Another issue for the 2020 Summit has been the issue of language teaching, or should I say Asian language teaching? It seems that Asian languages are being pushed to the exclusion of languages which have more value to our multi-cultural community.
Mr Rudd is naturally very keen on the idea of teaching Asian languages in schools but is this really the best use of language teaching time in schools?
There has been some research done on this issue which suggests that students take much longer to acquire a competency in Chinese or Japanese and that many students never achieve sufficient to hold as much as a simple conversation, let alone conduct business in either language.
Should we teach these languages in schools simply because we live in the neighbouring geographic reason or because we do business with these countries. After all we are not teaching nearly as much Vietnamese, Indonesian, Cambodian or Thai and the languages of the Indian subcontinent are virtually ignored.
If we want linguistically competent people should we first be concentrating on local community languages (including a couple of the more widespread indigenous languages) and encouraging native speakers to participate? Should we teach these first and then encourage students who show an aptitude for language learning to learn an Asian language, perhaps with the carrot of additional financial support?
Or should we persist in teaching a minimum of an Asian language that a majority of students will almost certainly lose on leaving school just so that students have the experience of learning an Asian language rather than an Indo-European one - or even an African one like Swahili?
I would be genuinely interested in hearing arguments from both sides.

Dear Communicat,

I wasn't aware that the Australian Government was excluding other languages and concentrating entirely on Asian languages.

Are you sure about this?

I remember reading that - the Australian Government through the School Languages Programme (SLP) is providing $112 million over 4 years (2005 - 2008) to State and Territory Education Authorities to support the teaching and learning of - Asian, European,
Australian Indigenous languages, and Auslan, in schools and community
language programmes in ethnic schools.

The article said that -the Government recognizes that young Australians with language skills
and an understanding of international cultures are vital to our nation's future in an increasingly global community.

Why Asian languages? That easy! With 1.5billion chinese people and not too mention all the rest, I believe there is a conspiracy theory that they are simply going to out breed us and move into all 4 corners of the planet. Think about this, it makes a lot of sense.

Why make war when all leaders know they cant afford the rebuild and with most leading powers there is always a few nuclear missiles in just about everyone's pantry. So the game is move to all 4 corners with the flag of friendship and go like hell and breed like rabbits.

Do you think Rudds Asian gift of Cantonese was just a coincidence, or maybe better still it may be a case of not living dangerously.

What a great way to shift the balances of power. America may just have it's first black president and if you really listen to the world other races are getting sick and tired of being pushed around and told what to do by the white folk.

Which ever way you look at it, there is something going on. If they are going to breed us out, we all start learning Asian.

Just a thought.

One of the things I like about Lù Kèwén is his fluency in Mandarin, which certainly creates a new level of dialogue at the highest possible political level with China. And let's face it, that's where Australia's economic fortunes are inextricably tied. Like it or not, Australia is going to become far more influenced by Chinese culture and economics in the coming decades, so it would seem adaptive at the very least to encourage the acquisition of the languages in which business will increasingly conducted.

Put it this way, any Australian business or other relationship with China that can be conducted in Chinese languages has to have an edge over those who communicate through interpreters. Kevin Rudd sets a great example for all Australians in this respect, and I give him credit for it.

Why Asian languages? Duh.

Maybe so! But i still think there is more.

Yes C.J thank you for correcting me. ( languages)

Communicat~ "There has been some research done on this issue which suggests that students take much longer to acquire a competency in Chinese or Japanese and that many students never achieve sufficient to hold as much as a simple conversation, let alone conduct business in either language."

You could say the same for any language. That makes no sense to single out Chinese and Japanese. I had french classes at school. If I had stuck with it I'd probably be fluent by now, but I didn't and I couldn't hold down a simple conversation with it. Since having left school I've probably met two french speakers that if I did continue with my studies it would have been handy to know it. One wanted to know where the bus stop was and the other was after AusPost. I meet Asians EVERYDAY that I have to communicate in some sort of 'sign language' to get across what we're on about. Japanese tourism is HUGE here. That would've been a good one as well. Some Islander languages would be handy too. The best future for Australia is locally. I'm all for our defence and trade being concentrated 'locally'. American, European and Middle Eastern markets are saturated and going nowhere. Asia and the sub-continent where it's at. Wouldn't it be handy if we had some school leavers who understood what they were saying?.

