All’s Well at Milingimbi
Abstract
One day a teacher came to me declaring he was totally unable to teach oral English to his Grade 1 class. A young teacher in trouble. Of course I must give a demonstration lesson. I sat the children on chairs in a circle and started out with the patter, “I’m David, you’re Fred”, “I’m David, you’re Jane”, “I’m David, you’re Bill”. As we proceeded I noticed one lad, even by this early stage, was attempting hand-stands on his chair. “Come on. Stop that nonsense and sit down”, I growled, after my quieter pleadings had been ignored. The little five-year-old, knowing virtually no English, stopped, looked me straight in the eye, then grinning, gave himself three light pats on the bottom and sat down. I got out of that lesson as fast as I could, hoping the teacher was satisfied with the demonstration. He wasn’t.
References
Dickinson A., Leveque J. & Sagot H., 1976: All’s Well. Paris, Didier .
Harris S.G., 1977 : Milingimbi Aboriginal learning contexts. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque , New Mexico.
Silva C., 1975: Recent theories of learning acquisition in relation to a semantic approach in foreign-language teaching. English Language Teaching, Vol. 29, July.
Vygotsky L., 1962: Thought and Language. M.I.T. Press, Massachusetts.
