<h3>The lost decade: learning Asian languages</h3>
<p class="comments"><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3702656.html#comments"><span>163
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<p class="author"><span>
<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/greg-jericho-56616.html">Greg Jericho</a>
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<p>On the weekend, Julie Bishop appeared on Sky News and among other things talked about education policy.</p><p>As someone who has not always been Julie Bishop's <a href="http://grogsgamut.blogspot.com/2009/04/julie-bishop-liberal-party-fool.html">biggest supporter</a>, it was rather intriguing to find myself nodding as she put forward the idea that the teaching of Asian languages be <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/asian-language-should-be-mandatory-for-australian-schoolchildren-julie-bishop-says/story-e6frfkvr-1226207249844">made mandatory</a> in schools.</p>
<p>This
desire for Asian language education is a rather interesting position
for a member of the Liberal Party to take – especially a former
education minister under John Howard – as it was the Howard government
in 2002 (when Brendan Nelson was education minister) that cancelled the
funding for the National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian
Schools Strategy (known in the language most favoured by bureaucrats in
the public service – Acronymese – as <a href="http://www1.curriculum.edu.au/nalsas/about.htm">NALSAS</a>).</p><p>Kevin
Rudd at the time was a newish foreign affairs shadow minister, but he
was a long-time proponent of Asian language education. He also had a
pretty close interest in NALSAS as the strategy was developed in 1994 on
the back of the Council of Australian Governments Working Group on
Asian Languages and Cultures report, "Asian Languages and Australia's
Economic Future". Rudd, then working for the Goss government in
Queensland, was the <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Asian_languages_and_Australia_s_economic.html?id=8XJxJwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">author</a> of that report.</p><p>When Nelson scrapped NALSAS, Rudd's <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/therese-rudds-fires-kindled-but-julia-gillard-staying-put/story-fn59niix-1226144691810">response</a>
was not exactly to take a Bex and have a lie down. He wrote Nelson a
letter, the contents of which, rather nicely for us, found their way
into the hands of Alan Ramsey at the <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/therese-rudds-fires-kindled-but-julia-gillard-staying-put/story-fn59niix-1226144691810">Sydney Morning Herald</a>. Here's a taste:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>Dear Brendan,</em></p><p><em>The
single most appalling thing you have done in Australian public life is
your decision to cease funding the National Asian Languages and Studies
Strategy for Australian Schools (NALSAS). If you read my October 9
speech, you will see I accuse you of political cowardice for not
standing up to Peter Costello to obtain the $120 million necessary to
fund the Commonwealth's contribution for a further quadrennium
(2003-06). If you read the speech you will see I contrast your cowardice
with what I describe as your predecessor's statesmanship.</em></p><p><em>It
was agreed as a 50/50 Commonwealth/state program until 2006, when it
would be reviewed. Then you came along. And because you didn't have the
guts to stand up to Peter Costello during the last budget round, your
decision to cease funding this program [from January 1] after eight
years now leaves 750,000 school students studying these languages
completely in the lurch. Well done, Brendan.</em></p></blockquote><p>I wonder if Rudd recalled that letter when he appointed Nelson as ambassador to the European Communities…</p><p>In the <a href="http://www.budget.gov.au/2008-09/content/bp2/html/expense-09.htm">first budget</a>
under the Rudd government the program was somewhat returned, but now
rebadged as the National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program
(which is a rather less easy Acronymese of <a href="http://www.deewr.gov.au/schooling/NALSSP/Pages/default.aspx">NALSSP</a>).
