How about foreign and indigenous languages mandated in the primary school curriculum? (Nah, too hard to find the teachers to make it work.)

How about a requirement that students count two years of language learning towards their year 12 final results? (Nah, too hard for the students who don't want to be at school in the first place.)

How about Vice-Chancellors agreeing that every undergraduate degree include passing at least two years of a language other than English? (Nah, too hard to administer.)

How about all professional level public servants in federal and state governmets being required to demonstrate a foreign language proficiency as one of the essential selection criteria? (Nah, nobody would take it seriously.)

I think we should agree that this is a good concept in principle, and then call a far-ranging inquiry that can do a proper snow-job on it.

I don't see the point of forcing the bulk of the population learn something if that something is never going to be used by most of them.

I learnt German in high school. When I had the opportunity to travel to Germany I though I might finally have the chance to put all that time to some use. When I got there it seemed like even the Germans were giving up on German. I was at an international conference. Everybody started the conversation in English - then swapped to a more comfortable language if they had one in common.

That was to be expected I guess. What I didn't expect was how hard it was to buy obviously German souvenirs. Being in a German store, with everybody speaking German and yet every piece of clothing in sight plastered with English slogans was just weird. Even the clothing tags are printed in English. The final straw was a young German couple we met. He was an apprentice plumber. Apparently their central heating systems create a lot of work for plumbers. He showed me his training manuals. They were printed in German ... and English. This was apparently required by law.

So why was I forced to waste all that time learning German? All the talk of "sharpening the mind" sounds like a complete furphy to me - just about any mental challenge will do that. Kids should only be forced to study a subject for years if we know its going to be useful to them in our society. The rest should be optional. Frankly, for males I think spending a semester on home maintenance basic skills like using a hammer and a nail, and wielding an angle grinder safely would be much more useful. Learning a bit about how our society works - things like civics, or how news is "spun", or what phishing looks like and how Internet security works wouldn't go astray either.

Philip,

A major initial problem is that most teachers leaving high school after 1975 don't adequately understand English or Grammar or Vocabulary.

In a recent guide to teachers, at a particular school, the direction was to not use hyphens, especially, cooperative, rather co-operative. With co-opetaion the two vowels are sounded differently. A cooperative is a pen for chickens!

I have dealt in business in Asia for nine years. Where there is monet to made I found language was not a problem.

Cheers.

O.

Language teaching just doesn't work in a school context of two hours face-to-face teaching every week. It is not a 'subject' like history but a way of thinking that can be learnt best through immersion. (I learnt more Spanish from a month of morning lessons in Spain than I learnt French in four years at high school.)

If schools are serious about promoting language learning then they need to take kids out of school for a month, put them in an intensive language laboratory for three hours a day and surround them with speakers of that language. This would take the same amount of time and resources as the current approach but would produce genuine results. Right now language teaching in Australian schools is just a way for language teachers to perpetuate themselves.

I do not know if this is helpful, but it is food for thought.

English for EU

The United/European Union Commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for American and European communications rather than German, which was the other possibility.

Conceding that English spelling has some room for improvement, a five year phased plan to convert to EuroEnglish was made.

The first year “s” will be used for soft “c”. Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. “k” will replase hard “c”. This will make English Konform to German. Not only wil this klear up konfusion but keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when they replase “ph” with “f”. This will make words like “fotograf” twenty persent shorter.

In the third year publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expected to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, whish have always ben deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent “e”s in the lanuage is disgrasful.

By the fourth year people wil be reseptiv to steps sush as replasing “th” by “z” and “w” by “v”. Vuns again mor in konformuns viz German.

During ze fifz year zi unecsesary “o” kan be dropd from vords containing “ou” and similar shanges vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombiations of letters.

After ze fifz yer ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find ezi tu understand esh ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

What is the aim ? Global communication, foolproof, and with the minimum of effort and resources expended...
It is not laziness, it is commonsense.
Why not "to each his own" plus "one for all"
Every human being has the right to keep his own native language.
In addition let's all learn ONE language,THE SAME AUXILIARY LANGUAGE.

Learning Chinese wont'help us with Japanese
Does a Maori feel at home in Tahiti ?
Can Indians or Koreans chat with New-Guineans ?
Does a Filipino understand Shinto ?

