Foreign language learning in Australia must be taken more seriously by all key stakeholders including students, parents, teachers, state and federal education ministers and their advisers. More thought needs to be placed on the value of having multiple language skills in a globalised world with opportunities for meaningful application of linguistic skills in support of better economic, social and environmental outcomes for Australia. The European Union has great language policies and programs which can be used a basis for developing customised solutions for Australia.

The proposal by the Leader of the Opposition Mr. Abbott to have 40% of students learning a foreign language within a decade is a great idea. It should be supported by all sides of politics, the community and by Treasury and Finance.

The Australian Macedonian community will welcome any sensible policy in support of language learning innovation, expansion and evolution. At present, the Macedonian language is taught at primary and secondary level across Australia but not a a tertiary level. The community has been asking the Australian Government to introduce Macedonian language and studies at tertiary level for some years now.

Effort needs to be placed on aligning foreign language learning with the needs of key stakeholders with an emphasis on value adding. Funds must also be made available for employing suitable academic and teaching staff who can deliver the foreign language strategy. A new educational campaign needs to be directed at students and their potential employers to see the value of having foreign language skills aligned to strategic and operational priorities starting with career planning.

As a multicultural nation, Australia has a wide diversity of languages which need to be harnessed to advance our place in the world.

Love a good steak holder.

What a load of codswollop. If you want to bore kids to death and
encourage them to leave school early, just force them to learn
foreign languages! This would be a massive waste of resources.
Given that we don't even seemingly have enough resources to train
Australian doctors, but need to steal them from places like
Bangaladesh and Nigeria, wasting money on teaching languages to
those who have no interest in learning them, is a complete folly.

Australia is not Switzerland, where three languages are spoken
within a few km. We already have a huge number of migrants trained
to speak foreign languages. No doubt they can use their skills to
get a job. Great.

Make learning languages voluntary for those who want to learn them,
but for heaven's sake don't put kids off school completely with this
rot

Migrants come to this country and DO NOT pass on their language to their children.

It's a bloody disgrace.

And letting Australia down.

Too busy getting tattoo's and the latest gadget or car or whatever!

Agreed Yabby. It just doesn’t add up. There are many much more important things to learn than a second language.

Students need to have a fully informed choice and not be in any way pressured to learn another language.

English is the universal language. In any country where English is the second language yes it should be compulsory. But in Australia a second language should be entirely a matter of student choice.

What we really need to make compulsory in our education system is a study of real economics, environmentalism and the things we need to do to achieve a sustainable society, and how on earth we might achieve these in the face of a government (Labor or Liberal) which just continues to take us in totally the wrong direction!

This is vastly more important than a second language.

I made both my daughters do French and Latin not because I wanted them to learn a foreign language but because I wanted them to learn the principles of good grammar. It worked and that I think is the great benefit of studying a foreign language.

I can see your point there EQ. Of course grammar was part of learning English some years back.

However how is their math, physics & chemistry EQ. With there being only so many hours in a day, often languages & sciences are an either or alternative in schools, & I know which will be of more use to most.

Looking at my kids & their school mates, now 5 to 10 years out of school, I can see a definite pattern. Those who took the science route are now almost exclusively solid successful members of society.

Those who followed the literary, arty path, apart from a few who found their way into the bureaucracy, are the ones floating along, requiring constant bailing out from the mistakes they make.

I'm not all that impressed with rounded citizens, who can't earn a living.

EQ, it seems to me that learning a second and third language is a long path to improving one’s grammar.

And I can’t quite see how that end is actually achieved by doing that.

Wouldn’t it have been a whole lot more straightforward to have done ‘advanced’ English, in which one’s grammar is perfected and the root meanings of words, many being of Latin origin, are explored?

*I'm not all that impressed with rounded citizens, who can't earn a living.*

Well that is exactly what it should be about, Hasbeen. Some time ago
I did a delivery of 99kg of seafood to a wholesaler and the 18 year
old office girl, had to do the paperwork. The price was 8$. She
was about to get her calculator out to work it out, when I mentioned
792$. She looked at me in sheer amazement and asked how I had
done that. Those are the sorts of kids that we are educating.
Half of them battle to read a book at the best of times, yet we try
and force Jane Eyre and similar nonsense down their throats. No
wonder kids bail out of school as early as possible and go and
flip burgers.

So many of our academics live in their own little world, unable to
understand life from other perspectives than their own. Now they
want to force some of these kids to spend huge amounts of time
learning languages. I can tell you, I speak fluent German and some
French and in Australia, I never use them.

Leave learning languages to those with an interest and aptitude for
learning languages. Trying to force kids to learn stuff that simply
does not interest them, is a dismal failure.

I made them do the hardest maths they could manage, (one did three unit and the other two) and I told them maths for society (or what ever it was called) was for losers. What really irritated me is the time they wasted on so-called aboriginal culture when they should have been doing history and geography. Four of the keys to success in life is being able to read, write, count and debate and that is what I tried to ensure they achieved.

I sure won't argue with you there, EQ.

There is far too much politically correct rubbish in schools. Unfortunately most school teachers have never left school, so have no idea of the real world. That's where all this saving the little dears from real competition, & the pain of ever actually loosing comes from. They have gone from school to uni to school, & never faced the competition of applying for a simple job themselves.

Add to that the academics & ex school teachers setting the agenda for education, & we have a system failing to prepare our kids for the real world.

English used to be about knowing what a participle, pronoun or a verb was, & what it was for. That required testing, & marks for results which could even compare kids knowledge, something that must not enter into todays schools.

Of course it would also require teachers to understand this stuff, probably a major reason for it's demise.