Matthew Absalom - Primary school languages - our primary failing

Matthew Absalom, lecturer in Italian at the University of Melbourne, has advanced his thoughts on languages education in media articles over the last few years, most recently Languages: our primary failing by Matthew Absalom - 30/05/2008 on www.onlineopinion.com.au. See also Stop minding your language April 02, 2008 in the Australian.


On 26 June Matthew Topic will present "a critique on our approach to languages education in primary school, ie any old speaker will do, and anyway all they have to teach is numbers and colours. Primary school languages - our primary failing."


We believe there is the will and the opportunity to vastly improve languages education at all levels. The AFMLTA points out in its recent communication to the Federal Minister that the Commonwealth's current plans seem to focus instead on secondary schools only. Is this giving into those "jurisdictions" whose "insufficient commitment" is identified as a cause of the failure of current endeavours? Primary schooling is in the hands of state governments some of which truly dropped the languages ball during the Howard government's xenophobic and tight-fisted tenure. Come join in democratic debate (not bureaucratic obfuscating) with Matthew Absalom to celebrate the International Year of Languages 2008.
ARCHIVE OF MATTHEW ABSALOM ON PRIMARY LANGUAGES http://callisto.usc.edu.au/p28091296/

19 June Online Seminar. Lia Tedesco: Developments on the National Scene

The next IYL Online Seminar will be led by Lia Tedesco "Australian Languages Education: What is happening at national level?"


19.30 AEST 19 June 2008

Lia Tedesco, Principal of the School of Languages in South Australia, President of the Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations (AFMLTA) for the last several years and closely involved with the eight National Projects which aimed to implement the National Strategy and Plan for Languages in Australia. Tune in via http://callisto.usc.edu.au/languages. Lia is that combination of acutely informed policy administrator, passionate languages teacher and tireless networker. For the latest developments, there is no better source. See Lia Tedesco's recent article Languages education in Australia in 2008 in Curriculum Leadership Volume 6 Issue 18. The archive for Lia's address is at http://callisto.usc.edu.au/p33901877/

11 June Online Seminar: Oj Rugins on the Accelerative Integrated Method (AIM)

This IYL Online Seminar will be held at 7.30 pm AEST on 11 June 2008. The first presenter will be Ojar Rugins who teaches French at Eumundi and Cooroy State Primary Schools in Queensland, Australia. Oj will report on his use of the Accelerative Integrated Method (AIM) originating in Canada and the reactions of his upper primary school students during the last year. Jen McKinney from Melbourne and Tim Girard from Brisbane will demonstrate some of the famous "gestures" of this method. Jen's enthusiasm about this approach is enough to make us all rush to enrol in her classes. For a two page explanation of this incredibly successful approach, also called the Gesture Method, see the founder's Theoretical Perspective on the Program The Accelerative Integrated Method - A holistic approach to the teaching of French as a second language by Wendy Maxwell. This method is really winning over parents, not just students. Have a quick read. Languages teachers, teacher educators, pre-service teachers, parents, all interested are welcome to logon and practise the Adobe Connect system before the 11 June via http://callisto.usc.edu.au/languages.

The 11 June AIM archive (Oj Rugins, Jenny McKinney and Tim Girard) http://callisto.usc.edu.au/p63699123/

National conference for AIM

There will be a National conference for AIM - The Gesture Approach to learning 2nd Languages held in Melbourne at Ivanhoe Girls' Grammar, on the 4th and 5th September 2008. Teachers from all States, NZ and Singapore are attending. Info courtesy of Jenny McKinney at www.hearsaylearning.com or www.aimlanguagelearning.com
Pour vous qui comprennent le Francais, va a radio-canada.ca. Vous serez convaincus.

The education of languages teachers

Listen to and view the archive of our latest audio-conference on 14 May when Lesley Harbon of Sydney University presented "Over-enthused and under-prepared: pre-service languages teachers in the spotlight." Lively discussion followed. [Give the archive a full minute to load.] This is the future of the languages teaching profession at stake. In 1996 an investigation into 'Languages Other than English teacher supply and quality' produced a report for the Federal government entitled "Language teachers: The Pivot of Policy" (available as pdf). Sound analysis; sound recommendations. Then we went into the decade of decline. Now a brand new “Review of Teacher Education for Languages Teachers” has been handed to government (available as pdf - link at bottom of page). Is this the same old policy cycle, or is there hope of real action and results in languages teaching and learning?

