Teacher Ruth celebrates the Aboriginal culture

Teacher Ruth & Artist Sonda

Ruth is one of our DL teachers from Bankstown College in Sydney who has a keen interest in culture and human identity.

Every year Australia dedicates a week in July to celebrate the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture and achievements. So Ruth travelled to the Northern Territory to join the celebrations. She found it a great opportunity to acknowledge the contributions that Indigenous Australians make to our country and our society.

The highlight of her trip was making friends with Sonda who comes from Alice Springs in the central desert area of Australia. She is well known in the territory for her artwork and storytelling.  She uses her artwork to carry on telling her Indigenous traditions and culture. She paints in public at markets or in the mall. You can watch her painting here.

Aboriginal Dance

Ruth watched the interesting dance performed by the dance group called ‘One Mob Different Country’. They had the permission from the elders to perform this ceremony in front of the Parliament House in Darwin.

Ruth feels enriched by connecting with Australia's indigenous community.  She enjoys listening to their stories about family and the importance of their place in the Australian culture.

• What does it mean to be Australian or what defines Australia's identity? 
• How much should the past shape your identity as an individual and Australia's identity?
• Australia has many different cultures.  How can we all get along and live in harmony?
• How important is art in understanding each other's cultures?

Hard of hearing! DL makes it easy

Sahina - DL Student

Sahina comes from Indonesia and she has been Deaf all her life. When she was a child she went to a school for the Deaf and learnt Indonesian Sign language.  Her husband is also Deaf.  He graduated with a Bachelor  of Science (Internet Computing) but at the moment works full time at Coles and also sells things on eBay.  They have one beautiful child and live in Western Australia.  They were looking for sign classes for Sahina to learn both Australian Sign language and English.  She was referred to our Navitas Distance Learning office in Perth who tried to find the right teacher for Sahina.  Fortunately we were able to find her just the right teacher from Bankstown college in Sydney.

Ruth - DL Teacher

DL Teacher Ruth is fluent in Auslan (Australian Sign language) and has years of experience teaching English and Sign language to Deaf and Hearing Impaired Students. Her skills have been put to good use as she was able to assist Sahina via Skype.

Ruth says "This is the right program for Sahina and Your Call online covers topics for everyday living.  Through Skype we are able to role play, screen share to show images, use the Skype Chats to write sentences and practise Sign language.  Sahina is really keen and very clever.  She's improving quickly."

Congratulations to both Sahina and Ruth on overcoming the barriers of hearing, distance and language all at once and best wishes to Sahina for a bright future in Australia.

How are you overcoming barriers to your own learning?