The SMH and the Courier Mail are both discussing the teaching of language in the National Curriculum.
There are three issues that seem to be important in these articles:
- When should children start learning foreign languages?
- How long should they be spending on them?
- Which languages should they be learning?
Certainly the last of these is something that almost anyone will have an opinion on. The National Curriculum suggests Chinese and Italian as the languages to be developed first with a national curriculum (rather than the independent ones already taught).
Notably, neither Auslan nor indigenous languages have been signaled as a priority.
As far as when and how much? Studies suggest that you can’t start too early, but there’s probably a practical limit within a school environment. In many foreign countries they start learning English at about the third year of schooling.
How much? As much as I would like to emphasise language teaching in classrooms, I’m biased. Left up to me, children would learn four languages for 5 hours a day. Obviously, I’m wrong.
One of our resident indigenous language specialists will have his(her) own opinion on the role of indigenous language teaching in the National Curriculum.
8 Comments
Without knowing specifics, my impression is that there’s been quite a bit of discussion among the developers of the National Curriculum about how to include Aboriginal and Islander language education. I think what’s been harder for Curriculum developers is to properly address the role of Indigenous languages in education for those who speak Indigenous languages as a first language.
There’s a bit of a paradox going on at the moment regarding popular thinking on Indigenous languages in education. There’s quite a significant push for the teaching/learning of Aboriginal/Islander languages to be included in curricula, and there are quite a few people saying ‘Indigenous languages should be taught in every school’. This is a great sentiment in my opinion, but it’s at odds with school language policies for those who are already fluent speakers of their traditional language. Healthy Aboriginal/Islander languages are a long way 2nd to English in schools and programs like bilingual education have been effectively abolished.
I have an idea that is pretty adventurous but not so ridiculous. Why not let schools foster the language and language teaching skills of Indigenous kids who speak their language fluently. Then develop partnerships between remote schools and urban schools and turn the bush kids into Indigenous language teachers. This would develop and acknowledge the skills of students in the bush, expose them to a wider world, but wouldn’t sacrifice their primary language or culture. And urban schools would have the opportunity to learn Indigenous languages! Okay, so it would take a whole lot of organising and development and a leap of faith by bureaucracy, but I think it’s a cool idea!
I think this is a great place for adventurous ideas, and yours makes sense. Sure, the organisation is difficult, but the idea is definitely not problematic.
Clearly the learning of Chinese is a sound start however with the amount of business that we are doing in the Asian Pacific region why would you not look to include any of those languages (Indian, Indonesian and other regions where we do business).
I am curious as to why Italian was chose, I had heard that Italian is easier on those who are dyslexic (less variety of phonetic sounds matched with the alphabet) however who is to say if that is true.
When debating which languages should be prioritised, it’s good to consider underlying reasons for language learning.
Decades ago, it seems like the primary reason for language learning was as a mind-broadening, cognitive exercise – we used learn languages for reasons of cognitive development. If this is your reason for learning languages then it doesn’t particularly matter which language you learn (they’re all bloody hard in their own way!), although the more prestigious the better, so that’s probably why languages like Latin and Ancient Greek were once more popular than they are today.
In today’s climate of having to have a sound economic reason for everything, language learning for economic development seems to have taken over. Hence the above argument in favour of Chinese and why Japanese became so popular 20 years ago and why German and French have faded from favour. For people who choose to learn a language for this reason, it’s all about choosing a language which will improve your employment opportunities and success.
But the other motivating factor is heritage. And this is where Aboriginal languages and big migrant languages like Greek and Italian come in. It’s all about connecting with your background, family and culture. Personally, I think this is the most noble reason for wanting to learn a language, but that’s just me.
I don’t want to say that one of these three motivating factors is more important than another, but I do worry that these days we as a society are too focused on language learning for economic gain and forget that there are other reasons why we should be or could be learning languages.
I’m of the “four languages five hours a day” school. If they started doing that in first grade, by second grade, all the different subjects of the curriculum could be taught in the four different languages. I’m studying maths in French at present, and the process is marvelous for both.
As to which languages should be learned? The indigenous language should be the local one, and should be taught by a group including local elders – and include (naturally) appropriate elements of the Dreaming. As to the other three – who do we want to talk to? At least one should be indonesian, hindi, tamil, singhalese, chinese, japanese, korean, tetum, vietnamese, etc. The other two should be spanish or arabic as either is spoken as the first or second language by much of the world population. There is nothing like knowing a language for being truly connected with the culture which speaks it, and connecting with people of that culture through their language. I love language study because I adore linguistic structures, but I find that connection through interaction in other languages truly delightful.
This is a primary reason for learning one of the Australian languages.
I believe that any child can tackle three languages.
I would also like to see English taught as a language, before it is lost to blogspeak. It is apparently bad manners to correct anyone’s grammar, and some errors are becoming the norm by default.
I didn’t get to choose my high school subjects, but I am eternally grateful that someone decided that 3 years each of Latin and French, and 5 years of English was a really good idea.
In my more grown up years I enrolled in short course in Italian suitable for tourists conducted by the Dante Alighieri Society. Many in the class were descendants of Italians. After the first two lessons they revealed that there relatives couldn’t understand a word of their newly acquired vocabulary. Italian was a lot of fun – particularly the food, but I doubt the wisdom of inserting such a variable language into an academic world.