Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemAn analysis of education provision to older non-English speaking background youth with minimal or interrupted schooling in the Richmond/Collingwood area( 1987)This study is an analysis of educational provision in the Richmond/Coilingwood area for young people aged 16 to 24 years of age, of migrant or refugee background, who have a history of minimal or interrupted schooling. These students are mostly of Indo-Chinese or Timorese background , and face severe problems relating to their lack of literacy and poor English proficiency. Many of these students are unaccompanied refugees and face economic hardship in Australia. Educational programs running in five postprimary schools, two TAFE colleges and two language centres are examined in light of their relevance to the needs of these students. It emerges from this study that a small number of institutions provide responsive quality programs for this group. There are, however, general problems relating to the low status and marginalization of ESL programs in most of the institutions. These problems are compounded by a lack of funding, unsympathetic administration, ignorance of the issues and difficulties relating to accreditation. In some institutions, no provision at all is made for these students. Needs emerging from these issues may be summarized as follows. A greater awareness of the educational requirements. of this group must be developed. An informed collaborative approach must be adopted to respond to these needs in the form of appropriate ESL programs. Policy and administrative support must be forthcoming to assist in achieving these goals.
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ItemAspects of linguistic diversity in the Soviet Union: a commentary with translation on V. Tsulukidze's Language of friendship and fraternity( 1988)Difficulties of a political and pedagogical nature persist for the teaching of Russian to non-Russians in the Soviet Union. V. Tsulukidze, Minister of Education of the Adar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, has written of the beneficial influence of Russian on other languages within and without the Soviet Union. In the thesis, his article IAzyk druzhby i bratstva, published in the January 1984 issue of Narodnoe obrazovanie, is translated into English. The thesis provides a commentary on some aspects of Tsulukidze's article and provides examples of the way Russian has influenced and been influenced by other languages, both Soviet and non-Soviet, and indicates the difficulties in some instances of establishing the exact nature of such influences where there are ambiguous indications. Examples are also drawn from Croatian, German, French, Greek and other languages. The thesis also provides a discussion of the ideological context of language policy In the Soviet Union.
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ItemRhetoric and reality: the struggle to achieve school status for language centres( 1988)The Language Centre Program (LCP) has been in existence for more than ten years. Language centres have never had formal status as schools nor as annexes of schools. As a result two major problems have emerged: first, because language centres do not have access to school councils, the usual resources which are made available to mainstream schools are denied them; and second, teachers in language centres lack a career structure comparable to that of their colleagues in mainstream schools. The Victorian Government's social justice strategy allows a focus to be placed on student outcomes. It also provides a framework within which the issue of school status for language centres in the period 1982 to 1988 is considered. There are clear contradictions between rhetoric and reality. Three different committees/working parties have addressed the issue and five key reports have been written in the six-year period. A number of factors explain why it-has been difficult to achieve school status for language centres: the volatility of the LCP itself; the dynamics of Commonwealth immigration policy; the complexity of Commonwealth-State funding arrangements; the nature, composition and outcomes of the committees/working parties which have addressed the issue; institutional inertia; and the changing attitudes expressed by interested parties. The Minister for Education's in-principle endorsement of the third report of the Working Party on Language Centre Status and a significant increase in Commonwealth per capita funding provide a note of optimism. But a clearly articulated New Arrivals Strategy Plan which translates the broad rhetoric of the State's social justice strategy into terms which are meaningful and realistic to the LCP needs to be developed