admin, teachers & community) have been included. Next, analysis and synthesis around major themes was conducted and amalgamated into final case school reports. Each of these was independently cleared with school/community at final draft stage whereupon comments from stakeholders were taken into consideration before drafts were finalised. On advice from IECB members, extra schools in the Torres Strait region were added to the original site schools projections in order that whole State issues were duly represented in the final report. 4.
Review sector policies, reports and projects
A national policy review is included in the appendix. This includes a State-by State (and Territory) breakdown of language policy and is arranged historically to highlight particular trends that have emerged with regard to the degree to which individual regions have focussed on language policy. This involved the analysis and annotation of language approaches and the resulting school practice implications. 5.
Review academic literature
After the development of an initial framework, a review of both domestic and international literature was undertaken in order to select and annotate relevant items. International findings were included to establish the current world views but Australian research, particularly that which has its focus on Indigenous students, schools and communities, was the primary focus. While the academic literature provided the framework, Queensland data has been piecemeal and sporadic.
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Variables involved in the selection of schools for project case studies The original tender specifications for this research project called for a minimum of nine schools serving different communities to be selected across the State. Regarding representation across different schooling systems (State, Catholic, Independent), it was expected that relevant written and oral protocols for entry into schools would be followed. The selected schools were also meant to illustrate a diversity of ESL language challenges and issues. It was expected that UQSE project staff negotiate with the IECB in selecting schools, to both draw on member contacts and expertise and to ensure reasonable coverage of a variety of interests and issues inherent in the project design and specifications. Final authority for agreement to be involved as a case study school in the project rested with the school principal. A variation to the original tender specifications for school selection was agreed to between the IECB and the UQSE in order to include a set of remote Torres Strait island primary schools. Their inclusion was expected to better illustrate school literacy program challenges arising from more complex EFL/ESL/ESD patterns exemplified in these island communities. The following factors were therefore taken into account in the final selection of the case study schools for this project: • Reasonable geographic spread across different regions in Queensland • Reasonable representation across preschool, primary and secondary sectors • Reasonable representation across schooling systems (State, Catholic and Independent) • IECB suggestions for inclusion of specific schools to illustrate particular initiatives or issues • School and/or staff links with UQSE project staff from previous research, consultancy and support initiatives • A consideration of the broad historical and continuing consequences of patterns of contact between Europeans and Indigenous groups connected to specific places (with particular reference to the previous existence of Church mission stations or government ‘collection centres’ and resulting development of ‘community’ schools) • Representation of schools serving communities characterized by complex and diverse patterns in EFL/ESL/ESD language development and use • Original and revised minimum tender specifications related to number and diversity of case studies The resulting 16 case study schools for this project are identified in the Table below, with application of the listed criteria:
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TABLE 1: KEY SELECTION VARIABLES FOR ESL CASE STUDY SCHOOLS School
Thursday Island State School Thursday Island State High School Malu Kiwai State School Mer State School Kubin State School Aurukun State School Weipa North State School Cairns West State School Yarrabah State School Garbutt State School The Marion School
Geographic region
Sector/ Years
Employing system
Torres Strait Is
1-7
State
Torres Strait Is
8-12
State
yes
Torres Strait Is
1-7
State
yes
Torres Strait Is Torres Strait Is Western Cape
1-7 1-7 1-10
State State State
yes yes
Western Cape
1-12
State
yes
Cairns
1-7
State
yes
Cairns
1-12
State
yes
Townsville
1-7
State
yes
Townsville
IECB advice
UQSE links
yes
yes
Catholic
Cherbourg State School Murgon State High School St George State High School Mitchell Creche and Kindergarten St James’ College
South Burnett
1-10
State
South Burnett
8-12
State
South Burnett
8-12
State
South Burnett
Pre-sch
Independent
Brisbane
8-12
Catholic
16 case study schools in total
5 x Torres Str (3xcommunity) 6 x FN/N QLD (2xcommunity) 5 x SEQ (1xcommunity)
1xP x 1-7 x 8-12 x 1-10 x 1-12
13 x State 2 x Catholic 1 x Indept (C&K)
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yes
yes
5 selected on specific IECB advice
7 with previous UQSE links
Main EFL/ESL/ESD/SAE language patterns/mix ESL/ESD, some EFL, SAE ESL/ESD, some EFL, SAE All EFL All EFL All EFL All EFL Most ESD, some ESL, SAE Most ESD, some ESL, SAE Most ESL/ESD mix Most ESD, some ESL, SAE Most ESD, some ESL Most ESD, some ESL Most ESD, some SAE Most ESD, some SAE Most ESD, some SAE Most SAE, some ESD 4 x all EFL 2 x ESL/ESD + EFL & SAE 1 x ESL/ESD mix 3 x ESD + ESL & SAE mix 2 x ESD + ESL 3 x ESD + SAE 1 x SAE + ESD