Languages at school

Languages at school special feature articles for May at OnlineOpinion.com.au Languages: our primary failing by Matthew Absalom - 30/05/2008 - 12 comments Languages and music: natural partners in education by Stephen Crabbe - 29/05/2008 Multilingualism and multiculturalism by Karen Woodman - 28/05/2008 - 8 comments Squandered worlds by Nicholas Ostler - 23/05/2008 - 20 comments Repairing languages education by Phillip Mahnken - 16/05/2008 - 27 comments Languages at school by Jane Orton - 15/05/2008 - 4 comments Reversing the trend by Peter Jones - 13/05/2008 Ignorant of the fact of being ignorant by Paul Doolan - 12/05/2008 - 39 comments What’s the point of teaching languages? by Brian Manning - 12/05/2008 - 18 comments Tapping the reservoir: languages at school by Joe Lo Bianco - 9/05/2008 - 8 comments A universal language by Henriette Vanechop - 8/05/2008 - 15 comments A world of understanding by Claudia Mainard - 7/05/2008 - 28 comments Language learning by Penny Vos - 6/05/2008 - 17 comments

Click image to view at larger size

UQ Public Lecture and Round Table on Languages

University of Queensland
PUBLIC LECTURE AND ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION - URL of recording coming soon (supposedly). Joe Lo Bianco again presented the important facts and issues in his relaxed and authoritative manner.

2008 has been declared the International Year of Languages by the United Nations with the aim of fostering and celebrating linguistic diversity around the world while at the same time warning about the risks of monolingualism and the rapid disappearance of minority languages. In addition, 21 May has been declared the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development.

The School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies invites the University community to join its staff, students and associates in a celebration of language diversity in the context of UQ Diversity Week, 12-16 May.

A half-day symposium will be held on Tuesday, 13 May with the aims of celebrating the linguistic diversity of the UQ community, raising awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity, and promoting the role of the University in contributing to social cohesion and community understanding of language matters, the importance of foreign language literacy, the role of indigenous and minority languages and the key role of languages in the globalised economy.

Archive of Joe Lo Bianco online seminar

The Adobe Connect (sound and visuals) archive of the first IYL Online Seminar of 16 April is available at http://callisto.usc.edu.au/p79035458/ Give it a minute to establish. Thanks again to all concerned, especially Joe Lo Bianco for his clarity, his connection to both theory and the real world of classrooms and society,and his unstinting optimism.

IYL event at University of Queensland

13 May, Year of Languages at the University of Queensland
LCCS CONFERENCE ROOM – E217 FORGAN SMITH BUILDING

1.00 pm PUBLIC LECTURE "Are we entitled to be optimistic about language education in Australia?" Professor Joseph Lo Bianco
2.00 pm Refreshments
2.30 pm Round Table "The present and the future of languages and language education in Australia" Moderator: Professor Roland Sussex

This event is open to all – RSVP required for catering purposes. See online flyer (pdf)

Assoc. Prof. Alfredo Martinez-Expósito Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, Head of School, School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies
The University of Queensland Brisbane Queensland 4072 Australia

UQ is also running a series of lunchtime foreign language movies to get in the spirit of IYL

Australia 2020 Summit - Languages

Download the Australia 2020 Summit - Initial Report. Languages teaching (especially Asian languages) gets a strong endorsement. The whole thing is such a whiff of fresh air in this country which had looked so retro (1950's racist attitudes) for so long. Even the anxieties prompt me to feel there is determination to use the mandate and the public mood to get things done about education and the environment. (That logo though - does it look like a bunch of clothes pegs?)

Hamish McDonald Asia-Pacific Editor at SMH has his say

A thought provoking article sent by Greg Poulgrain 04/20/08

The Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday, April 19, 2008


Regional thinking: a number of ways to put Australia back in its
place by Hamish McDonald Asia-Pacific Editor

STRANGELY, my name seems to have been left off the list of Kevin
Rudd's invitees to the 2020 Summit in Canberra this weekend. But
in case the invite isn't delivered by hand overnight, here is my
list of recommendations for growing Australia's position in its
own region.

