A template to use existing digitised data for a CALL program shell for indigenous languages: A community centred approach

Westwood, V. (2011) A template to use existing digitised data for a CALL program shell for indigenous languages: A community centred approach. In: World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications (EDMEDIA) 2011, 27 June - 1 July 2011, Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract

Many strategies have been employed to maintain or revitalise Australian Indigenous languages by linguists and communities. Despite this, the number of spoken languages continues to fall. There has been a call for sustainable Computer Assisted Language Learning courseware. This paper demonstrates a software template and shell application. The template makes use of digitised data compiled by linguists, reading the underlying files of a language dictionary from one community in Australia. The data is stored in XML files, and the interface allows the community to edit and import new data and multimedia resources. The data is then read by a pedagogically-sound program shell. Of importance to the success of this project is the Participatory Action Research approach with the researcher/educator, community and linguist. The template, the application and the process will be evaluated qualitatively. If successful, the transference of the project to other community languages will be tested.

Item Type:	Conference Paper
Conference Website:	http://www.aace.org/
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/21721

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