The importance of language

Amanda Power represented the QTU at the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education in Hawaii, a triennial opportunity to share ideas about education, cultural practice and cultural knowledge. Here she explains what she learned.

As someone wanting to know more about my own people, the thing that really struck me was the importance of language, the preservation of it and the teaching of it. It’s not just about learning our language, it’s about understanding our language, the messages, the meanings, the culture that is behind all those words. Professor Leroy Little Bear said it this way: “When we teach our kids our language, we are teaching them about where their heart is.”

It dawned upon me that not just here in Australia but all around the world, different cultures have a generation of people who do not know their own language. Some grandparents try to teach the children, but who do they talk to in language? Their parents can’t, their school is in English, the radio, TV, books, newspapers, all other media is in English. How can they use the words they are learning? In Canada, only 2 per cent of the Indigenous population under 25 can speak their language.

In workshops I learned about two programs addressing this issue.
The Master – Apprentice Program, which was presented by Dr Onowa McIvor from the University of Victoria in Canada, helps adults learn the language through immersion. The “apprentice” visits a person skilled in their language (the “master” or “mentor”) and hangs out with them, conversing only in language. The apprentice is evaluated after 100 hours. They do not do literacy until they became advanced speakers.

In New Zealand, Maoris have become disconnected from their country, and it is hard to teach language to people who are not even there. The “Te Pumanawa” app, presented by Stuart Hese from New Zealand, can be purchased from iTunes and allows you to log in (if you are a member of the family group) and learn lessons: cultural, language and more. It not only lets you watch/hear the lesson being taught on country, it provides a recorder to practise your words and send on to your elder for correction or praise. I know I would use this and could see how teachers could use this app in their classroom for our disconnected children.

I was fortunate enough to go on a tour for my Huaka’i (excursion) and saw how two programs were being implemented in Hawaii.

The first is through Keiki O Ka Aina Family Learning Centres, a grass-roots non-profit program. I was invited into the Parent Participation Preschool, a travelling preschool which meets in different communities around the island. Its program is literacy based and full of cultural teachings. Kids can attend from age three months until they are five years old and their parents or caregivers must stay. They open and close with a circle time where stories, songs and language are the focus.

The second is the ‘Aha Punana Leo language nest, which provides a cultural educational environment that emulates Mauli Ola Hawai’i (Hawaiian language and culture). The school is for Hawaiian children only between the ages of three and five years old. The classes are all taught in language and on a Wednesday parents or family come to learn what their children learned that week so they can discuss it at home. They also learn the language so they can use it with their children.

One of the final messages of the conference was: “We are the salt and the light of our communities”. Let us go out and be that shining light and lead the way to ensure our cultures and languages last.

Amanda Power
Gandu Jarjum

Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 119 No 6, 22 August 2014, p14