You can't really compare the European situation with Australia.
In Europe you only have to travel 200 Km and you have passed through
3 different language zones, so quite a different situation to
ours.

Fact is that English, through the medium of global tv and the internet,
is in fact becoming the global default language.
Most people in business around the globe, once again are commonly
fluent in English.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that one can also waste
a hell of a lot of school time, as teachers try to force pupils
to learn languages in which they have no interest. It certainly
happened to me and my friends.

For those keen to learn another language, the easy way is to
go and spend some time in a country where it is spoken and
you'll pick it up far quicker and easier then teachers trying
to force it down unwilling pupils throats.

Yabby,

I agree, the standard of the language courses offered is important,I wonder how many students studying a foreign language will ever be fluent enough to carry on business negotiations for example,using that language. Successful study of a foreign language(like maths) requires aptitude, interest and hard work,unless you start learning as a child.

I remember talking to a Chinese friend about a program we'd seen in which a professor of Chinese at a prestigious British university was interviewed speaking and witing Chinese. My friend's assessment was that the Prof. wrote Chinese characters competently but his accent was "like a dog."

I agree with Yabby. Apart from the shortage of language teachers who can also teach several other subjects, particularly in government schools, I would also like to point out Australian children are not taught their own language well enough. Until they can read, right and speak English properly, and not have to go through a remedial English course before they can start tertiary education, other languages should be left alone.

I have a 19 year old grandson who cannot read cursive writing, and his own writing is like something off a cave wall. A couple of days ago, my wife heard a university spokesman pleading with school teachers to use the most naive, rounded printing so that they could communicate with their entrants in writing. If they want to take the easy way out with English, they are not going to try to hard with other languages.

Anyway, as Yabby also says, English is international language now and, you can only learn a foreign language well by living with the natives.

There are other, and better, reasons for learning a second language at school. Good language teaching exposes the relation between language and thought, thus improving rationality. It also provides an introduction to another culture--its literature and philosophy, thus encouraging a critical evaluation of the student's own culture.

In my view, however, the mishmash of languages at present taught, and the lack of uniformity between schools, diminishes these benefits. There needs to be a single langauge which all secondary schools teach--one which contrasts with English in its grammar and in its concepts; and one from a culture with significant and thought-provoking differences. Arabic might not be a bad idea.

I have no problem with people learning a foreign language if they have an interest and talent in that area.
However,wasting valuable time in high school teaching a foreign language is another thing.A high proportion of Australian students can't speak or write English in a comprehensible fashion.
Their reading skills are very likely poor as well.
We need to get our priorities in order.
As for the learning of a language teaching the student about the history and culture of a nation,that can be done much more effectively through history and sociological subjects.

Manorina, you make some very valid points.

Ozbib, surely you can teach kids rational thinking, without forcing
them to learn Arabic?
Forcing kids to learn a language in which they have absolutaly
no interest, just wastes valuable schooltime, which could be
prioritised more usefully.

I am just amazed, how some kids even get through the school system
these days. The other day, a school leaver working for an industrial
company, was doing an invoice for me. She had to figure out
99 times 8. She was searching around for her calculater, when I
mentioned that 792 was perhaps what she was looking for. She
was just amazed, she'd never learned how to do that kind
of basic stuff at school.

One of the most useful things that I learned at school, was to get
into the habit of reading, something which many kids hardly do
these days.

That wasn't achieved by English teachers stuffing Jayne Eyre and
similar down our throats. It was because of one wise teacher,
who encouraged us to read anything at all that interested us.
Rather then associate reading with boring, suddenly reading became
fun and away we went! I still thank that teacher today.

For an Australian there really are only two foreign languages worth learning. They are Mandarin and Arabic.

If, as seems likely, China becomes an economic superpower fluency in Mandarin will confer an advantage in business.

Arabic because increasingly Muslims throughout the world are learning to speak Arabic. In consequence Arabic is likely to rival English as a pan-European language within a generation. More, I think Arabic could become the pan-Mediterranean language.

As GLOBAL languages I cannot think of any language that will rival Arabic, English and Mandarin for the foreseeable future. However the top of the SECOND TIER is likely to be Spanish and Portuguese, the languages of South and Central America.

There are more important things to do in schooltime than teach material merely because of its economic benefits. That is especially the case when school is compulsory--justifications of compulsion require more important benefits. If foreign languages are to have a place (thereby excluding other material), they need to be taught in ways which provide these more important outcomes--and better than the alternatives.

