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Weekly UpdatesABSTRACT
While Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is being superseded by an integrated approach to language learning and technology, it still has great potential to assist indigenous peoples in becoming print-literate in their own languages. This can also help to combat the disempowerment experienced by indigenous people as their world is penetrated by others with radically different backgrounds. This paper reports on research on an application of CALL implemented among the Kunib dji, a remote, indigenous Australian community. It focuses on the use of talking books in Ndj bbana, a language with only 200 speakers; the books were displayed on touch-screens at various locations in the community. Investigations into the roles of the computer to support language learning and cultural understanding are also reported. The computer was found to be a useful tool in promoting Kunib dji collaboration and cultural transformation.
INTRODUCTION
The history of the Kunib dji and the history of CALL are two diverse narratives that have only recently intersected. The 200 Kunib dji people all live in Maningrida which is a remote community on an indigenous Australian reserve in North Australia. All the Kunib dji people have strong links to land and seas in and around Maningrida, as they have for centuries. While all Kunib dji children learn Ndj bbana as their first language, as adults they converse in a variety of languages that are spoken by other Indigenous Australians who live in Maningrida.
About 10 years ago, I arrived in Maningrida. In the last few years, I have had the honour of working with the Kunib dji to implement CAN. My ethnographic research is based on observations and participation in the process of creation and presenting CAN resources around the Maningrida, while working as a teacher at the school. I am not a Kunib dji person, so this paper is presented from the perspective of a non indigenous Australian.
At the same time as the settlement of Maningrida was being developed, CALL was evolving in other parts of the world. When computers were finally made available to the Kunib dji children at school, CALL was used to support the teaching and learning of English. Computer-assisted Ndj bbana (CAN) was developed in an attempt to support the teaching and learning of Ndj bbana on the computer. This paper examines the role of the computer in CAN in an attempt to find some transferable processes that could be used in other indigenous contexts where the computer is used to support a minority language.
Justification for Introducing CAN to the Kunib dji
Many past reasons for introducing CALL do not apply directly to the Kunib dji situation owing to the different cultural context. Nevertheless, one good reason for implementing CAN is to make the complexity of Ndj bbana print more accessible to the students. McKay (2000) classified Ndj bbana as a non-Pama-Nyungan language as it makes use of prefixes as well as suffixes for derivation in inflection. (p. 155). Ndj bbana verb morphology is "rather complex" (p. 156) and when children begin writing and reading Ndj bbana they soon encounter complex words. For example, Barrar djibanja nalak rrbbiba barrayirr yanja translates to English as "A boy and a girl walking along the road." While CAN does not change the complexity of Ndj bbana, it may provide a useful way of integrating the text with a variety of literacy cues available in the different channels of multimedia.
A second justification comes from the repeated requests from the Kunib dji community over the past 20 years to maintain a Ndj bbana bilingual program that promotes Kunib dji involvement in the school and improves the children's literacy. CAN has the potential to respond to these requests through the creation and presentation of interactive Ndj bbana resources. Kunib dji electronic literacies can be initiated through the use of CAN in the Ndj bbana bilingual program. Warschauer and Donaghy (1997) describe how students have begun their electronic literacy development in their first language with a similar immersion program.
A third justification for implementing CAN is to support the empowerment of the Kunib dji by increasing their available means of expression. The electronic literacies that will be developed during the production of the interactive resources will embody a new meaning-making system that can be used to express Ndj bbana language and Kunib dji culture. This is not the first time that the Kunib dji have been exposed to a new meaning making system. The development of the Ndj bbana orthography more than 20 years ago contributed to the construction of the Kunib dji culture as "dynamic, open and forever undergoing transformation" (Cope & Kalantzis, 1999, p. 205). The electronic literacies that are incorporated in CAN give the Kunib dji a wider range of available means of expression to understand and contribute actively to their changing life-worlds.
