There is one good reason not to teach children a second language - they don't have the time. We are turning out school leavers who will make, over the next few critical years, errors in relationships, career choice and what they spend their money that they will affect them adversley for the rest of their lives. Any spare time needs to be spent teaching them the pitfalls of life.

The author talks of stepping outside the square. One way of stepping outside the square is to join the 5% of the population who know what happens behind a light switch when one flicks it.

Sir. You may enjoy language (and good for you) but don't try to drag others into your little world in the clouds.

This article is timely; at a time when our country is striving to advance beyond saying sorry when covert racism stil exists as the recent example in Alice Springs attests when a group of Yuendemu Indigenes were turned away from a backpackers hostel.

I too have long advocated the teaching of a language other than English to ALL students from primary school age.

I first raised this matter at a time when my children's school was offering options to learn Greek,Mandarin or Indonesian (bahasa)
I wanted to know why they did not offer an Indigenous language given the large population of Aborigines in our location.

I did not get a satisfactory answer so contacted the Curriculum development Centre in Canberra and obtained a language course in Gubabuingu, a widely spoken language in the Top-End, understood and spoken by many clan groups in order to tutor my children to be capable of communicating with Aboriginal people in a language with which they were more comfortable.

Too often, Aboriginal people are misunderstood when speaking in English, a second language to them.
Anyone who has lived in an Aboriginal Community and made the effort to learn the indigenous language, will confirm that the level of understanding improves immensely along with the development of mutual respect.

I fear that because the adoption of an Aboriginal Language might not be viewed as commercially beneficial to world trade, it's benefits towards inclusion and reconciliation will be ignored.

Everyone in our society seems to be able to make the time to watch hours of mindless television, to play sports, to party, to socialise and read and ... do anything except learn other languages. We seem to be able to turn our attention to problems such as binge drinking, inflation, obesity, mortgage stress, relationship stress. In fact we find infinite amounts of time, media space and budgets for very negative things like conflict with people of different cultures.

Seems to me one of the great pitfalls of life, cher healthwatcher, in this "shrinking world", is to turn our minds away from the global community of which we are a part - through trade, though the endless stuff we import and go into debt for, through travel, through immigration, through the endless knowledge we have and will always derive from other cultures especially in the era of modern media and the internet, through our security concerns, through our shared responsibility for the global environment. Through our caring for fellow human beings. To do the opposite, as healthwatcher proposes, is downright dangerous and embraces ignorance over knowledge.

Just how much respect can any other nation have for an Australia which actively says: "Not interested in you, your language, your culture, your people. Shhh! The footie's comin on TV." And this in the UN International Year of Languages!

With any spare time you have, how about expanding the small percentage of the population who intentionally flick that switch of languages and access knowledge of wonderful other worlds, not in the clouds but right here, on real terra firma, for their own great advantage and the mutual benefit of all?

"There is one good reason not to teach children a second language - they don't have the time."

Simple solution, then - teach them what they need to know IN THE SECOND LANGUAGE!

John Töns need not be so pessimistic - our new PM believes very strongly in the importance of foreign languages.

The first time I came across Kevin Rudd was at a speech he gave about 8 years ago to the Sydney Institute. I remember clearly him saying then that it made him weep (he did use that expression) that the Howard government had removed the funding to teach Asian languages in schools.

So presumably this report will be music to his ears.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Start them at two, with other-language speakers in the schools and kindergartens. By five, they will have the ability to understand and by eight they could well be fluent in the written and spoken language. And it should surely be a tonal Asian language-Vietnamese, Thai, or a Chinese dialect come to mind. This would further broaden the brain in its ability. Other than the USA, Australia must surely be one of the most inept countries concerning language ability. I know Papua New Guinea people who may be semi-literate but they have three to four languages and the literate ones I have worked with seem very able to pick up other languages, such as Japanese. I have worked with Vietnamese who have at least two languages other than their own. Why is Australia so backward? Arrogance?

HenryVII, it is only native English speakers who are relentlessly, arrogantly mono-lingual. The rest of us speak two or more languages.

My experience with native English speakers is that generally they are too afraid to even try to speak another language, though feel perfectly entitled to become rather incensed when a non-English speaker will not try to speak English. At home or in a foreign country.

By the way, did you know that though you are native English speakers you are not likely to pass an exam in English in High School in say Germany or the Netherlands? That is because you are taught your own language so poorly.

Knowing another language means power. You will have to wait for me to interpret what was said/written and trust me that I do so as objectively and truthfully as is possible. You have no means to know if this was done. It is only English speakers who tolerate this.

Some very good points, eg different languages give us new ways of looking at things,eg (apparently) ‘danger’ in Chinese is made up of 2 symbols – problem + opportunity. But I don’t need to learn Chinese to appreciate this.

But ultimately what school kids are thinking is ‘is this relevant?’ There has always been a shortage of good teachers, let alone good language teachers. Don’t make it compulsory, otherwise lessons will resort to colouring in to keep many many bored kids from going ape.

Also, many kids have such a poor command of English - maybe they should know their own language well before being "taught" another?

Some countries learn a range of languages true, but that’s because usually they are living side by side with those countries, eg Germany / France. Our geographic isolation works against us here.

Quaint idea in theory & totally unworkable in practice.

“Blue-sky thinking”.... oh, God.