Project summary

The goal of this project is to initiate revival of the Nese language which is spoken by less than 20 people in North West Malekula in Central Vanuatu. Nese is moribund and is no longer actively spoken on a daily basis in the Matanvat village. The work involved teachers teaching the Nese language to 21 children aged between 3 and 5 years in Matanvat village. As part of an immersion program, the teacher/Nese speaker taught the language to children aged between 3 to 5 years for an hour a day using story-telling and a play-based method. She used resources within the local community such as a canoe, and in a traditional drama house where children would learn the language through dramatizing market scenes, buying and selling in a shop etc..

During the year to July 2016, the project enabled children to acquire the language and sparked an interest in revival of the language within the general Matanvat community. Within te first month, children acquired the ability to say simple sentences in Nese. The children continued to use Nese in their homes which sparked parents’ interest in the language. A family of 8, one of whom attends the language immersion program, has started to use the language on a daily basis - they are now considered fluent in the language. Also, older adults are now using the language during community gatherings such as church gatherings.