 G'day. I'm here to talk to you about an important issue that affects many of our indigenous students. I'm sure you know that EALD refers to learners who have standard Australian English as an additional language or dialect. These learners need extra support because learning another language can be tricky and learning the curriculum in another language can be really tricky. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students who are EALD learners may speak a variety of languages other than standard Australian English. It may be a traditional language, a Creole or one of many, many Aboriginal English dialects. These students and their families may not even consider themselves EALD learners. So it is not surprising then that many are invisible language learners in our classroom. Before colonisation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Queensland alone spoke more than 100 different languages. After colonisation, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were forcibly relocated to reserves. Speaking in their traditional language was often banned. So people developed varieties of Pigeon English, mixtures of traditional language and English to communicate. Over time these became the rich languages of the communities which although sometimes contain many English words are in fact quite different to standard Australian English. Because of this history many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people don't speak standard Australian English as their first language or second or even third and for some kids school might be their first exposure to it. So across the state our students come to school with many different languages. In the past many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were made to feel ashamed of their language. Aboriginal English and Creoles were sometimes described as bad English and widely disrespected. Today we understand the value of these languages. To best support Indigenous EALD students we need to work together to ensure they aren't invisible and are proud of their languages and confident classroom learners. To do this we need to recognise and value their languages. Next we engage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners by explicitly teaching standard Australian English and finally we support students connection to their heritage by learning about their culture and languages. We call this three-way strong. To enact this approach we must identify our Indigenous EALD learners either during enrolment or in the classroom when we notice differences in the way the student is speaking, reading or writing. Identifying Indigenous EALD students is not always easy because kids are great at code switching or changing their speech to suit their audience. Building strong classroom rapport can help teachers tune into the different language backgrounds of their students. Band Scals help us understand our students language strengths and what they need to learn next. Band Scals also allow us to monitor students language development over time so that we can provide targeted language instruction and celebrate their success. Remember learning a language is not easy and our students are being required to learn standard Australian English at the same time they're learning the curriculum. It takes time, it takes skillful teaching and for young students it involves more than just traditional methods of good first teaching. So the three key messages for schools are 1. Acknowledge the fact that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students throughout Queensland do not speak standard Australian English at home or in their community. 2. Use Band Scal to help identify EALD students and to monitor their progress in learning English and 3. Successfully engage students by explicitly teaching standard Australian English. If you do you'll create confident code switches who rapidly develop the language they need to succeed at school while remaining proud users of their home language. Let's make sure every student is succeeding.