Esperanto ! Couldn't we ALL learn Esperanto ?
No more "foreigners"
All equal fellow learners
Getting to know one another
Then if for deeper knowledge
Into some cultures we yearn
Esperanto will give us an edge
Other languages to learn

Latin was recommended for mind stimulation; Esperanto can be "the new latin" preparing the brain to absorb language study, including that of English. As a bonus, within a few weeks one can have penfriends in almost any country on earth. Albert Einstein, Rudolf Diesel, G-B Shaw, Lusin, Jules Verne etc. believed in it. Let us at least look at it. After all, Musicians have done it, one common system.

My argument is why not chose an easy language as a first foreign language?

Lots of different languages are spoken in the world, so which ones should we teach? I don’t think we should teach only the languages most widely spoken.

There is one language well worth considering, but many people seem to know very little about it, even though there are millions of pages in or about it on the Internet. It is called Esperanto. It has been created 120 years ago and is now used by upto 2 million people from over 100 different countries. It has proven itself as a very good means of communication, it is much easier to learn than national languages, but nevertheless enables to express anything as well as other languages.

It seems to me that Esperanto would be an ideal first foreign language to teach. Many people put learning a foreign language in the too hard basket and you can't really blame them when it comes to have to learn all the irregularities of the French language, Japanese script, etc. It is extremely time consuming to learn a foreign language if one wants to become fluent. Esperanto can be learnt much faster and therefore it boosts enormously the children's self-esteem. Furthermore it helps a lot with the learning of subsequent languages. In music, children don't start by tackling difficult instruments, in languages it should be the same, start with an easy language and then go on to more difficult ones.

Schools have a limited amount of time, so expecting them to spend enough time to make students fluent in national languages is unrealistic. Primary schools could teach Esperanto and then high schools could offer a variety of languages.

To see what Esperanto looks like, you could check the free online course Vojagu kun Zam (complete with sound) at www.lernu.net

I have a LOTE teaching certificate specifically for Esperanto which I received last year from the University of NSW.

I have written a book too about awareness for foreign languages, see http://members.iinet.net.au/~nicolee/bookad.html

Sometimes I share Tom's cynicism about policy inquiries and Australian apathy (see Fiona Mueller's 2003 article "Learning languages in Australia - too much like hard work"). But languages teachers know that students can and do succeed – we just lament the pitiful numbers. I see “the point of forcing the bulk of the population to learn” any language if that hones their thinking and linguistic skills in a hundred ways, improves their openness to difference, shows racism for the hateful, self-destructive, throwback thing it is, equips them for rewarding careers around the world, makes Australia more secure, prosperous and mature because we understand our world better.

I find rstuart’s reaction to his German travels a furphy. Did it not occur to you to want to persist with German until you could be like them: code-switching at will as you say, able to trade in other languages, comfortable with foreign language publications all over their country? Germans “giving up on German”? Nonsense. Languages make us who we are. Language students know keenly who they are.

If kids only follow “a subject for years if we know its going to be useful to them in our society”, who defines useful? Would you also toss Phys Ed., most maths, studies of societies ancient and modern, poetry, music, science beyond anything “useful” in the everyday world, like your “home maintenance skills”? Did you really say: “for males”? Do you think languages are for girls and sissies? I have met Aussie blokes who cycle around Europe for a living and who spoke great French. Had to. I met a gang of young English “hard men” in Greece and their kingpin spoke seven European languages for street, club and work purposes. Our human world is made of our ideas, thoughts and words (e.g. the society, civics, how news is "spun", the internet that you mentioned) as much as by hammer and nails, and weapons. Behind the material is the mental. So much human joy and misery proceeds from our minds and our mouths. Yet you don’t think it is worth studying language and languages? Quel dommage!

Just a brief note Henriette:

Contrary to your expressed nay-saying, learning Chinese WILL help with Japanese. Indeed, your reference to the (non-spoken) "Chinese" seems to betray the fact that Chinese textual/character language is the very place where the broader "Chinese" and Japanese cultures interact perhaps most closely. I understand that Japanese Hiragana characters derived from Chinese precedents.

Also, a Maori may well feel at home in Tahiti, at least in a certain linguistic sense. One related example I witnessed personally was a Maori in Jakarta whose smooth integration with local language and society was conspicuous and remarkable when seen against all other expats in his wide professional and recreational circles. Although not "Tahiti", the local linguistic heritage is largely "Malay-Polynesian", and I recall reading studies about many close similarities - even identical vocabularies - between Maori and Javanese, for example.

