I wasn’t amazingly surprised to read that Australia has one of the worlds most pathetic LOTE (leanguage other than english) programs in the world. Something like 12% of students study a language int heir final year of school…..that’s nothing! In Finland it’s compulsory to study three languages for your entire scholastic tenure. In basically all of Europe the study of English is obligatory, and usually one (or two, or three) other languages as well.
But the thing is, it hasn’t always been like this….we use to have great lagnuage programs. We had to, the number of immigrants in Australia back in the sixties meant that a huge chunk of Australians were using English as a second (or bilinguallly acquired) language. And in an effort to avoid these minority languages, primarily italian, being lost they were taught in schools and the government poured cash into language programs.
But it now seems that Australians have gotten too cocky of themselves. We think that since the rest of the world speaks English, we don’t need to. And quite frankly, within out own borders you can go anywhere and you won’t run into language problems (unless you don’t speak English). And the amount of people actively involved in international, multilingual business ais relatively small, especially when compared to Europe. International trade is generally conducted in English, or with the assistance of a 3rd person interpreting. This might just be me, but if I were a Japanese businessman for example, negotiating with an Australian I think I’d much rather prefer to conduct myself in Japanese. Or, at the very least, have the OPTION to conduct myself in Japanese.
A lot of the time it’s not actually communicating in the language that’s the important thing. In much of Europe, where multilinguality is common as muck; if a German is doing business with a Frenchman who speaks fluent German, in the majority of the cases the business with be conducted in English. This, as I remember my Swiss friend telling me once, is so that everyone is at the same disadvantage. I always thought that quite a noble thing to do, using a language in which neither of you are fluent just because it’s well, fairer.
But the truth is that Australia is lagging behind nearly all other developed countries in terms of second language acquisition in schools. And the instruction that IS supplied is usually (at least in my experience) of a very low quality with little focus on actual usage nor upon acquisition of fluency. Teachers are content to impart a few words and basic greetings, nothing more. I’d be interested to see how languages are taught in Europe, where students seem to be able to absorb up to three languages at a time without any trouble. Whereas Australian students have trouble with remembering ’Je ne parle pas Français’ after learning it for the whole year.
For the students who do want study languages seriously in Australia, it’s quite often a very lonely pursuit. In my college last year I studied Italian (on a whim) and my only contact with an Italian speaker was half an hour each week by telephone. All the rest of the time I was basically left to fend on my own, working off the grammar book and the homework exercsies. But, quite honestly, I was surprised by the level of proficiency I developed in seven months of study like that….when I finally met my teacher, Emma Maletta, face to face I was able to talk to her with more fluency than any of her own students who physically attended her classes.
On the other hand, my Japanese teacher was fabulous. I’ve been studying Japanese on my own now for maybe three years, but in quite a haphazard way. Last year was my first time in a classroom ’studying’ it. And this time, the low national interest in languages was actually a good thing for me. The class was less than 20 people, and there was only one class so I was always able to find my teacher if I had questions or anything. The dedication of some of the students was debatable (Japanese is traditionally taked by the students that need a few more points for their TCE entrance. It’s easy to get a decent score, but fucking difficult to get a high score). And where I live, there’s lots of remote rural areas, and due to that Open Learning (what used to be called Distance Education) is availaible, with varying degrees of accesability, to something like 6 languages. And if you don’t mind studying 100% alone, you can study 23 languages; even Croatian and Lithuanian and stuff.
What I really want to see is having a second language being made a core part of the curriculum, in the same capacity as Maths and Literacy. Seriously, Physical Education is obligatory from Kindergarten until Year 10, whileas language study is only required in Year 7 as a ‘taster’ course. And there’s evidence that both parents and teachers want to see languages in the classroom – 90% of parents agreed that a foreign language is an important part of education, and 60% wanted it as an obligatory class.
The only real obstacle LOTE faces in Australian schools is a lack of serious interest from students (and also teachers), and the serious lack of trained LOTE teachers. Due to the low level that LOTE occupies, most teachers with the ability to teach languages are employed in other sectors; most of the time not utilizing in any way their abilities. My Drama teacher is actually qualified in Italian and French, my Geography teacher in German. And neither of them teaches their languages, in any capacity. They’re always willing to help, and both would love to be able to teach languages. But until the government and Dept. of Education in particular begins to seriously consider the imminent monolinguility of Australia, the situation is going to continue getting worse.
