Students at a remote school in Queensland's Gulf of Carpentaria are saying "sayonara" to Japanese lessons and "gayi", or hello, to Gangalidda Indigenous language lessons in a move to preserve the local language.

Burketown State School, 2,115 kilometres north west of Brisbane, is 97 per cent Indigenous, with majority of the students being Gangalidda people.

With little international tourism or exposure to Japanese culture, students themselves began questioning why they were required to learn the language and encouraged staff to advocate for change.

"It's interesting when the students ask us, 'why are we learning Japanese', so what we are trying to do at the moment is talk with our community, talk to the elders, also the parents to make a program that is more realistic to the area that we actually live in," Principal Chris Ford said.

This led Mr Ford begin the transition to switch the schools Language Other Than English (LOTE) subject to Gangalidda.

"It will be a more appropriate component in their life — it will be usable and the students who already talk it will only get stronger."

Burketown State School has only 27 students, 97 per cent of which are Indigenous. ( ABC North West Queensland: Harriet Tatham )

Employing local teachers

Burketown students are taught Japanese through the Charters Towers School of the Air, which some say is difficult to engage with.

"It's really hard to understand our teacher and we never do face-to-face conferences with them. We just watch them on the computer," 12-year-old Burketown student Tjabadungah Yanner said.

"[So introducing Gangalidda] makes me feel that I should be proud of my language because I am a Gangalidda person, and it makes me happy just to be doing it," he said.

Unlike other Indigenous languages, Gangalidda has a dictionary — making the transition to formal schooling an easier process.

Mr Ford said the move to fully integrate the language into curriculum could take up to three years and hoped a version of the program would start in 2018.

"We don't have assessable items in it to start with — the students just get to learn the language, and get to understand more about the area and culture that goes on in Burketown," he said.

"Maybe in the future we look at moving to the next level, where the students get tested and assessed as they move through the Gangalidda dictionary."

Tjabadungah Yanner hopes that introducing Gangalidda into the formal curriculum will help other kids be proud of their language. ( ABC North West Queensland: Harriet Tatham )

Starting young to help the community

Mangubadijarri Yanner, the project's community consultant, has been learning Gangalidda from birth and said while he was proud of the decision to change the school's LOTE curriculum, teaching an Indigenous language would require some changes.

"The process is very different because with the indigenous language you're working backwards — trying to work out from what the English words are and then how to translate it into Gangalidda," he said.

"And then we also go with the problem of trying to work out the grammar and the pronunciation."

But despite the small changes, Mr Yanner said he believed it would have a positive impact on the community on a broader level.

"Studies have shown the positive mental health and physical effects of learning your own language. It instils pride in Indigenous students, raises attendance as well," he said.

"So I'm really happy that the future generation and current students now will have the opportunity to learn our language in the school setting and now just at home or out bush."