These above points may highlight my misgivings about what I perceive as Esperanto's relatively artificial and rootless place in our Babel Tower. On a less argumentative note, I laud languages study for the insight it gives into the interdependent relationships linking all peoples' languages at some level, at some time. Even commonalities of onomatopoeia offer such genuine cross-cultural joy when studying "authentic" languages.

I cannot disagree with Oliver that “teachers leaving high school after 1975 don't adequately understand English or Grammar or Vocabulary.” All education would be improved if Australian teachers learned English and other languages really well. I hardly ever make spelling mistakes in English. I think it may be because since I was 12, I have been learning French, did three years Latin, and German in hobby fashion after growing up. I quite enjoy looking up the origins of words and I marvel to think that coming out of our mouths, pens and keyboards are actually Anglo-Saxon, Norman French, Greek, Latin, and a host of borrowings from hundreds of languages. English is a total fruit salad (“food for thought” is right) which is why its spelling is so challenging for many, as mr nobody points out above in comic vein. Except if you’ve done some study of the contributing languages! I agree too with Oliver that “Where there is money to made I found language was not a problem.” Although we may think so and never know what business opportunities, profits and rewarding experiences we missed out on because we do not know the language, do not know what makes those customers tick, do not know if we’re being done or if the “interpreters” are really on our side.

Some of the best times of my life have been sitting chatting with local people in Indonesia, getting to know about their lives, thoughts and concerns as I would a fellow Aussie. I see busloads of tourists get off their air-conditioned bus and click click their cameras at whatever tourist attraction the guide says is special and then away to the next temple or scenic view (that they can see in a book or on a doco). And I wouldn’t swap places for all the tea in China.

As for Esperanto, I see all the reasons its advocates push for it and I wish them well. Myself, I prefer genuine, organic languages. Esperanto has European roots. Do you think Asian and African decision makers will throw over English for Esperanto?

I really can’t understand what you mean by genuine languages. Why would Esperanto not be a genuine language? Someone chose long ago to call a dog a dog, someone chose to call a dog “hundo” in Esperanto not that long ago. What’s really the big difference? Obviously Esperanto doesn’t have a history as long as other languages, but basically it is not really that different from other languages. Have you ever read something written by people who learnt Esperanto from birth. For them Esperanto is a language like any other.

You say you prefer, I suppose you mean, national languages. OK, so you can learn Indonesian and maybe another one and reach fluency, but that’s still not enough to communicate with many people, you might like to communicate with people from Iceland, from Hungary, do you want to learn each national language? We need a common language and then according to one’s tastes, interests, etc people could learn one or two national languages.

I don’t think decision makers will immediately throw over English but many ordinary people will. In another forum Henriette put a good quote from a Chinese lady who explains very well why she prefers Esperanto and that for her Esperanto is just like Chinese..

Claude Piron who used to be a UN translator gave me some figures and said a European person needs about 200 hours to learn Esperanto, a Chinese person will need longer about 240 hours, but Claude Piron spoke with quite a few people in China who had spent 240 hours learning Esperanto and 2,000 hours learning English and spoke better Esperanto. So what do you think they prefer to learn Esperanto or English. Esperanto might not be perfectly fair, but if we reject Esperanto and use English we get to a solution much, much unfairer.

And here you can listen to Esperanto speakers from Africa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GW3RulGjIA

To Her nobody,

Vel don, yu are very funy. Sory goto go, hav to vatsh ze fotbal now.

This article brilliantly exposes the lack of action and wasted opportunities of the various state Labor governments over the past decade. All education, up to University level, has been their responsibility for years.

Does the writer understand his motherhood statements have all been dished out by these state governments for years.

Does his solution include another of Kevin's labor policy endorsing do nothing talkfests and another tier of memo-writing do nothing, but this time federal, useless public servant bureaucrats?

Same problem, endlessly suggesting the same solution with the same results is close to insanity.

It seems I've seen it so often recently that it's becoming the norm.

Such displays make me really fearful for Australia's long term future.

Thank God I've already raised my kids. They are not just becoming widely read, are bilingual and computer literate but also speak with great common sense. They won't let their kids suffer from this type of incompetent nonsense and spin doctoring that we are currently contantly witnessing.

In the past we used to dump incompetent governments now all we seem to see is media fools and blind ideologues attempting to blame the blameless and excuse the culprits who are their idealogical incompetent mates. That is just exacerbating the problem. It's just exasperating.

