2019 Narrm Oration: The Fabric of Hawaiian Medium Education: A Perspective for Indigenous Language Revitalisation

When a language is at the juncture of extinction, using it as the language of formal education would appear to be a mission impossible. Thirty-six years after a handful of people in Hawaiʻi decided to face this dire situation head on and use Hawaiian as the medium of pre-school education – with no money, no site, no curriculum and no 'qualified' teachers – Hawaiʻi is now experiencing a reawakening of new generations of highly fluent second and first language Hawaiian speakers.

In the 2019 Narrm Oration, Dr Larry L Kimura will impart a progression of the 36 years (1983–2019) of overcoming obstacles to advance the life of the Hawaiian language and cultural wellbeing.

All Free Public Lectures