Indigenous communities, linguists, teachers, and language activists have been developing methods to revitalise endangered languages over several decades. Not only are these methods diverse, they are usually implemented in various ways according to local needs and aspirations. Language revitalisation methods focus on proficiency, but there is also…

Kriol, an English-lexifier contact language, has approximately 20,000 speakers across northern Australia. It is the primary language of the remote Aboriginal community of Ngukurr. Kriol is a contact language, incorporating features of English and traditional Indigenous languages. The language has been perceived both positively and negatively,…

Purpose: In recent years, digital projects have created tools for learning languages, such as mobile applications (apps). In contexts where the language has low prestige, innovative digital learning tools can support language revitalisation. This article takes the Australian Kaytetye Indigemoji app as a case study in community resource…

The learner's guide (LG) is a genre of pedagogical materials for Australian Indigenous languages, but LGs developed by field linguists are often questioned regarding their capacity to effectively facilitate language learning and, eventually, language revitalisation. This reflects a gap in the literature where applied linguistics perspectives are…

The reawakening of the Indigenous Gamilaraay language in northern inland New South Wales, Australia involves righting two centuries of prohibition and mistreatment after invasion by English-speaking settlers. Gamilaraay is no longer used as an everyday language in the community, although it has strong emblematic value for the Gamilaraay community.…

Teaching English literacy in First Nations Australian communities is bound up with the policy aim of improving the social and economic outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the desire to acknowledge, recognise and respect their unique cultural identities, languages and knowledges. But for English literacy teachers working…

When an endangered or minority language is spoken by children and taught in schools, both oral and literacy skills are crucial for continued language maintenance. In school settings, literacy skills are often prioritised to support the transition to second language literacy, and rich oral language development is overlooked. This paper presents a…

Following the invasion, or colonisation as some prefer to call it, Indigenous Australia has been characterised by plummeting populations, largely as a result of introduced diseases and the movement of peoples, following the theft of their lands and in response to colonial and subsequent Australian state and federal government policies. At times,…

Indigenous children living in the more remote areas of Australia where Indigenous languages continue to be spoken often come to school with only minimal knowledge of English, but they may speak two or more local languages. Others come to school speaking either a creole, or Aboriginal English, non-standard varieties which may sound similar to…

Eight adult Aboriginal people residing in a remote community in the north-west of Australia participated in this research. The data were collected from an 'inside' perspective and, as culturally appropriate, through informal interviews (yarning) and ongoing conversations. These data were recorded as field notes and audio files which were…

Aboriginal English, the language many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students bring to the classroom, represents the introduction of significant change into the English language. It is the argument of this paper that the linguistic, social and cultural facts associated with the distinctiveness of Aboriginal English need to be taken into…

In this paper we take on Green's (2017) orientation of the Australian Curriculum: English and consider what might it hold for the students of Australia. We set about analysing eighteen minutes of storytelling by a group of young 9-12 year old Kunibídji males from Maningrida in the far North of the Northern Territory in Australia, making this…

The diversity of language in Australia in pre-invasion times is well attested, with at least 300 distinct languages being spoken along with many dialects. At that time, many Indigenous people were multilingual, often speaking at least four languages. Today many of these languages have been lost, with fewer than 15 being learned by children as a…

This paper seeks to explore the risks of providing preservice teachers with professional experiences in remote communities. In particular this paper focuses on the risks associated with this kind of professional experience. Twelve pre-service teachers were interviewed whilst on a three-week practicum around Katherine and in Maningrida in the…

"Yuta Gonydjuy" ("The New Wax") is a children's story written by Kathy Guthadjaka, an Indigenous Elder from Gäwa, Elcho Island, northeast Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. Yuta Gonydjuy has been illustrated and published in both Warramiri and English via the bilingual Literature Production Centre at Galiwin'ku, in 1998.…