Rhonda Oliver

Rhonda Oliver
Curtin University · School of Education

PhD

About

131
Publications
68,968
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Introduction
Second langauge/dialect acquisition, translanguaging especially by Aboriginal Australians, Indigenous Education, TESOL

Publications

Publications (131)
Article
Full-text available
Needs analysis is not new in education or academic circles. Many scholars and educators in different parts of the world see this approach as a valuable tool for program development and review as it is a mechanism that can be used to link the students’ present academic learning with their future needs. This is also true with respect to language prog...
Article
Despite contrary evidence, attendance remains a measurement of success in remote First Nations education. This motivation, in part, derives from the Australian Government’s ‘Closing the Gap’ policies, which in the past included attendance targets for First Nations students. These assumed that increased school attendance led to improved school outco...
Article
Full-text available
The Australian education system works well for most students. However, equitable access to secondary education is problematic for First Nations people living in remote communities. There is a strong emphasis on Year 12 completion as an indicator of successful engagement in remote First Nations education. This has been partly driven by Australian Go...
Article
Over recent years there has been a strong emphasis on engagement and attendance as indicators of success in remote First Nations education. Attendance in remote schools has been steadily falling for several years. At the same time teacher quality and quality teaching have been described as critical for student outcomes. Finding teachers who have th...
Chapter
This volume contributes to ongoing discussions of ethics in Applied Linguistics scholarship by focusing in depth on several different sub-areas within the field. The book is comprised of four sections: methodological approaches to research; specific participant populations and contexts of research; (language) pedagogy and policy; and personal and i...
Article
This study was undertaken at a Mongolian community language school which aims to support Mongolian heritage children to learn their home language and culture. The learners were aged 4–15 years with diverse abilities in the Mongolian language. Informed by both purpose-developed Needs and Interest Analyses, a task-based language teaching (TBLT) progr...
Article
Full-text available
This article provides a review of research in applied linguistics published in Australia in the period 2015–2022. Primarily, it is based on articles from Australian publications as material from other sources is more widely available to an international audience. The research has been published in such journals as the Australian Journal of Language...
Book
Translingual Practices Bringing together work from a team of international scholars, this groundbreaking book explores how language users employ translingualism playfully, while, at the same time, negotiating precarious situations such as the breaking of social norms and subverting sociolinguistic boundaries. It includes a range of ethnographic stu...
Article
Full-text available
Successful transition from education to the workplace is vital for young people, particularly Indigenous students from remote communities, to support their long-term economic and emotional well-being, social inclusion, physical and mental health. This paper reports findings from a three-year study undertaken collaboratively with young people at a r...
Chapter
Professor Michael H. Long (1945-2021) was one of the most influential scholars in the field of second language acquisition. This volume presents a set of chapters that honour some of his key contributions in language teaching and learning. Following a bibliometric analysis of the impact of his research to the field, the volume spans topics such as...
Article
Drawing on ethnographic interview analysis of Aboriginal participants in Australia, this study seeks to expand the critical discussions in Applied Linguistics by understanding the concept of translanguaging in relation to its “mundanity” (or ordinariness). Our data shows that rather than perceiving translanguaging as extraordinary, for Aboriginal s...
Article
A growing awareness of the value of Aboriginal teachers in Australian schools has motivated the development of the ‘On Country’ Teacher Education (OCTE) program through collaboration between the Western Australian Department of Education and Curtin University. The OCTE builds on previous initiatives to increase the number of Aboriginal teachers in...
Article
Full-text available
Aboriginal school students, especially those living in rural and remote areas, continue to achieve below the national standard in oral language, literacy and numeracy. On leaving school their unemployment rate is three times that of non-Aboriginal people. At the same time we know academic and career success is closely tied to one’s self-identity....
Article
In this conceptual paper, we explore the opportunities and challenges that translanguaging may provide for students from Australian Aboriginal backgrounds and their teachers. We use examples taken from Australian Aboriginal students who may speak Standard Australian English, Australian Aboriginal English, creoles (Kriol being the common one across...
Article
The interactionist hypothesis holds that conversational interaction facilitates second language (L2) learning by providing learners opportunities to receive meaningful input, modify their output, and attend to language form. Although research has often explored the efficacy of different types of L2 instruction (deductive or inductive), few studies...
Article
For millennia, stories and oral histories have been a fundamental way of sharing knowledge in many Aboriginal cultures. Honouring the role of stories can address a continuing lack of Aboriginal voices in Australian educational research literature. In this paper, we describe the philosophical underpinnings and methodology of our research, which aime...
Article
Full-text available