I was not suggesting that there would be no teaching of other languages, just that there would be a focus on Asian languages. Given our truly appalling record in resourcing and teaching any language other than English it may well be that other languages will need to be dropped from the curriculum in order to make way for Chinese and Japanese.
The question then becomes, is this the best use of language teaching time and resources? It takes longer to learn Chinese. (This is true for the Chinese as well as other learners.) We must therefore be prepared to spend more time as well as resources if we want students to learn Chinese. Even if we do many students will not succeed in achieving a level of Chinese that they can actually use in everyday life.
Or we could go the other route and teach languages which are less time consuming and in which a higher level of achievement can be more readily obtained by more students. We can then encourage those with aptitude to take up Chinese as well.
As it is I see the present focus (not an exclusive focus) on Asian languages as actually causing a decline in all language learning. So, we either radically overhaul the time and the resources spent on language learning and exclude something else from the curriculum or we recognise that levels of attainment, especially in Asian languages, are not going to be such that they are of any value on a widespread scale.
Some will still say that is not a reason not to teach Chinese but I would prefer an individual could actually read a page of say Urdu, Swahili or Malay than merely recognise a few characters in Chinese.

I could put it into another perspective... though only the christians would relate to it clearly.
Australia lives in spiritual deception!
Asia is where one of the major evil spirit power strongholds is.
Its where all of the false eastern religions come from who fellowship with demon powers.
Its where satan has established a throne and where he manipulates the people so they are poor and in many cases ill. Its where a great disrecpect for human life has been cemented by those evil powers... AND...this is why we are quielty being drawn towards asia.
The evil spirit realm wants us away from Christianity and into the trap of the eastern religions because they control that whole region. This is the truth and a description of the great war between Christ and satan can be found Ephesians chapter 6:12-18..."For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of the DARK WORLD and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms..."
Its that simple...now...youve got it.
Satan knows if we get too close to China, like moths around a flame, we will be gobbled up and digested and he (satan) will control all that Australia once was.

Oh well, maybe we should all learn Satanese instead.

Welllll...if one thing was predictable.. it was CJ's response to Gibo :)

CJ.. you already know 'Satanese' it's called 'unbelief' or. 'rejection' of Christ. (after hearing the Good news)

The sad thing is.. you don't realize this....yet.

But to the topic. I fully support the learning of Asian languages. Chinese is an important one for business. Considering also that most business in South East Asia is run by ethnic Chinese, it will become the most credible and widespread language for those who wish to interact with the region.

We should recognize that the Chinese are furiously learning English all the time. So, why not we of Chinese.?

Spoken Chinese (Mandarin) is much easier to pick up than written..and that's the big barrier. All dem funny lil piccies.

Communicat.

Oh ok, so it's not for practical reasons you're arguing against Chinese or Japanese, but it's purely for cost effective reasons. You'd hope practicality would enter into the equation somewhere. How about scrathing languages from the curriculum totally and just outsource them?. I don't see how learning African bushman clicking sounds (example) would benefit students longterm....or practically. I'd rather they spend the money on learning Chinese and AT LEAST gaining some understanding of the culture as well rather than being in total grasp of 'how to make a poo house'.

We need to be careful with this one. In 1960s, it would have been been popular to learn Indonesian. Probably not so now.

Students starting in high school and non speaking Mandarin at home would find it a challange. Obviously, Chinese Australians will shine.

I have previously lived in HK and Singapore for nine years and know "taxi" level language: But found that Chinesse Australians, with Masters deegrees, could not handle esoteric surveys regarding my academic research.

Oriental language should be optional.

Guanxi [connections] is more important than language in business dealings if their is just one Chinese speaker on your team, coupled with the willingness to joke and enjoy a glass or two of XO. Also it should be remembered that Chinese entrepreneurs are often Shang and might believe in making money and tricking you, more so than a traditional Confucian

Dear Communicat,

The following website may be of interest to you and some of the posters:

http://www.abc.net.au/m/nationalinterest/stories/2008/2201830.htm

"All Chinese to us."

It's quite an interesting discussion by language experts.

