Learning through language in Solomon Islands

Kulu Language Institute staff and affiliates on Ranoqa tour, Jan 2024. Front, kneeling. Director Alpheaus G Zobule, Principal Reuben Pae Standing, left to right. Maezana Vavira (boat skipper), Deputy Principal Nathan Manoah, Chief Luqa translator Allan Buka, Pioneer teacher John Tengana, Debra McDougall, Finance manager Reginal Jiru, Solomon Sagopio (boat crew)

Community-led vernacular language education initiatives

Among the most pressing challenges across all levels of schooling in the Pacific is literacy. Students in Solomon Islands perform well below expectations, partially because few children learn to read and write in languages they understand and speak. The Solomon Islands Government’s new Education act and a 2010 vernacular language policy support the principle of vernacular language education, but top-down implementation of such programs poses apparently insurmountable practical problems.

This research is undertaken in partnership with remarkable community-led vernacular language initiative based on Ranoqa Island in Solomon Islands’ Western Province. Over twenty-five years, the Kulu Language Institute has taught youth and adults not just to read their languages, but also to analyse its underlying structure. Not only have students learned to value their own languages, but they also find themselves better equipped to learn English.

The relationship with the Kulu Language Institute has given rise to a multifaceted programme of work. One strand of the work is ethnographic research that has focused on understanding the motivations and experiences of Kulu Institute students, staff, and community supporters. Another aspect of the work, which was supported by the Endangered Language Documentation Programme and undertaken in partnership with PARADISEC, was the digitization, archiving, enrichment, and repatriation of historical materials recorded in Luqa (lga) and Kubokota (ghn) languages between 1986-2001 and to begin a program of language and culture documentation at the Kulu Language Institute.

This broader aim is expanding the capacity of Solomon Islanders to study and document their own languages, support educators to engage with community-based initiatives, and increase awareness of the value of Indigenous languages and multilingual education.

Benefits

  • Investigate innovative approaches to vernacular language education
  • Contribute to improved educational outcomes
  • Support language documentation and development for small Indigenous languages

More information

Recordings and texts from Ranongga, Solomon Islands. Endangered Languages Archive. Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2196/00-0000-0000-0014-0E92-6.

Ranongga Oral History Project. Collection ROHP1 at catalog.paradisec.org.au

Oral History Recordings. Collection ROHP2 at catalog.paradisec.org.au

“Reviving the spirit of vernacular languages in Solomon Islands” blog post on Solomon Islands Languages workshop

‘In the field with Indigenous languages,’ podcast for Secret Life of Language

McDougall, Debra & Alpheaus G Zobule. 2021. “All Read Well”: Schooling on Solid Ground in a Solomon Islands Language Movement. The Contemporary Pacific. University of Hawai’i Press 33(2). 410–439.

Project details

Lead researchers

Assoc Prof Debra McDougall, University of Melbourne

Dr Alpheaus Graham Zobule, Australian National University, Kulu Language Institute of Ranoqa, Islands Bible Ministries of Solomon Islands

Research partners

Kulu Language Institute, Solomon Islands

Islands Bible College, Solomon Islands

PARADISEC Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures

Supporting funding organisations

Endangered Languages Documentation Programme

Australian Research Council funded Centre of Excellence in the Dynamics of Language

Contact

Assoc Prof Debra McDougall debra.mcdougall@unimelb.edu.au

Dr Alpheaus Zobule Alpheaus.Zobule@anu.edu.au