With a focus on Australian Aboriginal students, in this article we argue that translanguaging provides a useful resource for multilingual learners. We point out that although translanguaging is a relatively recent term, in Indigenous Australia is has been used consistently throughout the ages as people from different languages communicated with eac...
Chapter
Bloomsbury World Englishes offers a comprehensive and rigorous description of the facts, implications and contentious issues regarding the forms and functions of English in the world. International experts cover a diverse range of varieties and topics, offering a more accurate understanding of English across the globe and the various social context...
Chapter
When communicating we all employ whatever linguistic features are at our disposal (Jørgensen in Int J Multilingualism 5:161–176, 2008).
Chapter
Success in academia requires more than an understanding of discipline-specific literature and an ability to teach and do research. It is also necessary to develop an understanding of a range of professionally-oriented skills such as how to identify and apply to doctoral programs, how to make the most of conferences, how to achieve a semblance of wo...
Article
Full-text available
Sense of belonging is a fundamental human need that can affect long term education and health outcomes. It can also be impacted by the design of the built environment, in this case by the interior design of boarding schools. Within the emerging literature pertaining to experiences of boarding school for Aboriginal students in Australia, issues of l...
Article
Full-text available
The internationalisation of higher education has contributed to the increasing number of English medium instruction (EMI) implementation in a variety of global teaching contexts, including in Indonesia. One approach used to practice EMI is content and language integrated learning (CLIL). This responsive practice, however, is not without challenges....
Article
Eight adult Aboriginal people residing in a remote community in the north-west of Australia participated in this research. The data were collected from an ‘inside’ perspective and, as culturally appropriate, through informal interviews (yarning) and ongoing conversations. These data were recorded as field notes and audio files which were transcribe...
Chapter
In this chapter, projects undertaken at two independent Aboriginal boarding schools in remote Western Australia are described. Both projects have sought to provide instructional advice for teachers and to enhance students' literacy levels through access to the internet. A dedicated website was developed for each school to respond specifically to th...
Chapter
Second language learning research mostly investigates literate learners. Based on studies by Tarone, Bigelow and colleagues (2004, 2005, 2006, 2006) this small scale study focuses on low level literacy learners who are acquiring Standard Australian English as their second dialect. It explores whether literacy levels impact upon the processing of la...
Article
Research on collaborative work has explored the benefits of task repetition (TR) for L2 development. TR has been claimed to improve L2 complexity, accuracy and fluency, provide opportunities for feedback, and increase learners’ engagement in their L2, as reported in studies that have explored patterns of interaction. Research on this topic, particu...
Book
Evidence-Based Second Language Pedagogy is a cutting-edge collection of empirical research conducted by top scholars focusing on instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) and offering a direct contribution to second language pedagogy by closing the gap between research and practice. Building on the conceptual, state-of-the-art chapters in The R...
Chapter
• This study was a longitudinal investigation (two years) of Mandarin as an L2 CLIL classes in an Australian primary school (students aged 5 to 9 years old). • The data included 164 hours of recorded classroom observation involving four science and math CLIL teachers working with approximately 100 students. • The analysis focused on interactional f...
Article
Previous research carried out from a socio-cultural perspective has explored the way adult learners interact when undertaking tasks. Following the type of analysis initiated by Storch (2002) we examined the patterns of interaction of young ESL learners (ages 9–12) of different English proficiency levels, high-intermediate (H) and low-intermediate (...
Chapter
This chapter describes the translanguaging practices of young Aboriginal adults when they use the social media site Facebook. It is apparent that their language use in this medium reflects the complex and diverse nature of their language backgrounds. Specifically, they use their range of linguistic resources, including traditional language words an...
Preprint
☞ The study was a longitudinal investigation (two years) of Mandarin-as-an-L2 CLIL classes in an Australian primary school (students aged 5 to 9 years old). ☞ 164 hours of recorded classroom observational data involved four science and math CLIL teachers working with approximately 100 students. ☞ The analysis focused on interactional features that...
Chapter
Bringing together experienced classroom researchers and teacher educators from different countries where tasks are playing an influential role in language education, this collected volume critically explores how TBLT research can engage with pedagogy, and how TBLT pedagogy can engage with research. A defining part of the TBLT project has always bee...
Article
Full-text available
This longitudinal case study reports on the acquisition of Japanese as a second language (L2) by a child learner with English as his first language (L1) who was acquiring Japanese naturalistically. In particular this study focusses on the acquisition by the child of a non-canonical mapping structure, namely the passive voice in relation to canonica...
Article
In this study, we explore how Aboriginal multilingual speakers use technology-enhanced environments, specifically Facebook, for their translanguaging practices. Using data collected from Facebook posts written by seven Aboriginal youth over a period of 18 months, we investigate how the participants move between Aboriginal English (AE) and Standard...