Thanks for the link Foxy - I'll take a look.
SIG - it is for practical purposes that I am raising the question. I do not care what the cost is (that should be immaterial). I am concerned with whether schools will be willing to give the extra time required to teach Chinese or Japanese and what the outcomes will be if we do not give the extra time.
Yes, Indonesian was popular some years back - and it is relatively easy to learn 'bazaar Indonesian' - enough to buy something in a market place. It is much harder to learn the language in depth - but that would be true of all languages. However a student can learn to say and write "Selamat pagi. Apa khabar?" (Good morning. How are you?)at the first lesson and even respond to it. (Hope my spelling is right as it is a very long time since I learned to say that!) Now my Chinese neighbour told me the same thing in Mandarin but I still cannot answer him or write it down.)
So I think we do need to be concerned with the time frame required. Is it practical to spend three times longer learning an equivalent amount of Chinese as a first priority language or should we aim at giving students confidence in the Italian or Greek or Turkish spoken around the corner or do we consider that they might want to do business in India (or do you take the view that everyone speaks English in India) - and what about some type of Arabic or even Farsi?

I learnt Japanese in Japan over a ten year period. The greatest barrier to learning was Japanese wanting to practice their English! French at high school, with a French Canadian teacher trialing a phonetic system of learning, provided a solid start.

My half-Japanese children are not learning Japanese. A deliberate decision as English is the only compulsory HSC subject (NSW) and it is vital that they become competent in their first language. I am not surprised Oliver found some gaps in the knowledge of Chinese Australians.

Learning a language to conversational level, not for academic achievement, should be the focus. I think the bare minimum resource is having native level teachers.

We have to be realistic (not complacent) about English being an international language. I still use far more English than Japanese when in Japan. In fact, it is only my mother-in-law (79) who speaks no English whatsoever.

On an academic level, having learnt music (piano, guitar) and language (French, Japanese), it has been reasonably easy to learn computer programs such as Visual Basic or PHP. There is a strong interconnectedness between these codified systems. In the end, I think the overall quality of our education systems relies on giving students competance in the core subjects, with not too much focus or funding for non-core subjects, although I don't doubt the enrichment they provide.

Communicat: Indonesian got a big plug from the then PM John Gorton’s wife, Bettina Gorton (an American and a language student), following their official visit to Malaysia and Indonesia in 1968. It is quite probable that the current PM’s linguistic skills will shift an emphasis onto Chinese learning.

Gibo: Our church’s latest evangelical effort is ESL classes for Japanese in our local area, we are about to start up and have done the first leaflet drop to promote it. Language learning means more bibles translated and more people equipped for this work. China is fertile ground and we know where victory lies.

Hi Foxy
If you happen to get this I am sorry to say the link you mentioned had gone.
Yes, important point KatieO - there are fashions in language learning. It's just a pity that a little logic does not apply as well.
I have my doubts as to whether even conversational Chinese is going to be much use to the vast majority of Australians but we should not be complacent about English as the international language either. What is disappointing is to have such an emphasis on some languages to the exclusion of others. We seem to be intent on cutting ourselves off from vast areas of the world. How much Spanish (spoken by 20% of the world's population in one way or another) is taught in Australian schools? Very little but it is the major language in South America. Could we be doing more business with South America.
I believe we really do need to review our language teaching and the reasons for the priorities.

CJM,

In my experience working into China from HK, both the Chinese side and the other side (Singaporean in my case) have bilingual speakers. I had a Singaporean MP as a minder and a Chinese property developer was a minder to the Chinese group. The higher-ups are international public figues, so like Dentists, can't be named. :-)

One occasion, we were purchasing a private secondary school for a Singaporean public company. The trap was the Chinese party wanted a partner for running the School, but not disclosing their profits were really being made' via resident quarters separate from the School.

I portray my self as the true ignorance, but without con, you all know what is needed to make it work. I am here to throw you all the curve-balls I can. Its you that have to fill the gapes. ( cryptic)

Look people! The world is a beautiful place and all the people in it, are my friends. So what is your problem.( as if you need to tell me) I guess its nineteen century thinking,( "guesstimate" 1900 hundred's thinking) and that's the problem. Wake up and stop thinking past-tense, we should be in outer space by now. How most of "what's online opinion, seems to be in A round about way of thinking.

So with learning Asian languages can only bring us much closer together. Racism is alive and well and how i hate to hear of such small mindedness. It all comes back to when the ship is sinking, what colour hand are you going to reach out to.

Evolution wishes you all the best and with your minds we create the world.
Let us not let it fall into ignorance.

The world in all you may not understand, but we will wait for you.

signed
Evolution.