Sprechen Sie… um… anything?
 | Posted by The Editor on Monday 24 March 2008, 2:48 pm Categories: Education, Politics Tags: Tags: JuliaGillard, language, LOTE, schools |
The Rudd government, through education minister Julia Gillard, has flagged a strong policy focus on LOTE (Languages Other Than English) in primary and secondary schools.
THE Federal Government is moving to significantly increase the number of students graduating with foreign language skills by pushing the states towards a nationally consistent language curriculum.
New government research to be released tomorrow has found that students are being turned off languages because they believe the subject will affect their university entry scores or because they are told by parents and career teachers that language skills are not relevant to their future.
Gillard says that Australian students need second language skills to remain internationally competitive — and this is true — but there are other major advantages to learning foreign languages in school.
1) Learning another language improves one’s English skills.
Getting your head around the grammar, sentence structure, spelling, punctuation and formatting rules (and contradictions!) of a foreign language makes you pay attention — perhaps for the first time — to the same rules that you use intuitively in the English language. However, to use a language well you’ve got to do more than just use it intuitively. A lot of people can write and speak seemingly sophisticated sentences in English with fancy words and complicated structures, but are relying on reciting them from memory without a basic understanding of the underlying rules that govern the language they’ve just used. Learning another language from scratch helps you learn how to better use the building blocks of your native language that allow you to “play” with words, get creative, and better communicate in a range of genres and situations.
2) Learning another language improves one’s thinking.
More to the point, it improves your metacognition — thinking about thinking. The process of forming connections between foreign and native vocab gives you an amazing insight into the way your brain ticks. People who understand the way that they think, and can manipulate their thinking and actions while engineering situations to best match their thinking styles, are better overall learners than people who have poor metacognition.
3) Learning another language improves one’s cultural understanding and relations.
Pretty obvious this one but very important. Language is a window through which you can understand a culture and its history. Everyone’s heard the story about how Eskimos have forty words for snow or something like that, but there are less obvious ways to read history through words. The literal English translation of a foreign word may reveal a between the lines truth about the way other people think. Also, what are the first words you learn in another language? Foods and other interesting cultural tidbits.
When we travel overseas we expect practically everyone to speak English and, lucky for us, they usually speak enough for us to communicate. Just because English is basically the universal language of travel isn’t an excuse to get lazy and refuse to learn anything else. Making an effort to learn another person’s language shows respect — even if your efforts to hold a conversation fail and you both need to default to English.
4) Learning another language increases one’s sense of the world and decreases one’s insularity.
This is especially crucial for Australia. We’re a young country and rather isolated and insular in our corner of the world. With our close cultural ties to other English speaking countries, and English one of the “global” languages, it’s easy to forget that it’s not the mother tongue for the majority of Earth’s citizens. By failing to force students to learn another language at school, combined with the fact that we can generally get by with English alone when travelling, we reinforce the false primacy of English and a lack of need for other language skills.
Overall, it’s hard to justify the current attitude to LOTE in schools. We should really be requiring primary and secondary school students to study at least one language up to grade ten. Western European languages are most commonly taught at schools but the focus in future should be on south-east Asian languages as they will become increasingly relevant to our lives. Oh, and there are dozens of live Aboriginal languages that exist within our very own country. What about some of them?
GrodsThink Ep.29 (26/8/08)
Monday 24 March 2008, 3:22 pm #Steve D
What about English? Learning a second language is great and I totally agree with everything you’ve said, but why can’t schools teach English anymore?
I remember being taught to sound-out words and identify verbs, nouns and adjectives when I was 6. My sister is now 12 and can’t do any of these - she’s been taught the “look and guess” method, which apparently was the norm when I went through but (luckily) I had a teacher who was “stuck in her ways”.
As useful as a foreign language is, being comfortable reading and writing English is absolutely essential.
Monday 24 March 2008, 3:25 pm #Bridgit Gread
When I was abroad over Christmas-New Year I was amazed how multilingual some Europeans are, particularly those who work in service industries. For example I heard a receptionist in Rome speak to me in English, another guest in French and someone on the ‘phone in Spanish. And that’s not rare in Europe, where one language isn’t dominant, intracontinental travel is common and they deal with non-native speakers on a daily basis.
You are spot on about Australians being sheltered in this regard: we aren’t compelled to know other languages and when we travel overseas most of us expect everyone else to use English. This is partly the result of circumstance and partly linguistic snobbery. There is a significant need for us to improve in this area, particularly in our grasp of Asian languages: Indonesian, Chinese, Japanese, etc.
Monday 24 March 2008, 3:29 pm #Bridgit Gread
You’re right Steve, some;people can’t, speak English at all.
The two are not mutually exclusive though, nor does a call for more study of other languages mean there should be less study of English - in fact I think there should be more of both, with a reversion to the use of phonics methods in the latter.
Monday 24 March 2008, 3:29 pm #The Editor
Steve D: “What about English? Learning a second language is great and I totally agree with everything you’ve said, but why can’t schools teach English anymore?”
It’s not either/or, Steve. We can do both at the same time. I agree that some teachers haven’t taught English as well as it can be taught in the past due to various theories, but that’s no reason to abandon all other domains of teaching. And as I said above, learning English and other languages go hand-in-hand.
Monday 24 March 2008, 3:30 pm #The Editor
GROUPTHINK!
Monday 24 March 2008, 3:34 pm #Bridgit Gread
* Holds up a crucifix and a basket of garlic
Monday 24 March 2008, 3:39 pm #Steve D
Of course it isn’t one or the other, but I’d hate people to go around saying that “it’s okay they’ll learn English while studying Indonesian” when really it should be taught as part of English.