Article
This paper describes peer interaction among children with English as an Additional Language (EAL) in primary schools. Through linguistic analysis it provides an exploratory examination of the nature of their collaborations, how they work together and the ways they interact as they complete classroom task pair work. 42 children from two junior and t...
Article
Within the field of second language acquisition (SLA), there has been much less research undertaken with children than with adults, yet the two cohorts are quite distinct in characteristics and in their learning processes. This article provides a review of child SLA research, particularly the research with a pedagogical focus. We describe a series...
Article
Full-text available
The current study explores the challenges facing an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) program at an Indonesian university in Indonesia. As a part of their commitment to improvement, this university is working to better prepare students for employment so that they may function well in workplace. However, currently students’ English proficiency is...
Article
This commentary includes consideration of theory, opinion, empirical work, evaluative work and practice in a subset of papers that appeared in ARAL (2016) on task-based language teaching. Addressing the wider logic, theoretical underpinnings and instructional implications of TBLT is a serious applied linguistics challenge and one that the TBLT area...
Book
This is an ambitious work, covering the whole breadth of the field from its theoretical underpinnings to research and teaching methodology. The Editors have managed to recruit a stellar panel of contributors, resulting in the kind of 'all you ever wanted to know about instructed SLA' collection that should be found on the shelves of every good libr...
Chapter
Full-text available
In this chapter, projects undertaken at two independent Aboriginal boarding schools in remote Western Australia are described. Both projects have sought to provide instructional advice for teachers and to enhance students' literacy levels through access to the internet. A dedicated website was developed for each school to respond specifically to th...
Article
This article reviews the significant and diverse range of research in applied linguistics published in Australia in the period 2008–2014. Whilst acknowledging that a great deal of research by Australian scholars has been published internationally during these seven years, this review is based on books, journal articles, and conference proceedings p...
Article
Research on task repetition in second language (L2) learning has shown the benefits of this practice for subsequent L2 learning. However, as with much L2 research, most studies on task repetition have focused on adults and there is a dearth of research in this area involving young children. This study examines the effect of task repetition on two f...
Article
Full-text available
div class="page" title="Page 1"> A historical perspective of English as a second or additional language (ESL/EAL) in Australia reveals the field as in a constant state of flux, in spite of Australia’s status as a nation of immigrants. This paper provides a contemporary review of the various phases of English language teaching in Australia for both...
Article
Full-text available
The current research examines the effect of two methods of vocabulary training on reading fluency and comprehension of adult English as second language (ESL) tertiary-bound students. The methods used were isolated vocabulary training (bottom-up reading) and vocabulary training in context (top-down reading). The current exploratory and quasi-experim...
Article
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This paper reports findings from a recent study of Australian Aboriginal higher education student experience. Reported here are extracts from a set of case studies of staff, specifically those working in Indigenous Centres, involved with these students in both teaching and support capacities. These participants provided a rich set of qualitative da...
Article
Full-text available
English has a long history in Vietnam and in the last two decades, particularly for business communication, it has developed with an unprecedented speed. Despite this ascendancy, there is an absence of research regarding English in Vietnamese business correspondence. The current study is an in-depth investigation of this with a particular focus on...
Article
Aboriginal Australians are entering university in greater numbers than in past decades, yet many struggle to complete their degrees. This paper reports on the qualitative component of a research project aimed at enhancing understandings about this issue by investigating student perspectives about those structures that facilitate or impede their ret...
Article
Full-text available
The transmission and dissemination of knowledge in Aboriginal societies for the most part occurs orally in an Aboriginal language or in Aboriginal English. However, whilst support is given to speaking skills in Indigenous communities, in our education system less emphasis is given to developing equivalent oral communicative competence in Standard A...
Article
Full-text available
While needs analyses underpin the design of second language analytic syllabi, the methodologies undertaken are rarely examined. This paper explores the value of multiple data sources and collection methods for developing a needs analysis model to enable vocational education and training teachers to address the needs of Australian Aboriginal student...
Article
The uptake of small screen technology by adolescents is widespread, particularly in industrial nations. Whether the same is true for Australian Aboriginal youth is less clear as there is a dearth of research in this regard. Therefore, in this exploratory study the use of small screen technology by Indigenous students was examined. Twenty-four Indig...
Chapter