Jon J, I agree, well designed and delivered in-country immersion programs or well motivated travellers in another language community end up with better fluency than the drip feed system in our schools. All depends though on what you do with the school time: how well trained teachers are, how attuned to the students’ dispositions, how responsive the students, how supportive the parents, schools and community are. Attitude is everything.

I applaud your idea of one month intensive language programs and interaction with speakers of the language. It should be tested over summer holidays with real credit towards school or uni entrance results if students attain equal or better results.

You write: “Right now language teaching in Australian schools is just a way for language teachers to perpetuate themselves.” In one sense you are right, just as music, history and science teachers – or devotees of a sport or a faith - believe in what they do and wish to perpetuate its benefits despite apathy or resistance. On the other hand, I just spent Saturday with a dozen Sunshine Coast language teachers and two trainers from Brisbane all giving up their day to think and work on professional standards and how to improve their own practice. Most language teachers are dedicated, hardworking, and frustrated beyond endurance by the failure of their enterprise. Australia has lost many top languages teachers who take off for the more rewarding work of TESOL teaching or other school subjects. So much less anxiety, constant battling with negative attitudes on all sides, so much easier on the nerves.

What does it say about us, what message would it give the world if once-proud multicultural Australia actually gave up on teaching the languages of others? Or continue to do it so poorly? We who live on an isolated continent, who need to work harder and communicate more cleverly with the world in trade, security and cultural realms, we who have the gift of immigrants from 160 or so other cultural groups, are not up to the job? Good only for wheat, wool, minerals and well-muscled young sports people?

To respond to Keith, whose frustration I share with repetitive failing systems we have tried again and again to pump some life into. I agree with the challenge you have thrown down to both state and federal Labor. Too many politicians, think tankers and bureaucrats think policy is the achievement. Too many academics think talkfests and theoretical papers are real life. Too many of us Australians put up with governments papering over problems until they do become rotten norms. “Same problem, endlessly suggesting the same solution with the same results is close to insanity.” Who could disagree? We all need to work smarter because from what I see we’re all working damned hard.

I must admit though that the recent spate of media attention to languages, and the 2020 Ideas Summit “call for a radical ramping up of language skills … as well as a comprehensive reinvigoration of Asian language literacy” (reported by Peter Jones in this Forum) is like balm and a signal to a beleaguered language teaching profession. Talk and encouraging words have their uses. Sticking to your word, implementing policies, follow through, evaluation, improvement, even better.

I must admit, also, I prefer a Mandarin speaking role model as PM to one who wins elections with the racist card, endorses horrific wars based on falsehoods, podium thumps like Krushchev at indigenous people, locks up asylum seekers. Sending out diagonally opposite messages to all that language teachers espouse: respect for difference, the enriching nature of diversity, acknowledgement of complexity, human rights. None of that matters so long as the economy is sound (for some), is that right?

I congratulate those bilingual children. How did they do it? Is this a solution you can share so that all state school kids across Australia can benefit? Or would they all require high incomes, an AFS year abroad and ski holidays in the Alps to be able to emulate that achievement?

Philip Mahnken,

Firstly thank you for supporting and sharing part of my frustration. It is a pity some silly indoctrinated idealogy prevents you from enbracing wholly the frustration with our current malaise.

Secondly Why bring John Howard into a discussion about language tuition in our STATE schools?

You might share my frustration but you've just indulged in the blame shifting the labor state regimes have practised for the past 10 odd years. It's all John Howards fault ... eh?

'All we need to do is work smarter.' Rubbish. All we need to do is elect alternative governments. That's smarter than putting up with the abject failures from the current rabbles. They can't change themselves.

The bloody biggest problem of them all is that until people like you start to realise state problems are caused by labor state governments and you start condemning them in the same manner you spout on about John Howard things won't change. But everythings ok while we all feel warm and fuzzy in the embrace of socialist incompetents...eh?

Tell me in 3 or 4 years time after health, education, police, transport, emergency services and other state responsibilities have all deteriotated to the point of absolute chaos and labor governments will still be disagreeing with one another after having simply thrown billions at the problems and the buffoons in the media and brotherly commentators will still be focusing on the opposition and any of their internal hiccups and the Economy is stuffed ... well who will you blame then ... John Howard?