Also, how is a nationally consistent curriculum going to “significantly increase the number of students” taking language subjects (I’m assuming that this is the intent, rather than simply having many more pass those subjects)? The ENTER bonuses rewarding students who study a language are a much more effective approach, especially with students getting so silly over a few points here and there.
(Don’t all reply at once :-P )
Monday 24 March 2008, 3:44 pm #The Editor
I’d hate people to go around saying that “it’s okay they’ll learn English while studying Indonesian” when really it should be taught as part of English.
I doubt anyone will end up saying that. If nothing else, there’s no way that the integration of LOTE and English would be the selling point used to convince parents of the need to study LOTE.
I agree with your point about the ENTER bonuses completely. Making LOTE compulsory to grade ten would also help things along.
Monday 24 March 2008, 4:22 pm #Ant Rogenous
I’m not sure how much difference it would make if a LOTE were compulsory to Year 10.
In my high school, LOTE was compulsory to Year 9, and I took Japanese. I’m 31 years old now, and all I can do in Japanese is count to 10 and say ‘briefcase’ and ‘radish’.*
I’m not convinced that another year would’ve made a crucial difference.
Of course, there are several factors involved in my situation: my teachers may have been hopeless; I might be impenetrably dumb; or both. But I don’t know too many people from my year level who could do anything else in Japanese other than squeak out passes in exams.
* This isn’t as bad as it sounds. If I’m in Tokyo and am looking for a briefcase containing up to 10 radishes, it comes in really handy.
Monday 24 March 2008, 4:59 pm #Bridgit Gread
Think big, Ant … with your skillz we could corner the Japanese export market with our briefcases and radish.
Monday 24 March 2008, 5:20 pm #Zombie Mao
One problem is that if you make it compulsory… you will turn them off it.
Obviusly its Rudd’s grand plan to turn us into another province of the Peoples republic. Education is a left wing conspiracy after all. Bolt left school when he was 6 and he turned out fine.
Monday 24 March 2008, 6:34 pm #The Editor
I think the key is — as Labor seems to be suggesting — to ensure that there’s a rigorous and integrated curriculum from P to 10, along with the trained teachers and resources to pull it off. Piecemeal teaching and ad hoc curriculum delivery don’t work in any learning domain.
Monday 24 March 2008, 6:46 pm #Zombie Mao
Seems you have the link to my blog (excuse for a blog) as ‘Undead Flies’
No insects were killed and reanimated in the making of that blog. Just two political leaders.
Quite frankly flies once dead, should stay dead. Annoying filthy bastards.
Monday 24 March 2008, 6:49 pm #The Editor
Ha, ha! I should leave it — that’s cool.
(Nah, I’ll change it for ya.)
Monday 24 March 2008, 6:54 pm #Bridgit Gread
Hey Mao, didn’t you have a great idea once about getting rid of all the sparrows?
Monday 24 March 2008, 7:31 pm #Jayne
So many kids I know are having trouble learning English as their first language (as Steve D has mentioned) they’re barely able to learn a second language. Whether it’s the techniques the teachers are using, I have nfi, but it’s not working.
On the other hand, Auslan is recognised as a LOTE and that’s what I’m teaching my son at home :P
Monday 24 March 2008, 8:25 pm #Damian
Like Ant, I was indoctrinated with Nihongo back in the day. I think Strayer was expecting a Japanese tourism boom on the back of Expo 88.
In my case, it was the evil Qld school system (and a Catholic school at that!) and, cos I’m clearly smarter than Ant, I remember heaps of it. In fact, I wish I’d done Indo instead, because learning from a fair dinkum teacher means it sinks in, while learning from a book is bloody hard.
I’m 30, and after a good fifteen years or more I reckon my Nihongo is as good as my Bahasa, and I fucken lived in Indonesia for a year! Learning the basics, and learning them properly, is tremendously important.
Good points in this post, Ed. Kids ought to be looking outside the Strayer bubble if they are to understand the world, and you’re spot on, learning a language is a perfect way to do it. The question is, which lingos are the most important ones for the next few decades?
Monday 24 March 2008, 8:26 pm #The Editor
Esperanto and Klingon.
Monday 24 March 2008, 9:20 pm #Bridgit Gread
And Ebonics.
Wednesday 26 March 2008, 4:57 am #Zoey
Sadly, I think Klingons lack the interpersonal and business skills to make klingon a truly important global language of the future. Whilst Spanish and English will remain vital, I personally feel that we will also see a shift towards Chinese, Japanese and Arabic. I also feel you can’t lose sight of the fact that learning the most ‘useful’ language is probably not as important as the fact that you gain a far greater understanding of yourself, and your place in the world from studying abroad - no matter which language you choose. My advice is to simply go for the language and country you fancy the look of and enjoy!
Wednesday 26 March 2008, 10:04 am #Damian
“Sadly, I think Klingons lack the interpersonal and business skills to make klingon a truly important global language of the future…”
We’ll go with Ferengi, then.
Good point about learning what you enjoy, Zoey. We were taught Japanese as it was going to come in handy during the tourism and business boom in Qld. I’ve never met a Japanese person through business. Since then I’ve learned some Khmer and Lao (while traveling) and then Indonesian. In each case it’s done exactly what you say: helped me better understand myself and my place in the world and provided insight into other cultures and how they work.
Monday 31 March 2008, 6:37 am #Ann
You should tray free language learning software from XXXXXXX.
Monday 31 March 2008, 9:25 am #The Editor
Go away, Ann spam!