It was funded to the tune of $62.4 million over four years. The more
observant among you might note how in 2002 Rudd was full of Sturm und
Drang over Nelson's inability to convince Costello to find $120 million
over four years to fund NALSAP, but was himself only able to convince
Wayne Swan to cough up half that amount for the new version of the
program.</p><p>C'est la vie, I guess.</p><p>Nevertheless, lack of funding notwithstanding, the NALSSP had lofty goals among them that:</p><blockquote><p><em>By
2020, at least 12 per cent of students will exit Year 12 with a fluency
in one of the target Asian languages sufficient for engaging in trade
and commerce in Asia and/or university study.</em></p></blockquote><p>So how are things going?</p><p>Not too well, actually.</p><p>A <a href="http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/NALSSP/Pages/Resources.aspx">report</a>
released in May last year on "the Current State of Chinese, Indonesian,
Japanese and Korean Language Education in Australian Schools" by the
Asian Education Foundation at the University of Melbourne found that
with regard to the aspirational target of 12 per cent fluent in one
Asian language:</p><blockquote><p><em>Australian Bureau of Statistics
data (2008) shows that around 197,500 students are forecasted to be in
Year 12 in 2020. Meeting the NALSSP's target will therefore require at
least 24,000 students to be studying one of the four languages in 2020,
up from the 11,654 students reported to have completed study of the
languages in Year 12 in 2008. This equates to a 100 per cent increase in
student numbers but does not address the issue of how many of these
students achieve fluency.</em></p></blockquote><p>The issue of fluency is given some fairly stunning context in the report when it states with respect to Chinese:</p><blockquote><p><em>Over
the period of their secondary schooling, Australian language students
receive, at best, some 500 hours of instruction. The Foreign Service
Institute in Washington DC estimates that it takes an English speaker
approximately 2,200 hours to become proficient in Chinese (compared with
600 hours for French). Chinese as a Second Language at Year 12 requires
mastery of some 500 characters, a number reached in China, Hong Kong
and Taiwan in Grade 1 primary.</em></p></blockquote><p>Being able to speak as well as a Grade One Chinese student is hardly "fluent".</p><p>Now,
this report does not comment on the Rudd government-initiated program
because that only started in 2008; more it is a commentary on how things
went post 2002 and the cancelling of the NALSAS.</p><p>A review of
numbers of students studying each of the four targeted languages shows
what happens when you cancel funding to a program:</p><p><img alt="" src="http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/linkableblob/3702660/data/the-number-of-students-studying-k-12-data.jpg"> </p><p>From
1994 when the Keating government introduced NALSAS till 2000, two years
prior to the Howard government cutting it, the numbers of students
studying Japanese, Indonesian and Chinese were increasing at startling
levels. By 2008, six years after the end of the program, the numbers of
students studying Japanese, Indonesian and Korean have all fallen. Only
the numbers of students studying Chinese has increased but by less than
it had from 1994 to 2000, which is surprising given in the past eight
years China has received greater general media attention due to the
mining booms and thus you would expect its growth to remain strong.</p><p>Those
who wish to argue that you can cut funding to education and not see a
degradation in outcomes would do well to ponder the above graph a while.
They might also ponder whether they think Australia's national
interests are better served by the situation we found ourselves in 2008
or where it was in 2000.</p><p>The graph displays rather clearly how
talking about solving the "skills crisis" is a long-term affair. Even if
we were to assume that the NALSSP were to achieve the growth by the end
of this year in Indonesian that was achieved under the old NALSAS from
1997 to 2000, we would still find ourselves with slightly less students
studying that language than was the case 11 years ago.</p><p>A decade lost. That is a pretty stark example of the cost of a Federal Government not placing appropriate emphasis on skills.</p><p>Remember
as well that an increase in numbers does not mean an increase in fluent
speakers because you don't start studying a second language in Year 11
or Year 12. Even if you study the language only in high school (as was
the case when I back in the 1980s studied German), an increase in
numbers this year will only lead to an increase in fluent (or at least
Year 12 standard) speakers in five years time.</p><p>Which brings us back to Julie Bishop and her proposal to make Asian language education mandatory.</p><p>There
are a number of issues with foreign language education in this country.
Surprisingly it is not only about supply of teachers – in some states
there is an abundance of supply of Chinese speaking teachers, in others a
deficit; the supply of Japanese teachers meets demand in urban areas
although "the quality of available teachers is mixed". The Asian
Education Foundation also found that with respect to Indonesian,
"Reports of both oversupply and undersupply lead to major uncertainties
about current teacher supply issues".</p><p>But while supply is an
issue, so too is demand. Getting students to study an Asian language in
the first place is crucial. If you look at the chart of numbers studying
Japanese you can see the decline in numbers from Year 8. While efforts
need to also be made to the teaching of the subject to make them more
attractive to students, the reality is that to increase the number of
Year 12 students studying a language you need to increase the numbers of
students beginning to study the language in earlier years.</p><p><img alt="" src="http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/linkableblob/3702668/data/total-number-of-students-studying-japanese-data.jpg"> </p><p>In
Chinese for example, 94 per cent of those learning it as a second
language (as opposed to those for whom it is their first language) drop
out before Year 12.</p><p>The report found that such students drop the language because of three factors:</p><ul><li>the
presence of strong numbers of first-language speakers, locally born or
otherwise, who share their classes and have an advantage in assessments;</li><li>their
lack of success in developing proficiency… combined with insufficient
teaching of certain aspects, and a totally inadequate provision of time
needed for the task;</li><li>often they attempt to learn the language in
an environment at school, in their family, and in the community, that
is less than optimum.</li></ul><p>One of the recommendations of the report on this issue was:</p><blockquote><p><em>Better
pathways for language study between primary and secondary schooling,
and from junior, middle to the senior years of secondary school, are
essential if the pattern of participation at Year 12 is to change. These
must be both visible and attractive to students – and publicly valued
by the school and the Australian community.</em></p></blockquote><p>The report also called for "National leadership".</p><p>Part of this leadership was displayed last week when Peter Garrett, the Minister for School Education <a href="http://ministers.deewr.gov.au/garrett/new-focus-languages-under-australian-curriculum">announced</a>
a next stage of the National Curriculum which calls for all Australian
students to be "entitled to learn a language other than English… with
curriculum for Chinese Mandarin and Italian the first to be developed".</p><p>A
curriculum for Mandarin and Italian is the first to be developed
because, as the draft paper on languages in the National Curriculum <a href="http://www.acara.edu.au/languages.html">stated</a>:</p><blockquote><p><em>They
represent languages that cater for the greatest range of learners.