Do you think it a grand role model for our kids to see our PM cop a lecture on human rights in Tibet from a communist dictator and not respond manfully but only slink away chastened while continuing to grin, be everybodies friend and keep mouthing off in Mandarin?

Some role model ... Where's his bloody self-respect?

And my booze now costs more? Why didn't they tell me they we going to tax my pleasure ... before the election.

Henriette,

Hello. I have read that Humankind lost or had deferred significant knowledge, because the Romans wrote in Vulgar Latin and lost the knack of esoteric Attic Greek. It is part of the reason why the early West had a relatively poor base to work from, after the fall of the Western Empire [476], and, why the West was then behind the Arabs and the Chinese in knowledge.

Circa. 1975 the Australian Governments replaced teaching English with a poor, degraded substitute. Even today's younger teachers are not adequately literate. Its not their fault. It the people for whom we voted.

O.

Cheers.

Philip,

'Is this a solution you can share so that all state school kids across Australia can benefit? Or would they all require high incomes, an AFS year abroad and ski holidays in the Alps to be able to emulate that achievement?'

What is this all about?
Why do you envy our success and why have you assumed things were always easy for us.

My youngsters went to Wellers Hill State School, Holland Park State High and Coorparro Secondary College.

Both youngsters underwent remedial reading and speech therapy after being returned from NZ and their mother at a time when the actions of P. Keating impacted so negatively on my business that I nearly went bankrupt. I raised them alone from ages 9 and `11.

We went camping, to surf club, tennis club (state school), swimming club (state school), music lessons (private and state school), flying lessons (Air Cadets), Little Athletics and dancing lessons.

My son will qualify as an Electrical and Computer engineer with a double degree in applied maths. My daughter toured with the Queensland Youth Orchestra (Winds Ensemble and Symphony). Both are employed and happy motivated people.

A few tips:

Read kids a diet of Greek classis, Grims, Aesops, Kipling, Swift, Cervantes, Conrad, Plaidy, Stewart, Lawson, Paterson, Rudd, Idress and Shakespeares sonnets.
Encourage board games, cards, crosswords and mathematical puzzles.
Watch the their teachers like a hawk.
Avoid idealogues and team sports like the plague.
Apply three rules:
If you start something finish it.
If you do something do it properly.
I'm the boss.

My parents and grandparents were working people and labour people. They strived to get their families out of the mire they found themselves in. My parents were extremely proud of my sucesses and all generations would be cheering my kids on. They'd resent me and them if I or they pretended to be working people. We're not, we fortunately have achieved what they originally set about doing.

They were working people, proud and I never ever witnessed them display your all too obvious envy.

"The first year “s” will be used for soft “c”. Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. “k” will replase hard “c”. This will make English Konform to German. Not only wil this klear up konfusion but keyboards kan have one less letter." - Mr Nobody.

If adopted this would have significant implications for punctuation.

Historically when two vowels had the same sound, the second vowel has a diaeresis. Because folks, I guess,were pretty bugged by this, we started using hyphens between the vowels, to make this distinction. This is why we should have co-operative rather than cooperative for altruistic acts between people. Actually, a coopoverative [c oo p] is a chicken enclosure. That is why say chicken coop, the abreviation.

Technically, zoology should be zo-ology, so the last bit would rhym with all the 'ologies. Zoo shouldn't rhym with boo. The Macquarie is etymologically and phonetically wrong; but it is a lexicon: A book of more common language usage. [If my writings are important to me, I use the OED]

Reference on chicken coops: Fowler :-).

Keith

I congratulate you on being a fine parent. One of my old cousins used to say "self praise is no recommendation" so let me praise you.

Envy your success? Probably. What's the definition of success? I suppose it would be wonderful to have the money to to do whatever you wanted, not to go to work when you didn't feel like it. I don't think I could enjoy such a life knowing how badly off so many others are.

One of my students said in class recently, quoting from the film Fight Club I think: "You work all your life at a job you hate, to buy 'stuff' you don't need, to impress people you don't like."

I don't envy that, Keith. I'll never be rich materially. But I mostly love my job of teaching about other languages and cultures, love "the work" of going with students to Indonesia, love my Tasmanian history research that I do in my spare time, love my family (as you plainly do), reading, thinking and being able to exchange thoughts with enlightened blokes like your good self.

Riches and privilege enough.

