Doctor Mark Richards

Research Support Program Fellow - Language Revitalisation,
MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour & Development

Biography
Contact
Publications
Projects
Teaching

Biography

Dr Mark Richards is a researcher within the Speech and Language program in MARCS. He has many years' experience as a language teacher (French, Latin and TESOL) in the primary, secondary and adult education sectors. His most recent role was Head of Languages at Meriden (2007-2015). He completed an M.Phil. in 1994 which focused on the development of a learners' grammar and language teaching resources for within a communicative framework in a remote Aboriginal community context, the Jilkminggan community in the Roper river region of the Northern Territory. In his PhD research (2016-2020), Mark again collaborated with the Jilkminggan community to investigate the use of archival audio recordings to support revitalisation of Mangarrayi, the traditional language of the community. In 2020 together with Professor Caroline Jones, he received funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL) to work together with the Jilkminggan community and app developer eLearn Australia to develop a phrase-based digital learning resource to support independent adult learning of Mangarrayi (Warrma Mangarrayi ‘Listen to Mangarrayi’). In collaboration with eLearn Australia and researchers from the University of Queensland, the digital shell underlying Warrma Mangarrayi has been developed into a tool (Listen N Talk) to facilitate independent community development of a phrase-based learning resource for other revitalisation contexts. Mark’s current research is investigating the use of Listen N Talk (the digital shell underlying Warrma Mangarrayi ) to develop language learning resources in other revitalisation contexts in NSW and Queensland as well as translational research into the use of this tool in an Aged Care context to support relationships and communication. In collaboration with Professor Jones, Mark is currently exploring the translation of Listen and Talk to the aged care sector, as a means of promoting cognitive and social engagement for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) seniors.

This information has been contributed by Doctor Richards.

Qualifications

PhD Western Sydney University
MPhil University of Sydney
BA University of Sydney
GradDipEd Sydney College of Advanced Education

Organisational Unit (School / Division)

MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour & Development

Contact

Email:	M.Richards@westernsydney.edu.au
Phone:	(02) 9772 6722 (02) 9685 97726648 (02) 9685 97726648
Mobile:	0403793759
Location:	U.5.47 Westmead3.G.11 Bankstown3.G.11 Bankstown

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Teaching

Previous Teaching Areas

102089 Secondary Curriculum 1C, 2021
102090 Secondary Curriculum 2A, 2021
102092 Secondary Curriculum 2C, 2021
102335 Contexts of TESOL, 2020
TEAC7123 Secondary Curriculum 1A, 2021

Publications

Journal Articles

Radley, A., Jones, C., Hanham, J. and Richards, M. (2021), 'Matjarr Djuyal : how using gesture in teaching Gathang helps preschoolers learn nouns', Languages, vol 6, no 2 .
Richards, M., Jones, C., Merlan, F. and MacRitchie, J. (2019), 'Revitalisation of Mangarrayi : supporting community use of archival audio exemplars for creation of language learning resources', Language Documentation and Conservation, vol 13 , pp 253 - 280.
Richards, M. and Lardy, J. (2019), 'Repurposing archival audio materials for language revitalisation in an Aboriginal community', Babel, vol 54, no 1-2 , pp 41 - 45.

Conference Papers

Richards, M., Lardy, J., Jones, C., Merlan, F., Lee, C. and MacRitchie, J. (2019), 'Linguistic and metalinguistic training to support use of audio 'chunks' in language revitalisation', International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Foley, B., Arnold, J., Coto-Solano, R., Durantin, G., Ellison, T., Esch, D., Heath, S., Kratochvil, F., Maxwell-Smith, Z., Nash, D., Olsson, O., Richards, M., San, N., Stoakes, H., Thieberger, N. and Wiles, J. (2018), 'Building speech recognition systems for language documentation : the CoEDL Endangered Language Pipeline and Inference System (ELPIS)', International Workshop on Spoken Language Technologies for Under-Resourced Languages, Gurugram, India.

Mark’s main research interests are technology for language teaching and learning, particularly in supporting revitalisation of Indigenous languages. In his PhD research, Mark collaborated with the Jilkminggan community in the Northern Territory to investigate the use of archival audio recordings to support revitalisation of Mangarrayi, the traditional language of the community. In 2020, together with Professor Caroline Jones, he received funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL) to work together with the Jilkminggan community and app developer eLearn Australia to build on this research to develop a phrase-based digital learning resource to support independent adult learning of Mangarrayi (Warrma Mangarrayi ‘Listen to Mangarrayi’). Mark’s current research is investigating the use of Listen N Talk (the digital shell underlying Warrma Mangarrayi ) to develop language learning resources in other revitalisation contexts in NSW and Queensland as well as translational research into the use of this tool in an Aged Care context to support relationships and communication.