Patterns of participation in classroom learning: a study of Aboriginal girls from a bush setting

This study is concerned with the learning experiences and strategies of secondary Aboriginal girls from Elcho Island in the Northern Territory as they study in an urban school in the Gold Coast, Queensland. The girls were learning English as their second and third language. The study details how the ESL teacher/author tried to understand how to meet the needs of these girls who came with such different learning strategies and styles. The teacher/author's visit to their homeland in Elcho Island immediately helped her to understand how the grils' different social and learning experiences had influenced them, and how different their lives were at the new school. The account of observations and analysis of their patterns of participation in their new school give important insights into their learning styles.