Australian Deaf Community Optimistic About Including Auslan in National Curriculum

The Australian deaf community are in high spirits after their language, Auslan, will be included in the national curriculum that will soon be rolled out in schools across Australia.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) officially published the first curriculum in Auslan yesterday after parents’ lobbying for years for a formal curriculum to be implemented in schools.

ACARA chief executive Rob Randall has hailed this as an achievement. “That’s a fantastic achievement for us, it’s an opportunity for the signing community to have a curriculum in schools, an opportunity for young deaf students to learn about that,” he said.

Since it was officially recognised as a language by the Federal Government in 1987, the use of Auslan for deaf children in Australian schools has been largely inconsistent, with teachers forced to rely on a general framework for languages such as Japanese and French.

Dr Breda Carty, from the Royal Institute of Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) Renwick Centre, who was involved in writing the curriculum, has described the introduction of the new guidelines as a “wonderful development”.

“Certainly for the Australian deaf community, it’s significant, it’s a huge step for equality, it’s a wonderful feeling that our language is now included in the school curriculum,” she said.

The curriculum will also give hearing students the opportunity to learn Auslan, allowing them to communicate with their deaf peers.

Louise de Beuzeville, a teacher and Auslan Coordinator at the RIDBC Thomas Pattison School, said that with the introduction of the curriculum, the teaching of Auslan in schools would be rebuilt. “Currently in this school, what we’ve had to do is prepare everything from scratch”¦ we’ve slotted it in under the English curriculum. What this curriculum does is gives us a scope and sequence for Auslan”¦ it’s important for any language to have a curriculum for that language, but it’s particularly important in a language that is so different,” she said.

Mum Cath Loveday said the changes would help her nine-year-old son Dwayne feel less isolated. He attends a mainstream school in Townsville, and is currently only able to fully communicate with his interpreter.

“It’s going to make a huge equal access to language for everybody involved. We see the benefits far outweighing any other language that is currently being taught in schools.

“If there are young people coming through who are learning Auslan now and go through high school and become employed in the community, he’ll start seeing those people, they’ll start recognising him and it will start to grow that language and community support for him.

“That’s what it’s about, not being isolated, and about him really being immersed in his community,” she said.

Source: Abc.net.au