We have loved having Camilla Porsanger and family visiting the Children's Voices Centre over the past few months. Camilla is undertaking her PhD through Nord University in Norway focusing on Sami children's language learning. We have learned so much from Camilla and her family and will miss them. We look forward to ongoing collaborations.
I have really enjoyed learning more about Camilla's excellent PhD research to understand Sami-speaking children's language maintenance.
It has been a joy to have Camilla and her family visiting Bathurst.
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| Sharynne and Camilla in the Children's Voices Centre |
We were honoured to have a presentation by Camilla Porsanger at the Children's Voices Centre today. She shared with us about the history of the Sami community and languages (North, Lulu and South Sami) and the work she is doing with others in Norway to maintain Sami language and to support children with special needs. She is undertaking such important work.
We concluded her presentation with sharing welcome home soup and some florentines.
Today we welcomed Camilla Porsanger to The Treehouse. She is studying her PhD at Nord University and has a scholarship to visit Australia. She is a visitor of the School of Indigenous Australian Studies and the Children's Voices Centre.
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| Camilla and Prof Lynn Williams both were welcomed at CVC today |
Camilla's family brought a Sami flag for the CVC and we discussed Wiradjuri land.
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| Camilla's children wearing Sami dress (photos shared with permission) |
It has been a pleasure to host Ida Wiik Sætherskar, a PhD student from Nord University, Norway during this week at the Children's Voices Centre. Ida has met many staff and students at CSU, observed children at the Bathurst Early Childhood Intervention Service (BECIS) and presented a talk attended by 30 people (online and in person).
Ida's presentation was titled "Early Childhood Education Teachers' Judgments of Children's Language Skills". Here is her presentation abstract:
Ida Wiik Sætherskar is a speech and language therapist and a PhD research fellow at the Faculty of Education and Arts, Nord University. Ida´s project is a part of the research project SpedAims Kohort, Centre for Research on Special Needs Education and Inclusive Practice (SpedAims). In her doctoral project, Ida focuses her research on early childhood education (ECE) teachers’ judgments of children’s language skills. Successful early language development is vital to children´s later literacy development, education and well-being outcomes, highlighting the importance of early identification and early intervention for children with language delay or language disorders. ECE teachers are in a prime position to identify and support these children, further emphasizing the need for accuracy in judgments of children’s language skills as a part of their competence in supporting children’s language development. Ida will discuss current knowledge about the efficacy of ECE teachers' judgments of and ability to assess children's language and implications of her findings for further study as well as for practice.
Tonight we had a meeting with the Nord/Charles Sturt University Early Childhood Education Group working towards a memorandum of understanding between the universities.
There are three sub-groups:
The Children's Voices group shared the following projects and would like to have a seminar where people share their work
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| Children's Voices Group |
In the research project SpedAims Language of the Heart, we want to find out more about how we can support Sami-speaking children's linguistic, academic and social learning and development opportunities in Norway. The study includes children from both Northern Sami, Lule Sami and Southern Sami language environments and language regions. It consists of both qualitative and quantitative studies, and we will follow a large number of children from all over the country through the last few years in kindergarten and further up to school.
We have been honoured to have visitors from Nord University (https://www.nord.no/en) at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst over the past three weeks. Susanne Francisco has coordinated the visit of
from Fakultet for lærerutdanning og kunst- og kulturfag [Faculty of Teacher Education and Arts and Culture]. We look forward to working on a Memorandum of Understanding between the two universities.
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| Dr Susanne Francisco, Prof Wenche Rønning, A/Prof Kathrin Olsen, Dr Kate Smithers, Prof Sharynne McLeod and Dr Leanne Gibbs |
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| Kathrin and Sharynne saw 9 kangaroos near CSU. |