New Project: Integrating Indigenous Australian Knowledge and Japanese Language Learning

The CLIL Teacher Education Lab will commence a new project funded by the Australia-Japan Foundation (AJF): Integrating Indigenous Australian Knowledge and Japanese Language Learning.

The project will develop knowledge of how language teachers can use Content and Language Integrated Learning to work more confidently with bringing Australian Indigenous knowledge and culture into school-based Japanese language programs.

Led by the Melbourne Graduate School of Education in partnership with the Japanese Language Teachers’ Association of Victoria (JLTAV), the Modern Languages Teachers’ Association of Victoria (MLTAV), the Japan Pedagogy Association for Content and Language Integrated Learning (J-CLIL), the project will bring Japanese language teachers together to co-create sharable online resources and teacher support notes. The outcome will enable the teaching of Australian Indigenous knowledge, while students also learn Japanese.

Resources will be based on the needs of participating teachers, and the university-based expertise includes support to find and select appropriate Indigenous knowledge source materials, and knowledge of innovations for how language teaching can be successfully combined with learning content from other curriculum areas, also known as “content and language integrated learning” (CLIL))—an increasingly popular method in schools given its ability to engage students in language learning and produce results. Resources will be shared through language teacher professional associations.

Project Lab Members