The role of the computer in this study will be investigated in the context of supporting print literacy through multimedia, promoting indigenous involvement in the creation of electronic texts and exposing the Kunib dji to a new means of expression that is linked to powerful global discourses.
Why Examine the Role of the Computer in CAN?
There are at least two reasons to examine the role of the computer in CAN. First, it provides a revealing contrast with the roles of the computer originally developed in CALL. The tutor-tool framework identified by Levy (1997a) comes from the application of CALL to an ESL context where issues of cross-cultural literacies were fairly transparent. This study presents CALL in the context of a minority indigenous Australian language whose speakers have a limited history of print literacies. Moreover, the informal location of the study, around Kunib dji homes, is an important factor in addition to the choice of hardware and software, in determining the effective roles the computer will play in CAN.
A second reason is to clarify the process of implementing electronic literacy in Ndj bbana outside the CALL context. Knowledge about the role of the computer in CAN will contribute to understanding the use of the computer to support the teaching and learning of Ndj bbana more generally, something that becomes more important in a changing Kunib dji world.
LITERATURE REVIEW
History of Kunib dji
Before contact, the Kunib dji all lived around what is now Maningrida. Altman (1987) has divided the post-contact history into "three broad phases that correspond closely to the government's policy of protection and preservation, assimilation and integration, and self determination and self management" (p. 2).
The protection and preservation stage dates from Kunib dji contact with Macassan fishermen early in the 20th century to the establishment of a trading post in 1957 (Altman, 1987, p. 2). The contact by outsiders in this phase was neither extensive nor permanent. Although there were missions established about at Goulburn Island and Milingimbi, both about 100 kilometres from Maningrida, the Kunib dji were "wholly at home" when the missionaries visited (Armstrong, 1967, p. 4).
The subsistence economy declined throughout the assimilation and integration stage and as a consequence the Kunib dji became "dependent upon welfare and handouts for survival" (Altman, 1987, p. 4). When Maningrida community officially opened in 1962, there was a hospital, a school, a store, and administrative buildings as well as housing for white staff (Altman, p. 4). By 1966, the 118 Kunib dji were sharing their land with 554 other indigenous Australians made up of Rembarranga, Burarra, Nakarra, Kunwinjku, Gumawuwurk, and Gorrgone speakers (Armstrong, 1967, p. 5).
Rowley (1971) suggested that the isolated locations of reserves and missions, as well as the limited contact between indigenous and non-indigenous people, may have made the assimilation policies less effective. Such was the case in Maningrida. The Kunib dji lived in extremely poor conditions and worked in low-paying jobs whilst the Balanda lived in a separate housing estate and completely controlled Maningrida (Altman, 1987, p. 4).
A change of government in 1973 began a new phase of self determination and self management that continues today. The result of this change in Maningrida is the gradual return of local political power to the indigenous Australians. During this phase, all indigenous Australians had a right to education and the Ndj bbana bilingual program officially commenced in 1973 (Laughren, 2000, p. 6). Ndj bbana was used as a medium of literacy when school first began under a shelter near the Kunib dji homes in 1978. The relatively recent exposure of the Kunib dji to Ndj bbana print literacy with an aim to overcome disadvantage is a feature of their children's education.
Today, Ndj bbana is spoken by 150 Kunib dji in and around Maningrida (McKay, 2000, p. 167). There are approximately 1,600 indigenous Australians and 100 non-indigenous Australians also living in Maningrida. The Kunib dji are all multilingual, speaking Ndj bbana as their first language and English as their third or fourth language. While the levels of Ndj bbana and English print literacy are low, owing to a variety of complex social factors, the Kunib dji community members repeatedly request the maintenance and delivery of a Ndj bbana bilingual program. The provision of such a program is an important process of Kunib dji empowerment. A small part of this program is the development of CAN.
Roles of the Computer in CALL
Our understanding of the roles of the computer have developed with our understanding of the relationship between technology and language learning. This section begins by looking at its role as tutor and its role as tool. Learning paradigms will be linked to these roles.
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