Eight Indigenous Language Teaching Resources
Winner - Best Indigenous Resource – 2006 ATOM Awards for Film, Television, Video and Multimedia.

In 2003, Multilocus Interactive was contracted by the Australian Government’s Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA) to develop language resources for remote Indigenous communities to support the use and preservation of their traditional languages.

This two year project was part of DCITA’s Telecommunications Action Plan for Remote Indigenous Communities (TAPRIC) which aimed to achieve an increased take-up of technology through the development of multimedia content relevant to the cultures, lives and aspirations of Indigenous peoples.

As the prime contractor Multilocus designed and developed the language resources in partnership with members of eight communities and their language centres and schools. These groups were selected from remote regions of Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory and New South Wales, and from Tasmania and Victoria.

A CD-ROM and Teachers’ Guide were developed for each language. The CD-ROMs feature stories or songs reflecting the culture of each language group, as well as exercises and games to promote language skills. Each Teacher’s Guide includes instructions for the installation and use of the CD-ROM, suggested lesson plans, and black line masters.

To make the most out of the funds available, Multilocus and the language groups took a modular approach in developing the resources. In November 2003, after visiting each of the language groups, Multilocus invited representatives from each  group to a workshop in Adelaide. The purpose of the workshop was to design learning modules that could be used by a spectrum of groups ranging from those recovering languages from historical records to groups where an Aboriginal language is spoken as a first language. At the conclusion of the workshop, fourteen different activity modules and three different story modules had been designed.  Each language group could then choose one story module and up to ten activity modules to be included on their CD.

The ‘look and feel’ of each resource links the resource to the language group’s country. It is the different communities’ content that makes each resource unique, thus giving important ownership to each community. The communities hold copyright over the knowledge, artwork, material and recordings featured in the resources.

The learning modules are suitable for all ages and are described in the "Overview of Activity Modules" booklet.

Download "Overview of Activity Modules" booklet (2.7MB PDF).

The words, sentences, pictures and audio requests used in all the module activities are randomly selected by the computer. Therefore, each time an activity is played, the student will be presented with a different set, thus giving variety and preventing the student from learning that the correct answer is always in a specific order and position on the screen. The Student Tracking feature ensures that the students see all the items in an activity before they are randomised and presented again.

Multilocus invites inquiries from other language groups seeking similar resources.

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