Matthew, thanks for your article and enthusiasm. The notion of language immersion in every primary school is intoxicating. It could achieve marvels for our children if managed well.

As a music specialist I tried to integrate LOTE with music whenever I could in my teaching. The indications were that it paid off, but the primary school environment threw up many obstacles to efforts by the language teachers and me to maintain continuity and sequence.

For the full-scale integration you advocate perhaps the biggest hurdle would be the recruitment and professional development needed to have enough teachers working with the LOTE in diverse curriculum areas. The height of this hurdle would be directly proportional to the diversity of languages adopted in the thousands of schools throughout the country. Big issues, but where there's a will there's a way.

Perhaps, as a starter, if primary schools Australia-wide tackled integration in a selected handful of learning areas -- say LOTE, music and physical education -- we might make some progress. Perhaps all class teachers and administrators could be expected to learn how to perform a few transactions in the second language -- greetings, farewells, singing the school song, and so on.

Whatever else is done in this direction, I would argue strongly that LOTE and Music should be integrated and supported much more solidly in primary schools. See my own article (published on OLO yesterday) for some reasons:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7429&page=0

I agree fully. I use the same concepts at home with my children and their grades speaks for them self's.

This should be looked into much more closely. With the right music, concentration is increased 10 fold and I would strongly encourage this concept.

EVO

Thanks Stephen for your comments - my own background is actually music so your article resonated with me...there are lots of issues, obviously, and not least which/how many languages as well as teacher supply/quality. I wish I had answers but while Australia has to deal with state-based education jurisdictions as well as federal policies things remain challenging...I guess my idea is to start with the thinking behind things: that children should be multilingual (like the rest of the [non-anglophone] world) and that we can expect that they should be...I'm sure this will sound like pie in the sky for some people...your practical suggestions are definitely valid and it seems clear that, at least at federal level, there is some willingness to consider a reconceptualisation of languages education.

Lets start with teacher quality. With multiculturalism, class sizes and the overall stress of the job, may have a large impact plus limited resources and funding etc. People forget that teachers are human beings as well, and the human mind is an overall reality that only so much can fit in before heath issues and other related problems come into effect.
The quality that i think you are talking about can only come from the individual. (him or herself). It is very clear to me the overload is a clear factor to the reason why the quality that we have today is so low. The teachers union have pushed many issues concerning the overall success of teacher's and related problems that you know that are above, and the Government as usual has not put enough emphasis on the problem's. They are a great concern to all and to the ones that benefit the most.

The students. I believe not enough attention is given to the forgotten warrior's.

EVO

Thank you for the excellent article again. One point I would like people writing on the topic to avoid or clarify in future would be the the misleading statistic relating to the percentage of Year 12 students studying a LOTE. The often quoted 13% is made up of a large proportion of 1st language learners such as the rapidly growing Background Speakers Chinese group. This is a good thing in itself but it does not refelect on the real picture of the percentage of local students progressing with a new language through their schooling. I think the figure is much more like 6 or 7%. I would be interested in seeing a breakdown of the statistics and for those quoting figures relating to the numbers/percentages of students continuing with a LOTE to Year 12, to use the real % from now on. 13% is far too flattering. The real situation is unfortunately much more discouraging.

Mathew Absalom stated that; Children are like sponges.
That is of course absolutely correct. Sadly, what is also absolutely correct is that adults hardly ever spill clean stuff for those sponges to absorb. I sat next to a teacher & I noticed how she (about 30 yrs old) was correcting a paper with the headline "Foreward" & totally oblivious to the spelling of that word.
Another teacher some time ago was correcting "Lava" to "Larva". And these people want $115 grand a year ? Give us a break!
Is it any wonder that kids can't learn if they're not taught anything ? Remember children are like sponges but unlike a sponge a mind cannot be squeezed. So, let's be more careful what we spill.

Sensei. You want statistics on class sizes look on the web and stop wasting my time. The bigger picture is reality and you know it.
The web site is www.aare.edu.au.
Individual. Your in a class of your own, but i do understand.

EVO

This long running language theme is wearing thin. First of all when someone writes an article about a subject and tries to use some stats and then admits that they don't know what they mean, well. It problem goes to the heart of the matter. However I lead into it be saying this, there is a blinding obvious reason why no English speaking countries are spending more on language education. Care to think about it for a reason, perhaps it could be because they are trying to do two things One teach their kids their own language and English. Of all these articles that have appeared on OLO few have made any real points about why we should learn a non-English language.
The reality is English speakers only need to learn another language so that they can translate something back into English. English is a wonderful flexible language and the sooner everyone in the world can speack it the better. Language is often the first brick in the wall. I work with people from all over the world the one thing we have in common is we all speak English, whether it Aussie,India or west Indian we all speak it we can all understand each other.

multiculturalism. In layman terns, LOTE is the best of the best! To go where all others fear to go, you are doing it!

