Growing up Talking: A window into language development Kids, Creoles and Classrooms Symposium Charles Darwin University April 7-8, 2014 Samantha Disbray, Charles Darwin University & CRC Remote Education Systems samantha.disbray@cdu.edu.au

Road map of this session

•  To see children’s first language development in a language other than standard English (Capabilities Framework 1 &3)

•  To think about the stages of language development

•  To think about the sorts of things children acquire as they develop language skills (Capability 3)

•  To think of this development in relation to second language/dialect development (Capability 4)

To map these questions to the Capability Framework - Teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander EAL/D learners https://indigenousportal.eq.edu.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/eald-capability-framework.pdf

Data stem from the Aboriginal Child Language Acquisition Project (ACLA 2003-2007)

Project designed to address three questions: 1.  What language input do Indigenous children receive in

Indigenous languages, Kriol, varieties of English, and from code-switching involving these languages from adults and older

children? 2.  How is input reflected in their production? 3. What processes of language shift, maintenance and change can

be hypothesised to result from this multilingual environment?

http://languages-linguistics.unimelb.edu.au/past-projects/acla1

Familys’ goals for the research The families who took part in the research in Tennant Creek expressed three goals: •  To document their own children’s language development and record

their growing up •  To find out about children’s knowledge of their heritage language

Warumungu, as the community is concerned about its fate •  To find out more about the Creole-English children acquire and share

this with educators to help improve education delivery, as the community is concerned about education for their children

What do all children learn and what do they come to know, as

language users?

vocabulary

culture values world view

grammar

text words

sentences sounds

intonation stress

meaning structure

the ways the language is used (pragmatics)

beliefs attitudes

identity

(semantics)

routines

Even when we don’t understand kid’s home

language(s), we can reasonably assume that

they are developing language, the way all

children do.

Even when we don’t understand kid’s home

language(s), we can reasonably assume that

they are developing language, the way all

children do.

If they are not, family members and local staff are the best people to

notice this. If family members are concerned about a child’s speech

development, careful collaboration with family, teachers and speech

therapists is required.

Many Indigenous children develop complex speech repertoires

Like all language development in any individual or population, this takes place continuously and throughout life. It takes place through social interaction with a range of adults and other children, and through engagement in the many situations and tasks undertaken across the life span.

Throughout childhood Indigenous children’s communicative repertoires may come to include a range of skills, productive and receptive. Some of these are named languages, others we might describe as multimodal. All of these systems interact in the communicative repertoire of the individual child – the systems support each other and sometimes interfere with one another – but they are unitary in the speakers cognition, all meaningful and useful for communication.

Some-Strong Traditional language(s)

Standard Australian

English

Local contact variety

(eg. Wumpurrarni English) Text

Image

Gesture

With rapid and destructive change to the language ecology of Indigenous communities, the language repertoires across generations (elders, adults, youth and children) can be very different to one another.

Schemata

Standard Australian English

There are many varieties of English in Australia and world-wide. Aboriginal English is a term often used as an umbrella term for many very different varieties

Aboriginal English

Aboriginal Englishes

‘Englishes’

What is Aboriginal English? Aboriginal English

1st language (metropolitan/urban

setting)

Aboriginal English 1st language

(rural/remote setting)

‘Creole/Kriol’ 1st language

Aboriginal English 2nd dialect

Aboriginal English of a second/additional language

of a bilingual/multilingual

Traditional Language 1st language

Different sounds, words, structures. Same code? Aboriginal Englishes?

The distinction between a local Creole variety and Aboriginal English is not always clear. ������It might best be understood as a continuum, with Creole forms at the ‘heavy’ end and Aboriginal English at the ‘light’ end.

Heavy Light

Yundubala garra tegimbat kuyu nanga wulkuman.

Yousmob needa give that meat to them old people.

All children acquire language •  Language development

begins before birth and continues throughout the teenage years (and beyond)

•  All children follow similar stages of development (babbling->one word-> two word)

•  All children learn through interaction with others

17 months

M: L, don itim im! L, don’t hit her.

C1: no itim …im no hit … her (don’t hit her).

C1: am itim I’ll hit her.

M1: pawumpawu, yu itimbat im poor thing, you’re hitting

her! C2: K itimbat im K is hitting her!

M: yu’ra itimbat iya, na ni. you should hit her here, on the

knee. M: iya luk imkayi kuwarta here look in her ear.

