Friday 23 September 2011

MASTERING TOK PISIN AT PT COOK

The years I spent at the RAAF School of Languages at Pt Cook were the most demanding and exciting times in my professional life.

Over 14 years, about 4000 people were trained in Tok Pisin both at the school and around the country. They were from the Defence Forces of Australia and New Zealand and from the Australian Foreign Affairs and AusAID.

I was lecturer in charge with several Defence officers who had served in Papua New Guinea including several officers from the PNGDF.

The Tok Pisin course was unlike the other courses at Pt Cook and were always social affairs. Personnel had their postings to PNG.

Students learning Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese and Cambodian would sit in the rooms poring over flash cards of language characters while the Tok Pisin students would be socializing in the mess.

But there was a good reason for that. Tok Pisin students learned a language not based in characters that had a basic similarity to English. They learned by mastery through oral and written drills. They did not need to revise at night as they were drilled daily in the sing-song of Tok Pisin.

Yumi go.
Yumi go long taun,
Yumi go antap long maunden.
Yumi go kisim wara.
Yumi go baim kaikai.
Yumi go waswas long riva.
Bai mi go.
Bai mi go long hap.
Bai mi go wantaim yu.

and so on for hundreds of patterns.

FAMILY POSITIVE LIVING - AIDS HOLISTICS: TOK PISIN TREE (1)
24 Aug 2011 ... KANGE NGA KONA: Tok Pisin Tree (Pidgin English). 16 May 2010 . ... Tok Pisin
Tree (64 patterns) I found that learning Tok Pisin by myself ...

familypositiveliving.blogspot.com/2011/08/tok-pisin-tree-1_24.html - Cached - Similar
23 Aug 2011 ... Now let us play with patterns from the Tok Pisin Tree. I am happy to/ask you to/
go to town/ with me. Mi amamas long/ askim yu long/ go long ...
familypositiveliving.blogspot.com/2011/08/tok-pisin-tree-2.html - Cached - Similar

Each student brought special skills. Tok Pisin is a logical and concrete language. No pun intended but it suited the Engineers en route to 12 CE Works at Mendi. They were able to talk about building roads and bridges in smooth Tok Pisin.

It suited the RAAF aircraft mechanics en route to the Lae Transport Squadron who were able to talk about maintaining aircraft in sweet and logical Tok Pisin.

But most of all, it suited the Foreign Affairs and AusAID officers. They were selected for Foreign Affairs partly on the basis of language aptitude. Some spoke several languages. Skill in other languages was a fairly accurate predictor of success in Tok Pisin.

Students were lifted high one at a time by long walks with the lecturer in charge on the Pt Cook pier that jutted out into Port Phillip Bay. Here they were drilled with hundreds of language patterns, asked dozens of questions, helped to tell stories often job-related and required to ask questions. This was full use of Tok Pisin.

The top skill was to chant their own patterns out of their heads. It helped them to conceive the language structure and showed they could revise patterns lying on their beds at night, staring at the ceiling. This was Mastery Learning that helped students to hold the language without help.

Students graduated from Pt Cook and stepped from the aircraft at Jackson's one step away from being fluent. They had only to tune themselves into the Tok Pisin of PNG people that was spoken softly, quickly and at times with a mouthful of betel nut.

There were people who were brilliant at Tok Pisin. They were the ones who could break ideas down to basic components. They were often from the New Zealand Defence Force and Australian Foreign Affairs. One memorable officer was Grant Thompson, a journalist with Foreign Affairs.

A spectacular speaker was a young foreign affairs man who came on a course of two with Corinne, another officer from the Department. She was a top student.

But the young man whose name I forget was a genius. He spoke French and Russian and cut through Tok Pisin like butter. I used to have him tell all stories we could muster.....wait for it......at times with a Russian or French accent. That was different.

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