Back to talking about languages education, do I envy the provisions at rich private schools? Yes, I want all young Australians to enjoy those facilities, opportunities, achievement-oriented systems, well-trained and well-rewarded teachers. Do I admire folks who work hard and achieve? Absolutely. Do I feel annoyed and impatient with kids who refuse to put their mental muscles to any challenge? Absolutely. But I am quite prepared to admit I do not have magic solutions to such complex human and social problems. I can only keep trying to share my enthusiasms, ideas and knowledge with those I can.

You seem to know the black-and-white solutions. We flabby pinko socialist intellectuals recognize ambiguity and contradiction in the world (as in language) and remember Goethe: "Nothing is more foolish than the search for solutions." And gloomy old Nietzsche thought that "convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies." Will you call me an indoctrinated idealogue again? Tant pis

Phillip,

It wasn't my intent to look for praise but only to answer your assumptions, questions and pass on a few tips...things I'd personally discovered.

That you congratulate me tends to suggest my solutions to raising kids might just well have been insightful. To hell with Goethe!

I cannot agree that wealth and riches can only be described in the terms you hold dear. I value those things you value but I think my definition of wealth and riches much more robust and identifies much more closely to the world we share.

'"You work all your life at a job you hate, to buy 'stuff' you don't need, to impress people you don't like."'

So very sad. My response would be merely to point out, while I have free time: that came only after I'd worked many years. The 'stuff' I probably could do without, will I know it enrichs my life and the lives of many others in far more ways than even I think. I'm just as sure, from first hand experience, my life would be far less rewarding and interesting without having 'stuff.

As for impressing people well that's never been an aim but is a consequence not only materially but in other ways as well.

Without wealth who has the time to teach oneself, provide for a family, include others into your world, and well ... simply achieve. Success in my world includes your type of valuable achievement and all those status achievements and material stuff plus a quest for solitude, peacefulness and believe it or not (At my age) adventure.

Here's little story.

I had bought a yacht in Newcastle. I sailed it single handed to Brisbane, after studying in depth: coastal navigation, sat nav, tides and currents, the weather charts, deisel motor operation repair and maintenance, yacht design and construction and provisioning including of spares, sail and rigging operation and use, general yacht handling and safety. I obtained a boat drivers licence and marine radio operators qualification. I was thorough

cont
After settlement day I spent two days doing an inventory and stocking all those things the experts had said were necessary to take to sea.

It took 6 days for me to reach Manly Brisbane, I sailed twice overnight and spent nights in Trial Bay, Coffs Harbour and at Tipplers.

I'd never set foot on a boat before.

My fondest memory was docking at Tipplers and having a moment with a young Torres Strait girl who was doing a cadetship in hospitality at the resort. We talked of my adventure and she asked how long I'd had that dream.

I was 14 when I first dream't of sailing a yacht.

Her response thrilled me.

'You know I'd forgotten my dreams...' and brightly added 'thanks for the reminder.'

I hope I inspired her, for her many dreams are quite achieveable.

Without material wealth, time, 'stuff' and creating an impression that inspiration could not have occurred.

The above exchange is very instructive. Maybe it illustrates how profoundly barbaric our culture has now become.

A gentle, deft, witty and self-deprecating riposte met by yet another thumping "victory" for smugness, arrogance and snobbery and - at last - an admission of the base material greed underlying such identity and attitude. The impression is of a well-rounded, humble personality being insulted by a one-dimensional character incapable of reflection or self-criticism, and far beyond conscience, traditional morality or "good and evil".

Really off. But characteristically, Mahnken's Nietzsche quote seemed to predict the response anyway.

Dear Comrade Mil

You shouldn't talk about Philip like that.

Kindest regards.

ps In the type of society you see as the best for us all both Philip and I would be re-educated, incarcerated, or executed ... oh and so would you.

In the society I choose, and thankfully so do the majority of others, we are all allowed to be subject to the type of small minded abuse in which you like to indulge ... constantly.

Make no mistake readers: it is barbarism. It is so obvious when its champions take such pride and enjoyment in their "achievement" of in-your-face self-aggrandizement, self-congratulation and an annihilation of any genuine efforts at collective responsibility, fairness and observance of values and limits beyond a tunnel vision of self interest.

Overseas atrocities - especially by sponsorship of proxies, trade embargoes, monetarist mayhem - reveal the cult's true potential for inflicting violent cruelty and mass suffering, and doubtless such cultists' barely concealed pleasure in effecting such murderous chaos from a safe distance. The perverse strategy would be to turn as many long-exploited countries as possible into basket-case beggars or toadying Kapostaaten.