ESL Bandscales: An Overview Student participation in education is the responsibility of parents, community and the whole school and is best accomplished through effective partnerships between these stakeholders. Teacher consultation revealed that the Year 2 Net device used for reporting to parents did not illustrate the linguistic or literacy gains that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students learning EFL were making. (Turnbull & Hudson, 2001, p.1). In response to these concerns, the Bandscales for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners were designed to monitor language and literacy developments of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students whose home language is not Standard Australian English. Specifically, they have been designed in response to the recommendations from the Review of Education and Employment programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Education Queensland (Hobbs & Murphy,1999) and are intended for use with children who speak a traditional Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander language, a Creole or Aboriginal English. A working party has produced the oral language Bandscales and listening Bandscales for junior primary students. These are currently being used to monitor students’ development for Indigenous language funding in Queensland. The Bandscales are adapted and derived from the original ESL Bandscales in NLLIA (National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia) which monitor the reading, writing, listening and speaking developments of students. They are divided into three sections: junior-primary, middle-upper and secondary. The focus for the Bandscales for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners is the reading and writing development of junior primary students, i.e., students from preschool to year 3. It is important to note that the Bandscales are still under development and subject to ongoing review. They are therefore, not in their final form. They have not been mandated nor are they being widely trailed at present. Mostly, teachers are unaware of them and Education Queensland is reluctant to actively promote them until they have evolved to maturity. The Oral Language Bandscales are currently being used to monitor students’ development for ‘Indigenous language speaking students’ funding, in Queensland. Recommendations from the original working party led to the current adaptation of the Bandscales for Reading and Writing, that is, the Bandscales for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Learners Project. What follows is an overview of the principles that informed the development of the Bandscales and is extracted and abridged from Turnbull & Hudson, 2001. Education Queensland and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are committed to achieving improved educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. To do this, the Bandscales for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Learners Project needed to: • focus on Second Language Acquisition theory research into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language and literacy acquisition sequences; • focus on transparency issues which influence acquisition of English language and literacy; and
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• focus on socio-cultural factors which may influence acquisition of English language and literacy. Second Language Acquisition theory research for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students whose Home Language is a Creole or English dialect is still in its embryonic stage and few published documents are available, especially for Torres Strait Islander students. As such, much field work and advice from a wide range of teachers and academics in the field was essential. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Bandscales Project needed to: • recognise and acknowledge the importance of Home Language; • recognise the social context of the learner groups; • recognise and include EFL learner groups; • recognise what learners can do (e.g., Rich Linguistic experiences –e.g., multilingual students, exposure to multi-lingualism); • stress the key role of the Home Language in the learning • of English; and • recognise that students bring with them a culture which is to be respected and valued, whilst at the same time, introduce students to SAE culture to develop biculturalism. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students have the right to an education that caters for their individual needs and cultural diversity of their communities. Although there are many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities that have an EFL context, it needs to be acknowledged that individuals within these communities enter school with a variety of experiences and understandings. Because of this, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Bandscales Project addressed: • The cultural differences between Aboriginal and Torres • Strait Islander groups; • Individual differences within these cultural groups; • The need to stress individual differences as commonalities are explored; and • The need to avoid stereo-typing in terms of learning styles by recognising individual differences amongst students. Rather than write indicators which had to be “ticked off” before a child could “move on” as occurs with the First Steps continua, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Bandscales Project focused on global descriptions of development. In this way, a teacher could spend time more effectively in child-watching to gain a global view rather than attempting to record development which may or may not occur. The scales can: • provide teachers with data to report upon student progress in a positive manner at parent-teacher discussions and in report cards; • strengthen the compact rather than weaken it as may happen when parents, communities, schools and teachers are provided with results from inappropriate • assessment instruments which do not recognise HL and varying cultural backgrounds, as is the case with the Continua; and
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•
include strategies which support the development of the relationships amongst parents and community members, teachers and students to lead to improved classroom pedagogy.