Big tick from EVOLUTION.

All the best.

EVO

Just a few follow up comments/questions for Kenny:

1) I'm not sure what your comment about someone quoting statistics they don't understand refers to...happy to elucidate if I can?

2) Are you a monolingual English speaker?

3) Most of the world is at least bilingual...(anglophone) monolingualism while it may feel right and normal to you is actually the minority case. In fact, more people speak English as a second language than first language...this means that soon English monolinguals will be in the interesting position of losing control of their only language

M

I am not sure if it is appropriate for the author to compare the progress (what one can do with the target language) in his daughter's study in French and Chinese.
Given his daughter is an English background speaker, learning French is millions times easier than learning Chinese.
I don't get surprised to hear what she said to her father (with some exaggeration).

soon English monolinguals will be in the interesting position of losing control of their only language.
matjabsa,
I think it's already happened. However, wouldn't it be nice if all other good aspects were as readily & quickly adapted. Sadly though, I think that that'll be a much more drawn-out affair.

Almost everything ever said in favour of language diversity has to be good and worth having said.

Recently, I attended some of the lectures in a unit called "Reversing Language Shift" at the Batchelor Indigenous Institute.

The linguist, and most of the texts being used, are still not getting the meanings inherent in Aboriginal languages, in which any whole language is enabled to be sustained, which is a pity. Also, despite an increasing number of valuable Aboriginal academics who write these days, the majority of the Aboriginal population are still missing out on being taught basic literacy and numeracy skills. The fact is that the non-indigenous mainstream has never yet figured out HOW to be culturally appropriate with teaching. Even at Batchelor College, set up for indigenous people and run by indigenous people, the mode of teaching of a European pedagogy, is really quite nonsensical within Aboriginal belief systems, and Aborigines own pedagogy structures, are only just beginning to be recognised as existing.

Australians could potentially all eventually be inheriting the educational wealth of learning indigenous languages, and there has been high school curriculum to enable that now, for almost twenty years. The advantage to all Australians of having lessons an indigenous language, is that the grammar of indigenous languages, while it is unique in the world among all other languages, is also substantially enabling of clear perception of the grammar of every other language.
Indigenous Australians who speak their own languages, (there are ninety six Australian indigenous languages still being spoken today, as well as creoles and Aboriginal dialects of English), always welcome anybody who is actually prepared to learn, because real learning, is not about just taking another person's culture away from them, but is about engaging in real cultural exchange.

It is my experience that most of the Aboriginal population have not been given access to a standard of English language usage which meets Aboriginal expectations of normal communication. Therefore, it is my hope that "Sorry" will be enabling of Aboriginal children learning scholarly standards of English, while non-Aboriginal children learn indigenous language.

Just a response to sensee's comment regarding the appropriacy of comparison between my daughter's language learning experiences of Chinese and French. I absolutely agree that French is more accessible to my daughter (she has also had an immersion experience in Italian which would clearly facilitate her picking up French). My point, however, remains that in 3+ years, regardless of the language, you would resonably expect a child to retain something...this is not the case with my daughter who actually has a propensity for language acquisition. One issue is pedagogy. Another is the position of languages in (primary) schools. My daughter was taught numbers to 10 for 3 years in a row...she never got beyond that. She never learnt basic question and answer in Chinese. She can remember a greeting and a few family terms like little sister, big sister, little brother and big brother but she can't do anything with them (like make a sentence)...I don't fully accept the argument that this is purely because of the genetic distance between English and Chinese but I do accept that there is some merit to it. Arguably, changing the approach to how languages are taught (and particularly languages which are more dissimilar than the prevailing language of the class) would see improvements in acquisition.

Matthew, a great article! I've made the point on other threads that it is ALL about how the language is taught. Experiences my own children have had bear that out.

Language teaching in Australia is not seen as important, with the same expectations in outcomes, as Maths, science or geography. The only effective foreign language teachers that my children have had were actually foreign educated teachers.

By the way, my daughter also did Chinese. She did hers with the local Chinese Buddhist Temple language school. For reasons of school commitments-she's in total French immersion in high school, she last year tried to continue using the State Distance Education. It was hopeless.

English speaking monolinguists have this extraordinary fear of language. It is perfectly possible for children to easily learn several languages from a young age.

To Kenny, there is ample research that shows that learning another language for a minimum of 4 years makes you smarter. All subjects improve, even maths and science. So, if for no other reason, that's why children should be taught LOTE.

Teaching music has similar effects by the way.