Wednesday, May 1, 2002

Australian University Goes Online With Studies of Aboriginal Group's Language and Culture By DAVID COHEN A university in Australia has created a distance-education program to teach outsiders one of the world's oldest indigenous languages. The Northern Territory University, in Darwin, is working with the aboriginal Yolngu people to study their language and culture, and also using the latest technology to teach courses about the Yolngu, who trace their history on the continent as far back as 40,000 years. Although the university already offers a variety of undergraduate and advanced degrees in Yolngu studies, the new program marks the first time that the institution has offered an opportunity to earn credits or study toward a stand-alone diploma in these subjects through distance education. The cost for the entire program is around $1,740. The Yolngu people, some 30,000 native Australians, inhabit Arnhem Land, in northeastern Australia, and have had a long tradition of sharing their language and culture with other indigenous groups, according to Michael Christie, an associate dean of languages at the university who oversaw the development of the curriculum and teaching materials. Despite the existence of as many as 100 languages believed to be indigenous to Australia -- the second-greatest number in the world, after nearby Papua New Guinea -- Mr. Christie says this is the first time that one of the country's 38 institutions of higher learning has developed an online program specifically devoted to one of them. The program's materials include a reference book, study guides, and two CD-ROM's. A password protects access to the Web classroom, which is run by Mr. Christie. One of the CD's contains sound, graphic, and text files that students can use to learn, practice, and test pronunciation, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and knowledge of the people's kinship structures. The other disk contains software that allows students to record sound files and attach them to e-mail messages. Instructors rely on the sound files to assess students' progress. For advanced students, an online database, a CD-ROM dictionary, and an electronic library are available. About 50 students are currently enrolled in program, which began this year. Most of the students are scattered across Australia, with Britain and the United States supplying a couple of students apiece. Once the program is fully up and running, Mr. Christie believes it will have "a natural appeal" to students who are interested in American Indian languages. Online instruction not only provides the means to bring international students to what has traditionally been seen as a remote corner of the learning world, but has also allowed Mr. Christie to work in tandem with members of the Yolngu tribe in developing the program and in studying Yolngu culture. The Yolngu people "are pretty strict on issues of proprietorship when it comes to language," he says. "They take the view that teaching an aboriginal language is, or ought to be, a group effort." That philosophy, he says, "very much suits the nature of what we're attempting to achieve with the new program." Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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