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Language policy in Australia - newspaper | ||
Tags: Australia | Language Politics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| strossel Triglot Groupie Joined 6483 days ago 47 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English*, Swedish, French Studies: Icelandic, Hungarian | Message 1 of 3 07 November 2007 at 12:21am | IP Logged |
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Hi,
There's a Federal Election coming up in Australia (at the end of November). This is the election in which all Australians vote (it's compulsory here) for the representatives who will sit in Parliament. We vote for a representative of our geographic area (which contains about 40 000 voters) to sit in the House of Representatives. The party with the most members in the House of Representatives (modelled on the English House of Commons) will then formally choose the Prime Minister. So, anyway, after that long introduction for context, I was pleasantly surprised to see an article in today's The Australian (7 November; it's a national daily broadsheet in Australia) discussing language policy of the two major political parties in Australia as we head into the election. Unfortunately, I can't find a copy online. Essentially, the article discusses the lack of coherent or effective language policy at any level in Australia. Some points from the article: the author suggests that the fad of Japanese (my comment: and also Indonesian) in Australian schools (in the early 1990s) was at the expense of learning German. Now, one of the major parties, and its leader, are suggesting that we focus our undivided attention on Chinese. This will be at the expense of ... ? The article tangentially questions how desperate our need to learn Chinese is, given the ever-expanding place of English in Chinese schools. Also, the unfortunate figure of 15% is revealed: the percentage of students who take a language in their final year of high school. Essentially, the crux of the article is that Australia is at the very beginning of the search for policy on language, and that as a nation of English-speakers, the development of a language-acquisition policy is a difficult one. (I tend to agree that given the privileged role of English in so many spheres these days, English-speaking nations really are in a different and difficult position in relation to language learning.) The situation in Australia can be summed up as: (1) It's better to learn a bit of some language than not at all, but there is no real benchmarking/goal or expectation in relation to standard (eg 'By the end of high school, all children should be able to communicate to X standard in Y language') (2) The pie available to be divided for language learning is not able to expand, and so one language necessarily comes at the cost of another If you're in Australia and able to get your hands on a copy, I'd recommend you take a look (it's in the Higher Ed section)... even if only to reassure yourself that sometimes language can actually make the news here in a sensible way (not another article about 'My dog speaks Russian but my cat speaks Swahili.' Also, the journalist refers to a (great) book, Australia's language potential , which is a great read for those of you also in seemingly monolingual countries such as Australia (despite lots of immigration, and a widely travelled population), and the potential that lies within. Happy reading :) Edited by strossel on 07 November 2007 at 12:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lamanna Newbie Australia Joined 6273 days ago 27 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 2 of 3 07 November 2007 at 3:43am | IP Logged |
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They're definitely right about what goes on here.
The year before I started high school they used to teach 4 languages in one year(one a semester)... Italian, German, Chinese and Japanese. Now you get to choose one and do it for a minimum of 3 years to a maximum of 6. However, I think they got rid of German... and have trouble filling Italian spots in the latter years. Chinese and Japanese are very strong, our school had close ties.. exchange programs etc.. In primary school they never taught us languages, however they started teaching my youngest sister Indonesian about 8 years ago. I'm not sure if they plan language courses or simply have them there as a necessity/filler. On top of that, choosing to teach students Chinese because they think it would be 'good to know' is a stupid method if you ask me. I think they should expose students to as many languages as possible in the first year and let them decide from there. Trying to learn a certain language that's forced upon you(especially a hard one) is destined to be a lost cause. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jamfrogs Newbie Australia Joined 6280 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 3 of 3 07 November 2007 at 8:48am | IP Logged |
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Kind of a moot point over a "priority language". Mayhap the politicians realise that improving the medium of teaching to ensure it doesn't fail 97% of all students? That percentage was off the top of my head, but I think it is probably (sadly) fairly accurate.
You can always pick up Chinese at a later stage in life, maybe we should just teach the little munchkin folk HOW to learn, *independently even*, instead of locking them up in a day care centre from 9am to 4pm. Another thought though is maybe we need to approach this from a different way. Instead of going for the "source" maybe we should start with adults. Make certain areas of the country actually have dual official languages and really push for community involvement in language learning programmes. That way the kids might finish the school day and step out into the world (read: the chip shop) with the realisation that their language learning can be immediately applied in concrete, tangible ways and isn't some stupid pipe-dream their parents are forcing upon them. Maybe I'm an extremist anarchistic pinko unclean hippie type though, I dunno... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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