From The Dynamics of Language website (http://www.dynamicsoflanguage.edu.au/get-involved/dawes-award/):

The Patji-Dawes Award

The purpose of the Patji-Dawes award is to honour outstanding achievements in language teaching by an accomplished practitioner in Australia. It reflects our belief that achieving proficiency in other languages is one of the great learning experiences in the human condition, that this happens all too rarely in contemporary Australian society, and that there is unfilled need for public recognition of those who defy our national mediocrity in this arena.

The teaching may take place in any setting – school, university, private language school, government department, Indigenous community – provided that the learner is led, by the teacher’s inspiration, to a high level of mastery in the chosen language. Nominations are made by someone who has achieved a very high level of fluency in their chosen language and would like to honour their teacher by setting out what it was about their practice which inspired and enabled them to unlock the rewards of learning another language despite all the difficulties involved.

About the name

The name commemorates the teaching-learning partnership which underlay the earliest documented language learning in Australia’s history: that between a young indigenous Eora woman, Patyegarang (Patye or Patji, pronounced Pat-che), and Lieutenant William Dawes. Their close and humane relationship, resulted not only in an exceptional mastery of the Sydney language by Dawes, but in a relationship of cross-cultural understanding that has been all too rare in Australia’s history.

The award will be announced on 16 October.

Congratulations to the 2015 Nominees, especially the MLTAWA members:

• Matthew Absalom (University of Melbourne)
• Sharon Brissoni (Yarralumla Primary School)
• Heike Craig (Daramalan College)
• Nat Dawes (Loreto College, Coorparoo)
• Margherita De Filippi (La Salle College, Middle Swan) – MLTAWA Member
  
• Julie Docker (ANU Centre for Continuing Education)
• Chris Harte (John Monash Science School)
• Satomi Kawaguchi (Western Sydney University)
• Claire Kennedy (Griffith University)
• Jane Macdonald (Castlemaine Secondary College)
• France Meyer (Centre for Arabic and Islamic Studies, ANU)
• Sarah Payne (Canberra Grammar School)
• Leanne Quayle (Evatt Primary School)
• Katerina Reitzenstein (Melville Senior Highschool) – MLTAWA Committee Member
  
• Michael Rieke (Sydney University Centre for Continuing Education)