M: holdim im hold her. C2: najasaidwan na. deya na. and the other side now. There. C1: ? C2: pudim bendij nang’ im na. put the bandage on her. M1: i gad pents na. she’s got pants. C1: imkayi pents, imkayi pents (using baby-talk intonation to doll)

her pants, her pants ���C1: deya, imkayi pents there, her pants

M: nyanya…. nyanya! Iya luk. food…..food! Here look! C1: I ∅ peiyim disan. She ∅ pay for this. C1: garra peiyim. has to pay. M: i garra peiyim. she has to pay. M: imkayi mani iya. her money’s here. iya mani. here’s the money C1: ?

M: na, mani imkayi. no, her money. C1: main-kayi. mine-mine M: imkayi iya luk, her’s is here look, iya mani. here’s money C1: kikad garim. (someone’s) got a key-card SD: kikad. key-card M: i garra baiyim gad kikad. she’s got to buy with a key-card i garra baiyim gad kikad na. she’s got to buy with a key-card

C1: dat's ma haus.! that’s my house.!C2: dat tappali -kayi?! is that the women’s house?!C1: ye.!C2: mi na inti.! my turn isn’t it.!C3: beibi-kayi.! the baby’s! !C2: ola gelmob-kayi inti?! it’s all the girl’s isn’t it?!C3: dei lip iya.! they sleep/live here!C1: ol av da gel, das wimob-kayi.! all of the girls, it’s ours!!!

C1: pikka-gel an jeil gel an T! baby-girl and little girls and T ! an im gel an mi. ! and her and me.!C4: an mi, mama.! an me and my mum. !C1: na yu boi!! na you’re a boy.!C4: ma mama.! my mama.! Ggm: jangkayi haus!! young men’s camp!!

vocabulary

✔culture values✔ ✔world view

patterns/structures (grammar)

text ✔

words ✔ sentences sounds

intonation stress

meaning structure

ways the language is used ✔(pragmatics)

beliefs ✔attitudes

✔identity

(semantics)

✔ routines

What we saw in the video clips – 4 years (in 6 minutes!)

✔ ✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

Some implications and take-home messages

•  Aboriginal English and Creole varieties are systematic codes •  They express cultural underpinnings and people’s identity. •  AE/C’s have features that appear similar to standard English, but many have been re-analysed in the new system. •  Just as a first language English speaker would have to be taught Wumpurrarni English to be a proficient user, an AE/C speaker needs to be taught Standard English to be a proficient user. Differences can be explicitly taught.

Learning a second language/dialect ��� •  in safe, interesting and meaningful contexts

•  drawing on/building on skills students already have •  through explicit instruction of the new language •  with opportunity to practice L2 orally •  reflecting on differences between L1 and L2 where possible •  by learning new information in L1, which helps the child understand L2 culture and knowledge

To support this learning, teachers need a strong understanding of the language load of all tasks. They need to be able to identify the key patterns, structures and vocabulary of the particular task, have strategies for teaching the patterns, structures and vocabulary and for reflecting on them with students to make them explicit. To get to the bottom of the iceberg, teachers must also be able to support student’s understanding of the purpose, context and meaning of information and communicative acts – the underlying stuff, that gives the real sense. Also (!) lots of fun practice.

Acknowledgements Betty Morrison worked as community researcher on the ACLA project. Her contribution to the Aboriginal Child Language Acquisition Project (ACLA) was enormous. My thanks to her are heartfelt. She sadly passed away in 2014. Thanks to all of the families who took part in the project ACLA in Tennant Creek.

Thanks to Evonne Thompson for her commitment to the project, and permission to use the data shown here.

Thanks to Principal investigators on the ACLA project - Jill Wigglesworth, University of Melbourne, Jane Simpson, Australian National University and Patrick McConvell, AIATSIS. The ACLA project was funded by the Australian Research Council.

Thanks to the partners on the Symposium – Kids, Creoles and Classrooms – co-convener ATESOL NT and partners – the University of Melbourne, Catholic Education, NT Department of Education. Thanks also to all of the presenters and participants who took part in the Symposium.

•  The work reported in this publication was supported by funding from the Australian Government Cooperative Research Centres Program through the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP)."

•  The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the CRC-REP or Ninti One Limited or its participants. Errors or omissions remain with the author."

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