Aboriginal English inside and outside the classroom

It is argued that Aboriginal children’s English is different inside and outside the classroom largely because characteristically, inside the classroom the Aboriginal children do not have the freedom to determine the discourse pattern which they have outside the classroom. This is illustrated on the basis of an analysis of five first person oral narratives of Aboriginal children of the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia recorded outside the classroom, which are compared both with a first person oral narrative of a non-Aboriginal child and with teacher led interactions in the classes of which these children were members. The Aboriginal children’s discourse exhibits ‘tracking,’ a culture-specific way of organising narrative, which is widely exhibited in Aboriginal communities. It is implied that education of speakers of Aboriginal English needs to be sensitive to such discoursal features which are not shared by other English speakers.