Language Leadership Program 2024

The Language Leadership workshop commenced in the second week of May, held on beautiful Larrakia Country. This year, Living Languages collaborated with ARDS Aboriginal Corporation and the Ngukurr Language Centre to bring Yolngu and Ngalakgan speakers, from across Arnhem land, together in Darwin. With the focus of the week being to connect with Elders, create pathways and receive training for language work.

Day one was spent getting to know each other and one another’s languages! We heard from Elders as to why language work is important to ensure children are learning language the right way. Participants worked in small groups to brainstorm language work that is already happening in their community as well as ideas for future language projects.

The end of our Language Leadership week saw Living Languages trainers, Sophie and Desiree, spending the day with the Ngukurr Language Centre on Larrakia country, conducting a one-day workshop on Ngalakgan Language and literacy. The Ngukurr team are in the early stages of developing a Ngalakgan language program for Urapunga School, which they hope to roll out in the future.

To kick things off, the team was eager to deepen their understanding of how words and sentences are put together in Ngalakgan. The morning was filled with discussions about linguistic terminology and breaking down some of the words that linguists use to talk about language. The team could then apply these terms to their own language and use this knowledge to construct sentences together.

By the end of the day, we discussed how these words and sentences could be used as the building blocks to inform a language program. As well as how the iPad skills they learnt earlier in the week, during the Language Leadership workshop, could be applied to create engaging language learning resources for children, reinforcing the language they have newly acquired.

Our Trainers came back to the Living Languages team the following week with full hearts and many wonderful stories, we can’t wait to see what will unfold from here for Ngalakgan! Too deadly!