In our country the bulwark of policing and "safety net" has usually staved off the worst excesses of the cult's third world adventures. But it's starting to look like the current crash may entirely remove such safety valves from the developed world too.

Really, its fruitless to search for the solution to repair languages education in Australia. This presupposes that there was a golden age when it all worked. If ever this was infinitesimally so, it could only have been for the small number who had access to higher levels of school education and then university. it seems in fact that more young people are at least exposed to languages in primary and secondary schooling than used to be the case. Certainly, there are many improvements to be be made and those with interest put shoulders to the wheel. There are now national and state initiatives in languages education policy, professional standards for languqages teachers, a wide array of locally produced (and international)material as well as a variety of opportunities for language/culture use here and abroad. Yes, there are problems. Some of these affect all learning e.g. badly behaved students or unsympathetic community/colleagues. But there's no point seeing the bad without the good.

How often do we read about illiteracy or semi-literacy affecting particularly english-speaking countries ?

Having reared several children, i observed that the inconsistencies in the spelling can be very discouraging; the cat sat on the mat - easy - phonetic - but too soon what you learn today is demolished tomorrow by "exceptions". I would suggest that the more intelligent a child, the more he/she will be dismayed; some can memorise unquestionningly, others will demand "why ?" and confronted by having to learn such illogical spelling many children get bored, resentful, which leads to bad behaviour in school.
Any ideas, out there, to remedy this aspect of child education ?

From my bottom drawer, here is a little piece that comforts me in my ignorance :

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another.

Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.
etc, etc, etc ...
Languages grew from primitive grunts. Can't we now do better for a tool of inter-national communication ?

Received yesterday : (easy enough to understand ?)

Kara Henriette,
Saluton! Mi tre g'ojas ricevi vian mesag'on el Aùstralio, vi estas vera esperantistino, mi pensas.
Esperanto estas simpla kaj logika,g'i estas pli facila ol aliaj fremdlingvoj por niaj azianoj, mi opinias.
Vi estas tiel ag'a,kiam vi eklernis nian lingvon Esperanton? C'u estas junaj esperantistoj en Aùstralio? Mi estas mezag'a komercisto, mi ofte faras aferojn per Esperanto. Kie vi log'as en Aùstralio? Mi esperas ke ni povas farig'i amikoj!
C'ion bonan al vi kaj viaj familianoj!

Amike via,
Xiao Fujun

Any words you wish translated ?

ITA stands for Initial Teaching Alphabet and is a phonetic alphabet, in the sixties and seventies some schools taught reading with ITA books, but the experiment was not very successful, many people hated it. Even though learning to read with ITA was much easier, children often had big difficulties to move from ITA to real English. See for example http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1523708.stm

Now... IF english is sooo challenging for english-born learners, should it really be inflicted on all earthlings as a global language ?

I’d like to make an interesting observation about languages education in regard to gender. For a few hundred years from the 1400’s the study of Latin was considered a sign of great intellect, and ‘aureate diction’ was certainly reserved for the wealthy elite. With only a small number of well-to-do female offspring receiving tutelage in basic reading skills (although not at formal education institutes), and an even smaller number in prestige subjects like Latin and Greek, language learning was mainly left to the boys and men, and held great importance and priority in society.

Fast forward to the current situation, exacerbated by overcrowded curricula; limited funding; political agenda; lack of quality teachers; and a whole range of complex issues, the status of language education in Australia is unfortunately, very close to, if not at the bottom of the heap. And if we look at the gender breakdown in our language classrooms today, we see a majority of girls in non-compulsory language classrooms.

To correlate my observation, we have seen the same thing with boys dominating mathematics and sciences in the 70’s. In one report I read that women pursuing lucrative math-intensive careers in US universities in 1970 made up less than 10% of student enrolments.

In the 2000’s we are certainly seeing a shift toward technology-related careers that until a few years ago may not have existed. It’s where the funding is going, it’s where the current status and priority is (while perhaps not keeping the same social elitism of Renaissance Latin), and once again, it’s where the boys are leading.

There is a long path to travel toward repairing and prioritising language education, but certainly there is some merit in looking at the correlation between the social status and perception of a subject, and the gender of those taking up study.

Shannon Mason