Implement a comprehensive, nation-wide, long-term strategy.
All elements of Asian languages education must be integrated into a co-ordinated national plan that has bipartisan agreement among the Federal and State and Territory governments.
Commitment and funding models need to be agreed and locked in for at least 30 years.
An essential element of an integrated national strategy must be a sustained public awareness campaign designed to build public acceptance that proficiency in Asian languages is as basic to Australians’ future skills needs as literacy, numeracy, or informational technology skills6.
A National Asian Languages Institute should be established as a first step.
It should be based in Canberra and establish collaborative relationships with all Federal and State Education Departments as well as with all schools, colleges and universities participating in the Australian Strategy for Asian Language Proficiency.
The Institute should have a branch located in each State and Territory, and each State and Territory Branch should house a specific Action Group devoted to each of the target languages.
On a day-to-day basis, the Institute would:
- Be the central body charged with allocating funding and resources for the teaching of the target languages across Australia.
- Ensure the co-ordination of all elements and successive phases of an Australian Strategy for Asian Language Proficiency.
- Continuously review the implementation of the Strategy in participating schools, colleges and universities to ensure that the standards set by the national curriculum are being met.
- Create a web-based Language Teaching Resource Bank to serve as a repository for best-practice techniques and materials that could be drawn on by language teachers across Australia.
- Through language-specific Action Groups, visit schools to help ‘problem solve’ issues on the ground, link isolated teachers with supportive resources and other language teachers/associations, and keep teachers up to date with professional development funds and opportunities to improve their practice and opportunities to support each other’s practice.
Footnotes
- The two graphs below indicate this is far from the case
- The data for the period 1987 to 2005 show a rapid growth from 8.9% in 1987, the low point of Year 12 language study, to 15% in 1994, the high point of language study for this period and the date that marks the commencement of the Strategy. Since then language participation has declined but has remained relatively static, with a low point in 1999-2000 from which levels have recovered slightly, but without reaching the 1994 level. An Investigation of the State and Nature of Languages in Australian Schools, October 2007 DEEWR, page 38.
- An Investigation of the State an Nature of Languages in Australian Schools, October 2007, DEEWR, page 34.
- The data for the period 1987 to 2005 show a rapid growth from 8.9% in 1987, the low point of Year 12 language study, to 15% in 1994, the high point of language study for this period and the date that marks the commencement of the Strategy. Since then language participation has declined but has remained relatively static, with a low point in 1999-2000 from which levels have recovered slightly, but without reaching the 1994 level. An Investigation of the State and Nature of Languages in Australian Schools, October 2007 DEEWR, page 38.