front where a student sits with their back to the board. The teacher writes a Language word on the board. The student asks questions about the word, eg Am I an animal? Students are not allowed to say the word on the board. The person in the chair has to guess the word on the board based on the clues given by other students. These can include the English word for the target word. Australia’s first international cricket team In 1868, Australia’s first representative cricket team toured England. The team members were all Koorie men. Research the first Australian cricket team and take notes of what you find. In pairs, practise using the past tense suffix with the verbs in the vocabulary list. Make a wall chart with words associated with cricket. Cover up and allow a student to call out the word in Language, and the first to say the correct meaning in English has the next turn. Game: Ball: Throw, to: Run, to: Catch, to: Play, to Man, white: Overseas, other country: Travel, to: Sick, to be: Tired, to be: Introduce past tense on verbs relating to the cricket team’s activities. Find members of the team in the Extension: –this site acknowledges the team but does not credit them as the first Australian cricket team. Why not? Discuss people’s attitudes to race. Individual members of the team Choose an individual member of the cricket team and write a report on the player. What happened to them after the tour? Include Language words and sentences in your report where possible. Retell your chosen individual’s story in class, using your notes for support. Translate sentences from references, eg, The Aboriginal men went to England in 1868. The people at Coranderrk played cricket. Create sentences in Language using available words and grammar. Extension: If the Language is available, students write the players’ names using the spelling system of the target language
of any other words that have a similar relationship? Discuss this in class, then list them in both English and Language if you can. Post war Australia Compare the way Aboriginal people in general were treated before and after World War 2. Describe and discuss Marion Leane Smith’s life including her role as a nurse in World War 1. Would Marion Smith have achieved so much if she had remained in Australia? Discuss why this is so. Tell Marion’s story in Language using the present tense, then retell it using the past tense. Did the soldiers’ participation in the services make any difference to the way Aboriginal soldiers were treated after the war? If not, why not? Discuss. Nurse: Doctor: Hospital: An Indigenous Nurse in World War I: If there is a local community member who served in the military, ask if they would talk to the students about their experiences. Extension: Why was the attitude of white soldiers towards their Aboriginal comrades different to the attitude of white civilians towards Aboriginal people? Assessment: observation, quizzes, role-play, contribution to class discussions, written work, oral presentation (delete those not applicable) Topic 4. The Bark Petition Overview Suggested Student Activities Insert Words in Target Language Comments/resources for the Language team and Aboriginal teacher Greeting routine See Topic 1 Farewell routine See Topic 1 Revision Write some known words on small cards and put them in a container. Sit the students in a circle and the teacher stands outside the circle with a device that plays music. When the music is playing, the container is passed on. In keeping with the Koorie educational model, the preceding topics focus on Victorian Koorie people and this final topic focusses on the wider Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
Topic 5: Tense on Verbs Overview Suggested Student Activities Insert words and grammar in target Language Comments/resources for the Language Team and Aboriginal Teacher Greeting routine See Topic 1 Farewell See Topic 1 Revision of present and past tenses Revision: What are verbs? What is tense? How is tense marked in the past in English? Revise verbs learned in Language. Ask students to change examples of present tense verbs into the past equivalent: ‘I eat – I ate’. How is tense marked in the target Language? Give some examples. An inflected verb can be the equivalent of a sentence in English, for example, [insert Language]. See how many one word sentences you can write in Language. Create simple sentences using the Language you have learnt to date. Use the model I see the kangaroo. You saw the emu. He saw the crow. Notice how the suffix showing the subject (the ‘do-er’) changes but the tense stays the same in sentence pairs like ‘I see, you see’, ‘I run, you run’, etc. [Insert Language] In pairs, students write a brief dialogue using Cartoon Story Maker, eg two people meet and exchange greetings. Present tense suffix: Past tense suffix: Tense I eat: I ate: Subject (singular) I see: I run: I sleep: You see: You run: You sleep: It sees: It runs: It sleeps: I see the kangaroo. You saw the emu. He saw the crow. It is important to note that not all Aboriginal Languages have present, past and future tenses. For example, some have past versus non-past or future versus non-future. In Aboriginal Languages tense is marked by an inflectional suffix on the verb. In Victorian Aboriginal Languages, it is generally the first suffix and can be followed by other suffixes. An inflected verb can be the equivalent of an English sentence because subject and object pronouns can be marked on the verb. Creation of simple sentences: note that, unless the students already understand case marking on nouns, you must use pronoun subjects in this exercise as noun subjects sometimes have a special case suffix. Introduction to future tense Introduce the future tense. Explain how the future is shown, then ask students to change examples of Future tense suffix: I will eat. I will sleep. I will run.