Mapping early speech : a description of Standard Australian English in the first two years of school in four very remote Central Western Desert Aboriginal communities

Annual reports of Indigenous disadvantage mark the inability of children in very remote Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory (NT) to meet national benchmarks in education. On their entry into the school system, these children are usually identified by the Diagnostic Net T-2 Continua as being behind their mainstream counterparts. After more than a decade of living and teaching in a very remote Aboriginal community for the NT Department of Education (DoE), it is apparent to me that there is a disconnect between the actual and expected development of Standard Australian English (SAE) speech of very remote Aboriginal school students. There is scant research on the language development of very remote Aboriginal children and to date, there are no studies that have investigated their development of English as a Second Language (ESL) within the very remote context. Those involved in education acknowledge the key constructivist or social-cultural premise that it is language that mediates relationships and understanding, yet the current accounts that describe how these children learn to speak and understand English are incomplete. The relationship between speech and literacy is well established and ESL research has highlighted that first language factors influence the developmental acquisition sequences for ESL. The research questions for this study aim to identify the characteristics of the developing SAE ESL speech for a group of very remote Aboriginal school children from four Central Western Desert communities. For linguists, two interrelated and accepted measures of early language competency and development are the Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) and the grammatical morpheme stages of learning. This study examined both aspects of the developing SAE ESL speech of 30 children over an eight-month period in the 2008 Indigenous Language Speaking Student (ILSS) program. The ILSS children selected were a linguistically homogenous Aboriginal language group of school-aged children from four very remote Aboriginal Communities in the Central Western Desert of the NT. This study reinforces earlier findings that an ESL learner’s first language influences the developmental and acquisition patterns for ESL and this study is the first to consider the influence of an Aboriginal language on developing SAE in this way. The results of this study are divided into two sets. The group results [collective] are within Set A and there are two case studies [individual children] in Set B. The aim was to investigate SAE ESL speech development to determine the existence of and describe any general patterns of speech development. The data was collected using culturally appropriate techniques developed by the NT DoE, in negotiation with community stakeholders. Analysis of the data from this study reveals the differences between the actual and expected SAE ESL rates of progression by identifying and charting the oral language capabilities of these children. Findings indicate that the ILLS children are in the initial stages of SAE ESL development, which is clearly reflected in the length of their utterances and also in their varied use of grammatical morphemes. These initial stages of SAE ESL development are characterised by speech that is telegraphic in style and format, typically with a range of inconsistently applied grammatical morphemes. Overall, the grammatical morpheme results revealed that these children are within the beginning developmental phases and they display the inchoate characteristics of such learners. The results showed that the children exhibit a range of grammatical morphemes across MLU stages and this diversity warranted closer inspection. This revealed that at this early stage of language development, rather than a linear acquisition profile for grammatical morphemes, it is prudent to examine the frequency ratios and create a priority list that will enable very remote teachers to better orchestrate ESL oracy in their classrooms. Consequently, drawing on the results of this study, it is noted that within the very remote context of limited SAE immersion, any ESL approach must include explicit modelling and teaching. This will provide the children with a contextual cultural linguistic framework upon which to establish and build their SAE ESL oracy. The very remote Aboriginal classroom is characteristically subjected to overtly formulaic and explicit periods of interaction throughout each day. Within the very remote context, teachers need to regularly program formal explicit periods in which a variety of formulaic sequences can be modelled and practiced by children every day. Teaching programs need to choreograph a range of habitualised experiences. These explicit activities must deliver opportunities for children to be exposed to, and experience a range of SAE ESL lessons that cover both the content and the communication strategies and other skills necessary to learn another language. Three recommendations arise from this study. First, further longitudinal research is necessary to complete this SAE ESL grammatical morpheme developmental profile. Second, a review of existing mandated SAE ESL profiles to include earlier emerging developmental indicators is warranted. Third, there is a need for development and systematic delivery across the NT of a professional and teaching learning package around early and emerging ESL oracy. This teaching package will be informed by evidence-based research on language acquisition that promotes best practice in ESL oracy for very remote children