Years ago, Diane McNaboe would have been "locked up" for singing in Wiradjuri. Her uncle was removed from his family for using "bad language" at school. His sin wasn't swearing but talking in Wiradjuri, the Aboriginal language spoken in north-west NSW.

Last week it took Ms McNaboe fewer than 10 minutes to teach first-class children at Dubbo West Public School how to sing Gugubarra wibiyanha madhandha (that's Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree) in Wiradjuri. Whereas local Aboriginal elders have taught occasional classes at the school, the weekly class was a first.

From now on every child in the school will learn Wiradjuri, the traditional language spoken from Mudgee to Dubbo, Narromine, Wellington and Gilgandra. At schools across the region, the hope is that these classes will become as much a part of the weekly curriculum from kindergarten to year 12 as learning French, Cantonese or Japanese is in many schools.

"Does anyone know what Wiradjuri is?" a teacher asked the group of five- and six-year-old children at Dubbo West. "It is black," replied six-year-old Bryson Read after some umming and aahing among his classmates. A bit later, Bryson and other children – including seven-year-old Thomas Burge, who reminded us that his name had a "silent h" – were singing lullabies, learning the word for pelican (gulambi), mastering pronouns and happily colouring in worksheets and writing the new words in English and Wiradjuri.