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.