Languages have a weak case against history and some parts of geography, and even music. Extending the curriculum by requiring more years in school, or a longer school day, would solve that problem; but at the expense of creating others.

While it is possible to examine the relationship between language and thought without going beyond English, it is very difficult without the use of foreign language examples. It is also possible to problematise your own culture without the example of that of others. But again it is much easier if students are familiar with more than one culture. (Yes, you can study a culture without learning its language. But not well.)

Monolingualism is a constraint upon thought.

Interesting article. In the dim and distant past when I attended high school, I did a year of Latin, followed by 3 years of German. While neither has subsequently been of much practical use, formally learning these languages enhanced my understanding, not only of English, but also of the relationship between language and thought.

As an adult I became reasonably fluent in Tok Pisin, with a smattering of Bahasa and some obscure languages from PNG. I have always been grateful that I was afforded the opportunity at an early age to learn, via the formal study of other languages, how intrinsic language is to understanding other cultures and peoples.

Those who dismiss the importance of learning languages other than English tend, in my experience, to be ignorant and intolerant of non-Anglo cultures and people - to their own detriment and ultimately of our multicultural society.

I agree that both Mandarin and Arabic should be taught in Australian schools as a matter of course, while there should be a wider range of regional and ethnic languages available. The formal learning of another language is perhaps the greatest facilitator, of which I'm aware, of communication and understanding between people of disparate cultural backgrounds.

*There are more important things to do in schooltime than teach material merely because of its economic benefits.*

Well I guess that is a matter of opinion. Schoolkids, when they
finish school, need the basic skills to be employable and make
a living. Our present system is failing in that.

Today's kids are not the compliant little darlings of years ago.
Try to force them to learn stuff in which they have absolutaly
no interest, like foreign languages, then don't be amazed if they
bunk school, pay no attention, cause trouble or leave school.

There are in fact AFAIK, things not being taught, which could
be taught, to give them real life skills.

Daniel Goleman, in his well known book "Emotional Intelligence",
discusses the value of teaching kids as young as 7, basic
emotional literacy. Impulse control, thinking about what you feel,
conflict resolution skills, some call it EQ, some call it Self
Science, but by what I've read, the effect on kids has been dramatic.

They learn that violence is not the answer, some go home and solve
their parents disputes. it helps them deal with self esteem,
depression and a heap of other similar subjects.

Those are the sorts of life skills that can change peoples lives
and what basic education should be all about.

Leave learning languages to those who are interested and have
the aptitude, as was pointed out by other posters. Otherwise
don't be amazed if kids rebel against your schooling system,
as you bore them with your compulsory boringness of learning
a foreign language.

Also spracht Monolinguista!

I'd be willing to bet that Yabby hasn't experienced sending a kid to school, then high school, then university.

There's much more to education, at any level, than training in 'practical' skills.

I'm also willing to bet that Yabby knows no other language than English, in which - despite it being his native language - he is barely competent.

Ah CJ, you lost your bet, for in fact I speak fluent German and
a bit of French, enough to get me around Paris for a couple of
years in my teens. English was not my mother tongue btw, but Swiss.

In a past life I used to employ 30 or so different people a year,
so I am well aware how our school leavers turn out.

It seems to me that you are being an elitist snob, concerned with
those going on to university and ignoring the rest, which
are the majority.

Now if you would actually like to make a positive contribution for
a change, what say you check out the emotional literacy programme
as per Goleman and think of the implications if it was taught at
our schools. Implictions for the whole of society, from domestic
violence onwards.

Yabby,

It is easy for a person to argue that some subject or some material should be in the school curriculum, if her or she ignores the unfortunate fact that something else must get left out. (No, I know you didn't do that.) So far as I can see, the only way to resolve the issues is to sort out what the ultimate purposes of the school curriculum should be. That is not an easy job--but there is a good deal of careful argument on the issue. Opinions may be informed by this material, or they may not. At any rate, the opinion you form will be as good as the arguments with which you can support it. (It is not a matter of arbitrarily plumping for a view.)

A reasonable place to start, in my view, is to take account of the fact that we make schooling compulsory. What we teach in school must thus be of sufficient important to justify overriding the principle of liberty. In the case of young children, that is not such an issue--because they lack so much knowledge, they are not in a position to make rational decisions, and we are justified in making decisions for them. That is, the principle of liberty does not apply to them. But the older children get, and the more knowledgeable and rational they become, the more significant their freedom is.

To justify overriding that freedom, I believe, requires an account of why freedom matters in the first place.

More of this sketch in my next.