Faculty of Education - Research Publications
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 9 of 9
-
ItemLanguage teaching and learning: choice, pedagogy, rationale and goals.(AFMLTA, 2009)In his examination of successful innovation and change in education in many settings, Fullan (2001) identifies the three broad options for effecting change that public authorities have at their disposal. They can seek to bring about change through imposing accountability (system-wide or targeted), or through providing incentives (either "negatively" as pressure or "positively" as support), or they can direct their attention towards "capacity-building" for key agents in the field being addressed, such as teachers, schools or universities. The review of Australian language policy shows that rarely has there been a consistent process of building on previous innovation and rarely are these three meta-strategies of accountability, incentives and capacity-building used in the judicious combination which is most likely to succeed. A central feature of education policy making is the critical, professional role of teachers and it would be to this that a capacity-building approach would be directed. This article discusses choice, pedagogy, rationale and goals in language teaching and learning. Key values and aspirations for proficiency in languages other than English relevant to the Australian context are also explored.
-
ItemLanguage teaching and learning: Some hard decisions.(AFMLTA, 2009)In his examination of successful innovation and change in education in many settings, Fullan (2001) identifies the three broad options for effecting change that public authorities have at their disposal. They can seek to bring about change through imposing accountability (system-wide or targeted), or through providing incentives (either ‘negatively’as pressure or ‘positively’as support), or they can direct their attention towards ‘capacity-building’for key agents in the field being addressed, such as teachers, schools or universities. It is exceedingly difficult to combine accountability, incentives, and capacity-building, as evidenced by the fact that no government has ever done it effectively. It is complex and there are in-built tensions. It is easy to err in providing too much or too little control.
-
ItemLanguage programming in rural and regional Victoria: Making space for local viewpoints in policy development(John Benjamins Publishing, 2019-12-10)Despite decades of often ambitious policies in Australia, languages education is still characterized by intermittent commitment to the teaching of languages, with inequitable access particularly entrenched in rural and regional contexts. While research has focused on the practical and material constraints impacting on policy implementation, little research has investigated the role of the discursive terrain in shaping expectations and limitations around what seems achievable in schools, particularly, from the school principal perspective. Beginning with an overview of policy interventions and an analysis of contemporary challenges, we use Q methodology to identify and analyze viewpoints at work in similarly-positioned rural and regional schools. In doing so, we seek to determine what seems possible or impossible across settings; the role of principals in enabling and constraining pathways for the provision of school language programs, and the need for macro-level language policy to be informed by constraints specific to rural and regional contexts.
-
ItemResolving ethnolinguistic conflict in multi-ethnic societies(Springer Nature, 2017-04-28)Language is a common underlying cause of conflict in multi-ethnic societies. Facilitated dialogue — a method of conflict mediation — is being used in countries such as Myanmar to mitigate language-based conflict, acknowledge language rights, and encourage societies to adopt a culture of dialogue.
-
ItemThe importance of language policies and multilingualism for cultural diversity(Wiley, 2010-03-01)The article addresses the contribution of multilingualism to cultural diversity and the importance of explicit, comprehensive and public language planning to secure a stronger future for endangered indigenous and immigrant languages. It is critically important to develop language policies that ensure the access of minority populations to prestigious forms of national standard languages and literacies while supporting the intergenerational retention of minority languages, both indigenous and immigrant languages. These twin objectives are complementary but require a more expert practice of language planning. The multilingualism which is advocated aims to be nationally cohesive, economically productive and socially just. An enhanced practice of intervention on behalf of multilingualism is discussed in sections devoted to the mechanisms and activity of language policy‐making. Contemporary globalisation is a challenge for language diversity but in some ways makes the intergenerational retention of diverse languages more feasible than under conditions of strict assimilation as practiced by linguistically defined nation‐states. Also potentially supportive of multilingualism are the voice‐based communication technologies that overcome the tyranny of distance and dispersal, and promise access to information, communication and solidarity for preliterate groups or those that have limited literacy. The roles of language in memory and cultural production underscore how central language in its various genres is to culture. As a result, efforts to appreciate and foster human differences require awareness of the importance of multilingualism. The endangered state of many of the world's languages and the now almost universal phenomenon of multiculturalism make the practice of language planning a central instrument for states, international agencies and non‐governmental bodies.
-
ItemNo Preview Available
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableUNESCO, Literacy and Leslie Limage(UNIV TECHNOLOGY, SYDNEY-UTS EPRESS, 2009)Rosie Wickert points out that, in literacy policy: ‘the stories of actors involved in policy struggles have been overlooked‘(2001: 90). The paper by Leslie Limage redresses this gap for the crucially important area of international multilateral agencies, specifically the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Her aim is to produce ‘a more clear-eyed look at how to advance the best of multilateral action in the field in which I have been involved at all levels throughout my adult life: children’s and adult’s literacy worldwide’ (Limage, 2009: p 7).
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableA Cerebration of Language Diversity, Language Policy, and Politics in Education Conclusion(SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC, 2014)
-
ItemDomesticating the Foreign: Globalization's Effects on the Place/s of Languages(WILEY, 2014-03)Foreign language education is deeply affected by globalization, destabilizing some of the central ideas that have helped form national languages, and, by contrast, foreign languages. This article traces the economic origins of contemporary globalization and the deep communication effects that arise. Migration of peoples, instantaneous communication technologies, and new modes of imagining relationships in the context of vast flows of population, ideas, goods, and communication mean that teachers of different languages need to make multilingual and multicultural realities, rather than national and foreign ones, central notions in curriculum, teaching, and language choice. Professional dialogue between teachers of English, traditional foreign languages, heritage/community languages, and other categories of language interest are required to foster a new overall understanding of the enterprise of language education, suited to the altered world context of contemporary globalization.