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Language Instruction in Torres Strait Islander Schools: Some Preliminary Considerations for School-based Curriculum Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2015

G.M. Orr*
Affiliation:
Brisbane College of Advanced Education, Mt Gravatt Campus, Queensland, 4122
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Extract

The purpose of this paper is to help the practitioner in multilingual environments by making him or her aware of the need to establish a sound operational base from which to work before agonizing over the practicalities of the implementation stage. In essence, the paper seeks to show teachers that much of what is successful today in terms of school-based curriculum development is, in fact, grounded in theory: theory that is readily understood and useful to educators working in a variety of contexts.

Today, in the Torres Strait, the schooling process appears to be widening the educational gap between white Queenslanders and their Islander counterparts„* Teachers as curriculum developers, along with parliamentary heads and state education department dignitaries, must realize that problems of this kind can be grappled with initially only from within the geographical context. In other words, the problems of the oppressed must be solved by the oppressed who, first of all, need to understand their position and then transform it. But if problem transformation is going to take place from the inside, as has been suggested already, then it must include an examination of the role of the school for, according to Raskin.

Type
Across Australia …… From Teacher to Teacher
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

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