For more than two decades, within numerous spheres of education, code-switching (CS)—moving competently between two languages or dialects—has been promoted as a useful, if not necessary, skill for Australian Indigenous students to develop. (The term ‘Indigenous’ in Australia usually refers to (mainland) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples...
Article
Full-text available
This paper examines the cultural safety offered to Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students within their university environments. In the context of this paper, cultural safety includes cultural competency, as recently subscribed by Universities Australia, and ‘extends beyond (to) cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity’ (Bin Se...
Article
Full-text available
Drawing from a study of the experiences of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander university students, this paper presents an overview of the specific needs of these students as they enter and progress through their tertiary education. Extracts from a set of case studies developed from both staff and student interviews and an online surve...
Article
Almost 800 international students from non-English speaking backgrounds enrolled at five Australian universities responded to an online survey accessed through a dedicated website. The survey captured demographics; language and language learning background; strategies for continuing to develop English; motivation, attitudes and beliefs about learni...
Article
Vocational Education and Training (VET) in high schools has had positive effects on the retention of Indigenous students, providing important pathways into further education and the workforce. However, low-level literacy (and numeracy) skills can make successful completion difficult, especially for students who speak Standard Australian English as...
Article
The increasing number of international students enrolled in Australian universities over the last decade has met with a corresponding concern that many non-English-speaking background (NESB) students experience considerable difficulty in their courses. Consequently, concerns about admission procedures have been raised regarding how English language...
Article
The English Language Growth (ELG) Project was conducted in five Australian universities in 2008-09 to address the on-going English language development of international students from non-English speaking backgrounds. Using an online survey inviting both qualitative and quantitative responses, 798 international students provided a rich source of dat...
Article
Full-text available
Repeated assessments of literacy skills have shown that Aboriginal students do not achieve at the same level as their non-Aboriginal peers. Many Aboriginal students speak Aboriginal English, a dialect different from the Standard Australian English used in schools. Research shows that it is crucial for educators in bidialectal contexts to be aware o...
Article
This paper reports on a study of peer interaction in ten foreign language (FL) classes, six secondary and four primary, over a period of four months. The focus of this paper is the nature of peer interaction, including the purposes of second language use, and language choice. The data, comprising observation, audio and video recordings of five less...
Article
Full-text available
The ways in which the Accelerated Literacy (AL) program might work to accelerate the literacy levels of mainly Indigenous English as a secondary language (ESL) and English as a secondary dialect (ESD) students are discussed. The alternative second language acquisition (SLA) perspectives and theories may have the capacity to explain, and account for...
Article
The role of conversational interaction in second language research has increasingly been seen as playing a facilitative role in second language learning. As such there have been a number of studies focussing on different types of interaction, including feedback such as recasts, and their potential role in second language learning. In this study, us...
Book
This report presents the outcomes of The English Language Growth (ELG) Project, a large scale project conducted in five Australian universities in 2008-09 to address the ongoing English language development of international students from non-English speaking backgrounds. While these international students have a level of English deemed adequate for...
Article
This new volume of work highlights the distinctiveness of child SLA through a collection of different types of empirical research specific to younger learners. Characteristics of children’s cognitive, emotional, and social development distinguish their experiences from those of adult L2 learners, creating intriguing issues for SLA research, and als...
Article
This new volume of work highlights the distinctiveness of child SLA through a collection of different types of empirical research specific to younger learners. Characteristics of children’s cognitive, emotional, and social development distinguish their experiences from those of adult L2 learners, creating intriguing issues for SLA research, and als...
Article
Full-text available
Student views of their teachers and schooling can influence motivation and interest in schooling as well as their approach to learning. This paper describes the results of an investigation of rural adolescents’ views of their schooling. A total of 240 students from government and non-government schools in the South West of Western Australia were in...
Article
This research seeks to extend our current knowledge by exploring the relationship between preferred language strategies, age, proficiency, and self-efficacy beliefs. Responding to the call for more replication of strategy research and for research in different cultural contexts, this research was undertaken in Botswana between 2002 and 2005. The ad...
Article
In this article we report on a study undertaken with ESL children between 7 and 8 years old. They carried out communicative tasks in pairs in second language classrooms. We examined patterns of their task-based conversational interactions while we manipulated their familiarity with the procedure and content of the tasks. We found that learners work...

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