Chinese is also a national priority, and Italian is learnt by the
largest number of students in the primary years and the second largest
number of student enrolments overall.</em></p></blockquote><p>The
curriculum is also to take into account the differences in proficiency
of first-language speakers and English-speaking learners.</p><p>In effect the curriculum is an attempt to provide better pathways for each language study.</p><p>The
next stage will be the development of curricula for French, German,
Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. (Note this does not mean the
Government is suggesting Mandarin and Italian are only to be studied,
rather they will be the first to come under a national curriculum – in
the event that the states ever agree to it!)</p><p>So the Government is
suggesting that learning a second language be available to all; Julie
Bishop wants to make learning an Asian language mandatory for all.</p><p>Given
the shocking decline in numbers of students studying Asian languages,
and the importance of Asia to Australia's future, I think Bishop's call
for positive discrimination in the teaching of Asian languages is one
worth considering. When you mandate the study of an Asian language you
certainly take care of the issue of demand of students studying it – if
in a pretty heavy handed way.</p><p>However, as soon as you mandate such
education, you need to be able to meet the expectations of Australians
that the quality of that education will be similar regardless of where
you live. If the current supply and standard of Asian language teachers
is not able to meet such an expectation now, it is even less likely to
be able to do so if the numbers of students being taught those languages
suddenly increases.</p><p>Mandating that students learn an Asian
language is perhaps a long-term goal – but unless we plan on mainly
employing foreign language teachers to teach the subject, we will need
to encourage students now to learn the language so that they can go to
university, study the language, and thus become teachers who can teach
more students.</p><p>It is a long process, but the encouragement of
Asian language learning is one worth pursuing unless anyone expects
Indonesia, China, Japan and Korea as a whole to get less relevant to
Australia in the next 100 years. Programs like the recently announced "<a href="http://pual.org.au/furtherinfo.html">Parents Understanding Asian Literacy</a>"
which is "designed to build capacity in parents to influence students
and schools to give priority to programs on Asian languages and studies"
may assist generating the demand for Asian languages that has declined
in the past decade without the need for mandating their study.</p><p>It
is however heartening to finally see some return to bipartisanship
regarding the importance of this policy after nearly a decade. We should
note, however, that this is not formal Liberal Party policy, merely
Julie Bishop stating an opinion in an interview. Whether it will lead to
greater funding and better outcomes remains to be seen and, as is the
case with most skills policies, the outcomes (good or bad) will only be
measurable in the medium to long term.</p><p>But we cannot afford another lost decade.</p><p>If
nothing else, an increase in students studying Asian languages may help
improve Australians' overall attitudes towards Asia. The recent <a href="http://www.lowyinstitute.org/Publication.asp?pid=1617">Lowy Institute Poll</a> found Australians' attitudes towards China and Indonesia was barely in the positive.</p>
<p>Learning
a country's language also involves learning the customs of that
country. With better understanding of another person's culture comes
better engagement and less conflict. If Australia truly wants to be part
of the "<a href="http://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/australia-asian-century-white-paper-advisory-panel">Asian Century</a>" this will be a very good and very necessary thing.</p><p><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/greg-jericho-56616.html" target="_self" title=""><em>Greg Jericho</em></a><em>
is an amateur blogger who spends too much of his spare time writing
about politics and not enough time watching all the DVDs he buys each
weekend. His blog can be found <a href="http://grogsgamut.blogspot.com/">here</a>.</em></p><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3702656.html">http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3702656.html</a><br><br>-- <br>**************************************<br>
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