School or community-based decision-making functions within a common state-wide policy framework which caters for culturally diverse contexts and learning needs. In recognition of this, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Bandscales Project needed to: • recognise and cater for the integrated nature of EFL teaching and learning in the school context in a positive manner; • aim the materials towards both ESL specialists and mainstream teachers in a userfriendly format, including a glossary of EFL specific language; • provide rich, formative and summative assessment to inform teaching to lead to improved outcomes for students; and • provide accessibility of appropriate assessment tools. Given the varying social contexts (Aboriginal communities, Torres Strait Islander communities, urban indigenous students), the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Bandscales Project had to include: • a glossary to assist ESL/EFL understanding; • strengthening of the compact between school and parents. Involve parents in the success of the child; • accept the changing nature of schools; • recognise the development of multiple literacies; • recognise the need to growth of information technology; and • emphasise the need for professional development activities around the Project materials. The Principles underpinning the Bandscales for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Learners Project are: • Standard Australian English is the national language of Australia. Proficiency in Standard Australian English is necessary for an individual to participate as fully as possible in Australian society. • Education Queensland and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are committed to achieving improved educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. • Acknowledgement and acceptance of role of the first language to lead to effective bilingualism. • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students have the right to an education which enables them to contribute to and benefit from both their own and mainstream cultures. • Student participation in education is the responsibility of parents, community and the whole school and is best accomplished through effective partnerships between these stakeholders.
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• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students have the right to an education that caters their individual needs and cultural diversity of their communities. • Evaluation of literacy programs involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and appropriate reporting on the effectiveness and cost effectiveness to both Education Queensland and the local Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander community demonstrates a commitment to continuous improvement for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. • Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures contribute to the quality of the Australian Community. Individuals have the right to have their identity and culture respected within the tenets of Australian Law. • School community partnerships require relationships to be conducted in an atmosphere of open communication and mutual respect for individuals and their cultures. • All students are enriched by an awareness and understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Education Queensland works in partnership with local communities to support indigenous cultures and languages which remain within the custodianships of the Elders / leaders of communities /clans. • School/community-based decision-making functions within a common state-wide policy framework which caters for culturally diverse contexts and learning needs.
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SMARTER USE OF ICT TECHNOLOGY IN AURUKUN There are three elements in the strategy that staff at Koolkan Aurukun Community School are using to encourage smarter use of ICTs. First, a more systematic approach to developing student multi-literate competencies through use of technology is being encouraged as part of participating in the New Basics trial. This is being accomplished by: • increasing student access to internet-enabled computers in all classrooms, • improving staff and student competencies in a range of ICT techniques and strategies (from developing keyboarding skills, to communicating via email, to using word processing and publishing software packages, to investigating via the internet and developing class websites), and • integrating the use of ICT skills in completing Rich Tasks. Already there is evidence of even young Wik students making more diverse use of ICTs at school than in many city schools. The second element involves using ICTs in the development of more confident student public performances so that students have key experiences that enable them to make more informed choices about life pathways and orbits (from Aurukun and the Western Cape, to Cairns and beyond to elsewhere in the World). The third element involves plans for future enhancement of the library – specifically to turn it into an expanded resource centre that includes community access to word processing, ICT training and to use of email and the internet. Thus both community members and students will have a space to share their multi-literate learnings.
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COMMON LITERACY CHALLENGES FOR INDIGENOUS SCHOOL LEADERS Both Michael Nai at Kubin and Donald Whaleboat at Mer are experienced and respected Indigenous principals who share some common school challenges. Between them they have vast experience of both Indigenous and mainstream educational settings. In particular, sustaining effective pedagogic initiatives for EFL learners within a literacy strategy shared by both school staff and community members is a common issue. The principals and most of their staff are local, long-term island residents who are experienced in the schooling system. Young Islanders in both locations encounter SAE usually as their second or third language at kindergarten, preschool or Grade 1. Judicious use of mother tongue or Torres Strait Creole by Indigenous staff often assists student understanding of difficult concepts and ideas– particularly in the early years of SAE acquisition. However, there is ready evidence in oral and written classroom work at both schools that typical patterns of confusions with SAE grammar, spelling, tenses and conjunctions remain difficulties for older students. Both schools appear to have suffered from several waves of literacy ‘fads’ that were introduced by non-Indigenous staff but have not been sustained through a consistent whole-school strategy. High turn-over of such staff, and limitations of the SAE competencies of many Indigenous staff are thereby affecting the capacity of the school to respond to student needs on a consistent and sustained basis. In addition, much of the momentum gained through earlier efforts in ESL instruction are proving more difficult to sustain unless continuing, coordinated ESL services can be guaranteed at the school sites. Limited transfer of teaching skills to Indigenous staff and difficulty in sustained scaffolding of effective learning strategies for students appear to be key sustainability issues. More investment in development of literacy knowledge and skills of Indigenous staff needs to occur, with a greater focus on effective networking of best practices across the neighbouring islands or clusters.
