Educators urging governments: make a greater commitment to study Asian culture and languages

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From The Age.com.au

Catching the juggernaut
October 31, 2005


Educators are urging governments to make a greater commitment to the study
of Asian culture and languages.

With Australia's fortune increasingly tied to China, educators are
pressing the need to better equip students to deal with the world's new
powerhouse. Elisabeth Tarica reports.

CAUGHT in the frenzy of Shanghai's Nanjing Road earlier this year, Gary
Campbell was stunned by the country's unrelenting pace and energy.
Watching people, bicycles and cars criss-cross in a blur, the Auburn South
Primary School principal felt a country on the move - "a juggernaut" with
enormous potential to influence our lives. Back in Australia, the
experience stirred an uneasy question: "In light of China's rapid growth
and progress, is our education system preparing its students for an
increasingly competitive and internationalised workplace?"

The short answer, Mr Campbell says, is no. "To see the energy and just how
quickly they were moving ahead and preparing their generation for the
future, it left me wondering where Australia sits for the future of its
young generation," he says. Language experts and educators are urging
governments and business to make a greater commitment to the study of
Asian languages - Chinese in particular - as China powers towards becoming
the leading economy.

Economists predict China will overtake the United States as the driving
force of global economic growth within 10 years. Earlier this month,
Australia's Reserve Bank deputy governor Glenn Stevens noted just how
closely our fortunes are tied to China. Already higher Australia-Asia
business activity has created unprecedented demand for graduates with
Asian language skills. Professor Robin Jeffrey, a past president of the
Asian Studies Association of Australia and a professor of politics at La
Trobe University, says governments need to urgently address the shrinking
potential for university students to learn Asian languages.

The move would equip graduates with the language skills and add to the
nation's capacity to deal productively and sensibly with our Asian
neighbours. "The failure of Australian language policy is that we haven't
bitten the bullet and been prepared to set up a standing national program
delivered from a single centre in these languages of lesser demand," says
Professor Jeffrey. "We can't avoid the region we live in, we are going to
interact more with the nearest region than with other parts of the world
and paradoxically it's the region that most Australians know least about."

Professor On Kit Tam, associate dean of international studies at Monash
University, says knowing the language of a major trading partner is a
much-needed advantage in a business negotiation. "If you speak their
language, you will become more effective. You will go much further than
someone who doesn't," he says. In China, where bilingual schools are the
norm, English is a compulsory subject throughout school and millions of
Chinese speak English. But Professor Jeffrey says this needs to be a
two-way process. We need to learn their language, too.

"Any (Asian) language is a good language but there has to be some
judgements made about which ones Australia needs most to invest in," he
says. Language experts point to European Union leaders, who three years
ago agreed to a goal of teaching each child at least two foreign languages
from an early age, to give Europeans a competitive edge in the job market.
Figures from the Asian Studies Association of Australia show that at
tertiary level, 5700 students in Australia studied Chinese in 2004. It is
estimated that nearly half of these students have come from Asia and many
will take their multilingual skills back to their own countries.

According to a recent study by Dr Anne McLaren, a China specialist at the
University of Melbourne, the outlook for Indonesian is worse. Only 1800
students at Australian universities were studying Indonesian last year - a
drop of 15 per cent since 2001- while interest in Japanese fell by 5 per
cent in the same period. Dr McLaren says the Federal Government's decision
in 2002 to withdraw $30 million a year in funding for the National Asian
Languages and Studies in Australian Schools Strategy was a major blow to
the study of Asian culture.

"Language teachers suddenly found that they didn't have the funding and
encouragement that they needed to be retrained, to have study trips to
Asia and so on, and that's really quite sad because it sent out a signal
to Australian schools that Asian studies and languages weren't all that
important." Both Professor Jeffrey and Dr McLaren say Australia needs to
focus on a number of second languages. The problem is how to offer such
languages widely, economically and effectively. "You begin by coming up
with ways of ensuring that languages of lower demand be made nationally
available so you can have good national delivery programs," Professor
Jeffrey says. "Then you make the determination to ensure that every city
at university level has properly funded Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian
language programs."

However, Isabel Tasker, a lecturer in Chinese at the University of New
England, NSW, says understanding the culture is just as important as
speaking the language - missing local language idiosyncrasies or cultural
contexts can bring an abrupt end to a business negotiation. "An
understanding of inter-cultural and cross-cultural issues, not just from a
linguistic point of view but also how to handle a social occasion, what
kind of behaviours are expected or seen a bit alienating, is very
important," Ms Tasker says. "Through learning about language and culture,
students learn more than just a tool that's useful for business, they
broaden their world view and expand their cultural horizons in many ways."

As Bruce Jacobs, a professor of Asian languages and studies at Monash
University, says: "There's more to learning a language than just getting a
job. Language is very, very important to understanding a country like
China, where it's also important to have an historical background and an
understanding of the politics and society." According to the latest
Victorian Government figures available, Italian was the most popular
language out of the 21 taught in Victorian government primary schools in
2003. It was followed by Indonesian, Japanese, German, French and Chinese.
By VCE level the focus switches to Asian languages with Chinese and
Japanese the most popular with a further 2500 studying Chinese out of
school hours through the Victorian School of Languages (VSL).

VSL assistant principal Denis Cunningham says Chinese is the most sought
after out of the 46 languages offered. There has also been a surge to
learn Chinese at universities and business organisations are providing
increased courses. The University of New England has seen a marked
interest in Chinese (Mandarin) as demand for graduates to handle business
and commercial relationships between the two countries grows. Isabel
Tasker says more students are learning Mandarin from scratch -
specifically to get an edge in business.

"We've had an increasing amount of interest both from undergraduates who
see it as a useful language to have from a career and employability point
of view, but also mature-age students, to enable them to enhance their
current jobs," she says. "Chinese is a big language of the future in terms
of Australia developing trade but in the short term we have things like
the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the World Expo in 2010, which will be
very significant for Australia-China trade relations." At Monash
University's National Centre for Language Training, one of the more
popular courses centres on doing business in China, which covers issues
such as cultural awareness, etiquette and business language.

The centre also offers intensive short courses in language and business
skills as well as short-term, intensive Chinese language programs in
Shanghai and Beijing through its Chinese In Country Program. Graduates
also have the opportunity to gain first-hand work experience overseas
through The Australia-China Council's recently initiated Young Business
Scholars in China Program. In the meantime, Gary Campbell is savouring the
unexpected souvenir he brought back from China - a deeper level of
understanding and a quest to push for a vibrant and visionary education
system.

"We have a responsibility to be forward thinking and forward planning,''
he says. "Our politicians need to stand on the streets of China, they need
to see and feel the world of work in action and interpret this into
educational imperatives.''

educational imperatives.''

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