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Evaluation of Australian Bilingual Education: Some initial ideas directed at obtaining a just and thorough approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2015

M. Christie*
Affiliation:
Milingimbi, N.T.
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Extract

In the 1973 parliamentary session, the Australian Federal Government introduced a

campaign to have Aboriginal children living in distinctive Aboriginal communities given their primary education in Aboriginal languages…and to supplement education for Aboriginal children with the teaching of traditional Aboriginal arts, crafts and skills mostly by Aboriginals themselves.

Following that announcement, a committee was formed to investigate the possibilities of bilingual education and to direct the setting up of some initial programs. Five schools originally changed to a bilingual education program, and the number has grown to almost twenty. The original schools have now been in operation for five years, and there is a call for their evaluation. The government has expended large sums of money on the development of the programs, but there is still discussion concerning their possible future. Some of the key issues concerning bilingual education in the Northern Territory have not been resolved, and much of the development of programs was taken over by people of initiative in individual schools. This may or may not have been a good thing, but for the purposes of evaluation, we are presented with a very complex and freely structured situation. A just and constructive evaluation of all that has happened thus far will be difficult but invaluable for the government, the administrators, and the teachers.

Type
Across Australia …… From Teacher to Teacher
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

Bibliography and Suggested Further Reading

Anderson, T. and Boyer, M.: Bilingual Schooling in the United States, Vol. 1, Chapters IV-IX. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., 1970.Google Scholar
Bratt-Paulston, C.: Implications of Language Learning Theory for Language Planning: Concerns in Bilingual Education. Centre for Applied Linguistics, Arlington, Virginia, 1974aGoogle Scholar
Bratt-Paulston, C.: Questions concerning bilingual education. Unpublished paper presented at the Interamerican Conference on Bilingual Education. American Anthropological Assoc, Mexico City, 1974b.Google Scholar
Bratt-Paulston, C.: Bilingual education and its evaluation. Unpublished paper presented at Seminar on Linguistic Perspectives on Bilingual Education. Washington D.C.: Centre for Applied Linguistics, 1976.Google Scholar
Department of Education: Handbook for Teachers in Bilingual Schools. Darwin, N.T., 1973, revised 1976.Google Scholar
Gaarder, B.A.: Political perspectives on bilingual education. Unpublished.Google Scholar
Harris, S.G.: Beyond common sense in bilingual education. The Aboriginal Child at School, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1975.Google Scholar
Mackey, W.F.: A typology of bilingual education. In Anderson, & Boyer, (Eds), Schooling in the United States, Vol. 2, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C, 1970.Google Scholar
Mackey, W.F.: The evaluation of bilingual education. In Bernard, Spolsky & Cooper, Robert L. (Eds), Frontiers of Bilingual Education. Newbury House, Rowley, Massachusetts, 1977.Google Scholar
Spolsky, Bernard, Green, Joanna B. & Reed, John: A Model for the Description Analysis and Perhaps Evaluation of Bilingual Education. Navajo Reading Study Progress Report No. 23, University of New Mexico, 1974.Google Scholar
Watts, B., McGrath, W.J. and Tandy, J.L.: Reconmendations for the Implementation and Development of a Program of Bilingual Education in Schools in Aboriginal Communities in the Northern Territory of Australia. Dept. of Education, Canberra, Australia, 1973.Google Scholar