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COMPLEX SCHOOL LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES AT KOOLKAN AURUKUN COMMUNITY SCHOOL – ALIGNING PEDAGOGIC, LINGUISTIC AND COMMUNITY CAPACITY-BUILDING Stan Shepherd is the current principal in Aurukun, a P-10 school serving a community of around 1200 Wik people located on the upper western coast of Cape York Peninsula. Though experienced in teaching in Indigenous community school settings, this is his first appointment as a principal. He brings a quiet professionalism to the role, with expertise as a determined change agent in primary curriculum and pedagogy. Now into his third year as principal, the complex challenges facing school staff are obvious to him. The school operates a Partnerships Plan with the community and is also a trial school for both New Basics and Partners for Success. As one of four campuses of the Western Cape College the school is committed to continuous improvement of educational, social and employment outcomes for Indigenous people. On the one hand, there are some positive community developments: on 24th December 1996 the Wik people had their enduring ties to the land formally recognised by the High Court of Australia; land use management agreements were also concluded in 2001 with Comalco: and river and sea rights claims across the region are also pending under Native Title provisions. For these and many other reasons, Wik is a clear identity and a strong first language and culture for all students in Aurukun. At the same time, there are many current symptoms of significant social dysfunction in the community – including abuse of alcohol, drugs and petrol; diabetes; domestic violence; and gambling issues. These impact on the quality of community life and also dramatically increase the at risk status of many students. There is also considerable Wik family mobility – both within and across much of the region and strongly influenced by the yearly cycle of wet / dry seasons – that results in transient student attendance patterns and consequent challenges for the school in providing continuity in learning for many. Almost every current system indicator of schooling progress has been negative for young Wik people over many years, both in comparison with other Indigenous communities and particularly in comparison with systemic averages. Such indicators include levels of: school attendance, early English literacy performance, subsequent achievement patterns, learning disabilities and difficulties, retention rates into secondary schooling, pathways to technical education and post-school employment. The building of a new integrated childcare and pre-school facility to bring young children and parents in Aurukun into an earlier relationship with the school may enhance school readiness and early language learning, while also providing an important community resource and avenue for valued employment. But whitefella government and its attendant services do not have good records for sustained implementation or delivery of improved outcomes for the Wik people, so positive and sustained impacts from the Aurukun early learning initiative (and several other projects) are certainly not guaranteed.
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LITERACY CHALLENGES FOR A RETURNING NON-INDIGENOUS SCHOOL LEADER Colleen Hope is Principal of Thursday Island SS, the largest primary school in the Torres Strait district. She has held the position for several years, having returned with her family after an earlier stint at the school. She is currently attempting to lead the development of a more focussed and sustainable whole-school literacy strategy that is more closely aligned with both student needs and community aspirations. Almost all the school’s students are ESL speakers, with Torres Strait Creole the most dominant first language. A minority of students encounter SAE from the perspective of an EFL learner whose mother tongue is an Indigenous language or a PNG dialect. Student mobility and family itinerancy also pose significant challenges for the school. In terms of SAE, growing Islander identity has led to greater emphasis by students on Creole as their preferred language. This identity is affirmed as students increasingly experience difficulties with SAE in classroom learning. School staff have recognised that students’ attitudes, motivation and identity are major issues in language learning and that the relevance of English to later life needs to be brought alive for all students. But since the school has a high proportion of beginning teachers and high rates of teacher turnover, there is a need to plan for succession and sustainability in all its strategies. Though school literacy results still fall below state norms on comparative tests, a set of reforms are underway designed to change the classroom practices of non-Indigenous teachers, especially differences in: understanding of language and community issues; pedagogy and resource usage; assessment standards and monitoring methods. A ‘literacy block’ – two hours of explicit instruction by all teachers every day across the school focused on the structure of SAE and grammatical features of oral and written English – has been recently introduced.
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