Sydney Institute for Community Languages Education

The SICLE Governance Board, a group of 25 key stakeholders provides expert advice on the programs and activities of the Institute.

The Governance Board has representatives of key organisations concerned with language learning, education, teacher education and professional learning, community relations and outreach as well as members of the SSESW and SLC, University of Sydney. Core agencies and organisations represented include: NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), NSW DoE, NSW Ethnic Communities Council, Multicultural NSW and Language Teacher Associations.

The Governance Board meets three times per year with informal monthly meetings as required.

SICLE’s Tertiary Working Party has 44 academics from tertiary institutions across NSW and ACT who meet three times each year to discuss and develop research relating to language and languages education.

In 2023 seminars were presented by Dr. David Reeve (UNSW), Dr. Robyn Moloney (Macquarie University), Dr. Criss Jones Diaz (WSU) and Dr. Janica Nordstrom (Sydney University).

The group has led to cross-institutional research collaborations for many of the academics.

SICLE has developed a strong profile in migrant and refugee-background communities.

We have Project Officers (Arabic, Assyrian/ Chaldaean, Chinese, Dari/Persian, Greek, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Punjabi, Tamil, Turkish and Vietnamese) whose role it is to support these communities with resources, professional learning and capacity-building.

Project Officers have been instrumental in building the Open language portal; they supported the shift to online teaching during covid 19 with some 140 workshops; they have also built state, national and international networks of teachers in their language.