First Language (Dinka) Literacy as a Foundation for English ...

Section 2: Teaching Ideas
Driving
Going into a supermarket
car park
There are kangaroos, so
drive at 30 kmh.
A hat – maybe a building
site?
Some initial interpretations from the learners
Half the class had a learner driving licence and the other half wanted one.
In the last 15 minutes of each class, the topic was driving. At first the group worked
through a few of the questions from the Driver Knowledge Test (DKT) each day, with the
Dinka teacher interpreting. After a couple of weeks the teacher changed direction, and
instead focussed on the signs found in the DKT. Each day the group looked at two or
three signs, guessing and then discussing the meaning, with the Dinka teacher facilitating
and interpreting.
The discussions around driving brought to light the unfamiliarity the learners had with the
concept of distance as in the Sudan they had tended to talk about how long it took to take
to get to a destination, rather than a measurement based on kilometres.
Towards the end of the course, one learner tried the DKT (questions given orally through
a Dinka interpreter). She passed the test on the first attempt and got her L licence. She
said she had seen most of the signs introduced in class, and that the driving study had
been very useful. Another learner was planning to attempt the test soon.
All the non-driving learners said the driving signs were a very helpful course focus. In the
light of the scope for misinterpretation shown by the examples above, bilingual support
was absolutely crucial for this work.
© Commonwealth of Australia 2009 Dinka-English Literacy Project Page 32