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Early years English language acquisition and instructional approaches for Aboriginal students with home languages other than English: A systematic review of the Australian and international literature

Description:
Improving Indigenous educational outcomes is a national priority and a key feature of the 'Closing the Gap' strategy endorsed by all Australian governments. This is supported by evidence that improving outcomes of early years learning is critical to subsequent trajectories of education, life-long learning and overcoming socio-economic disadvantage. Early childhood and primary school English language acquisition is predictive of subsequent outcomes of English oracy, school attendance and participation. Children's proficiency in their home language is also considered important to their identity, self esteem and cultural continuity. Most of the descriptive and theoretically based literature is premised on the necessity of healthy and appropriate early language and concept development in first language. This review has focused on the national and international evidence most relevant to the contextual features of greatest challenge to an effective service delivery model in remote Indigenous settings. These include: a) predominantly oral-based home languages; b) English as a foreign language; c) minority and disadvantaged populations and d) high levels of geographic remoteness (where, typically, English is not the language of everyday discourse). The publicly available policy and program documents and curriculum materials from Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia indicate that a variety of language instructional approaches are presently in use within and across these jurisdictions. Whilst there is a considerable descriptive literature on educational approaches in the Australian Indigenous context, there are relatively few evaluative studies and only three of those reviewed dealt specifically with the issue of an oral based language and acquisition of print literacy. Both the national and international literatures on the topic are characterized by a scarcity of high quality quantitatively based studies. The first step of the review was therefore to identify those studies having a sufficient level of evidence to meaningfully evaluate the efficacy, effectiveness and characteristics of instructional approaches which have been shown to be successful in enabling early years English language acquisition and other learning outcomes. From the studies reviewed, the main factors influencing remote Indigenous children's successful early learning outcomes, including proficiency in English and maintenance of Indigenous languages across all instructional approaches are: a) children commencing school with some proficiency in English; b) culturally responsive schools, curricula and teaching; c) strong school-community partnerships which support regular attendance and engagement with school learning; d) schools and communities having clearly articulated aspirations for their children's literacy and language development; e) quality teaching; f) high expectations of students (at school and at home); g) learning environments which acknowledge and promote self-esteem, self-efficacy and positive racial and cultural identification; and h) community and family factors such as adequate nutrition and housing. (author abstract)
Resource Type:
Literature Review

Related resources include summaries, versions, measures (instruments), or other resources in which the current document plays a part. Research products funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation are related to their project records.

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