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Languages, Linguistics and Development Practices pp 163–188Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

‘I Could Still Be Myself as a Warlpiri Person’: How Bilingual Education Achieves Community Development Aims

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Abstract

Three Warlpiri educators provide insightful reflections on their experiences in a bilingual education programme in a remote community in Australia, illustrating how the language and culture programme meets community development aims. These include capacity building and increasing participation and empowerment within the community. The chapter includes accessible description of the richness of the multi-dimensional programme, and contextualisation of the community struggle for programme support. The educators discuss Warlpiri community perspectives on the programme and their journeys in becoming educators and literacy workers. They reflect on how their learning through higher education, and practice and leadership in the programme, have been extended to leadership in other related areas. They show how the teaching and learning of Warlpiri has been central to their personal and professional development.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Warlpiri has a complex system of kinship naming practices, as do many Australian languages. The terms are known locally in English as ‘skin names’. In Warlpiri there are eight names for females and eight for males, and these are the most-used forms of reference, along with kin terms such as mother, brother, and so on. For information about Warlpiri kin relationships see Laughren et al. (1996). In this chapter, these kinship names are used to provide a sense of personalisation as well as retain anonymity.

  2. 2.

    The Goanna Planner is a pedagogical cycle developed to sit alongside the Walking Talking Texts methodology (Murray 1995; 2017) for Indigenous languages. It draws on the Turtle Planner created earlier in Tiwi schools.

  3. 3.

    Much earlier, in the 1870s, an Arrarnta-English Bilingual Education programme had begun in a non-government school in Hermannsburg community and continued for many years (Hoogenraad 2001, 128).

  4. 4.

    The programmes were first implemented under federal government jurisdiction, but soon after the Northern Territory gained political independence from federal government oversight in 1978, and the programmes since then have been administered by the Northern Territory government. The acronyms have changed over time, e.g. NTDE for Northern Territory Department of Education, DoE for Department of Education.

  5. 5.

    Before the education system was administered by the Northern Territory government.

  6. 6.

    Northern Territory Department of Education 1999. Learning lessons: An independent review of Indigenous education in the Northern Territory. Darwin: NT Department of Education.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the Warlpiri and all people and organisations who have worked in and supported these school programmes, teacher education programs and Indigenous languages literacy programmes over the years. We were funded to work together on this chapter by the Australian National University Futures Scheme. We thank Lajamanu Community Education Centre and Charles Darwin University for hosting us.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Carmel O’Shannessy

  2. Institute for Human Security and Social Change, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Marlkirdi Napaljarri Rose

  3. Lajamanu, NT, Australia

    Elaine Nangala Johnson & Gracie Napaljarri White

Authors
  1. Carmel O’Shannessy
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  2. Marlkirdi Napaljarri Rose
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  3. Elaine Nangala Johnson
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  4. Gracie Napaljarri White
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carmel O’Shannessy .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Sustainable Communities, University of Canberra, Bruce, ACT, Australia

    Deborah Hill

  2. Centre for Linguistics, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Felix K. Ameka

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O’Shannessy, C., Rose, M.N., Johnson, E.N., White, G.N. (2022). ‘I Could Still Be Myself as a Warlpiri Person’: How Bilingual Education Achieves Community Development Aims. In: Hill, D., Ameka, F.K. (eds) Languages, Linguistics and Development Practices. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93522-1_7

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