*Let's have a concerted effort at reversing the collapse of
Asian language study in Australia, and tackle it at popular and
elite levels. Starting languages at high school or university is
doomed to failure in most cases - the younger children start,
the better. Every primary school student should have the chance.

The language that is strategically useful, most likely to be
usable on cheap nearby holidays, and relatively easy to grasp in
its basics (it has simple pronunciation and structure, and a
phonetic script using the Roman alphabet) is Indonesian.

We don't have enough trained teachers of Indonesian to reach
everyone, especially in primary schools. How about an ambitious
teacher exchange scheme? Indonesian teachers could spend a
couple of years in our schools, teaching Indonesian and
improving their English, and our teachers do the reverse.

The rapid progress that can be made with Indonesian would attune
more of our students to the idea that foreign languages aren't
impossible. More of them might then go on to study the more
difficult ones, such as Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Hindi/Urdu
and Persian - if available in our senior schools and HSC marks
don't penalise non-native speakers for tackling them instead of
the softer options.


Read the rest at SMH.

Joe Lo Bianco to open online IYL seminar series

Jo Lo Bianco, the doyen of language policy and planning in Australia, the man who authored the National Language Policy of 1987 and who has worked tirelessly for languages all his career has agreed to open our online seminar series to celebrate IYL on 16 April 2008 at 19.30 Australian Eastern Standard time.

We can only host forty log-ons at a time on my university's Adobe Connect system and let's face it, even with that many not everyone can have a say. All sessions will be recorded and available on archive. Please email pmahnken@usc.edu.au if you are interested in participating.

If you are interested in offering a presentation (I recommend maximum 30 minutes for the address and 30 minutes for interaction/discussion, use the same email, tell me your proposed topic, send me your favourite portrait photo, and have a peek at http://callisto.usc.edu.au/languages to learn how to use the system. Enter as a guest and you will find I often have it set to grant all comers presenter status so you can mess around a bit. You need a headset (preferably) but speakers and microphone will do. Just speakers if you only intend to listen in. You can always use the text chat box to pose questions. Webcam is optional, only adds to bandwidth demand without great gain. Online conferencing will be a massive channel for foreign language learning in this century so it doesn't hurt to learn about it now.

Jo Lo Bianco wrote a forthright article in the Age newspaper on 26 March, A language is a window to another world. It says much more than the title indicates to me. See Joe's profile page at the University of Melbourne.

Phillip

Motivation

I noticed this page, 5 Great Reasons to Learn a Language! [LanguageWorld - 29 February 2008] on my web wanderings and it brought back to mind that conundrum that learning another language undeniably takes commitment and persistence but for many English-spaking students it is inherently boring, hard, not as motivating as sports, media attractions, socialising in their first language, even other school subjects!

It takes motivation to begin a foreign language and motivation to stay with it. Teachers can work hard to make the class experience pleasurable and satisfying, reassure students of the rewards and promote languages to the school community and through the media but ... our retention rates show we fail (with notable exceptions.

I think we need one of the Online Seminars during IYL to be about motivation of Australian students in languages study. Who has ideas? Does anyone among us have some sure-fire methods for motivating? Different for different levels and different children? Or, in a country averse to languages study, are compulsion at school, extra points for uni entry and overseas study scholarships the way to go? Contact me if you would like to speak in a motivation forum.

P.S. A senior academic at my uni said he would not like to see compulsion for any field of study; he does not believe in "re-education camps". Let the market decide; do a good job of selling your subject. I tended to agree with this democratic sentiment at the time but since I have thought, e-duc-ation itself means leadership. It means the current adult generation make their best informed decision about what the rising generation need to learn. And surely there are many many things we want children to learn, and insist they do for their own sake: from crossing the street safely to reading and writing and respectful relations with others. If languages are vital to our society's future, why are we so frightened of making languages study mandatory? Or at least, so thoroughly supported and rewarded, it amounts to society-wide endorsement? Why won't we do this?

webcasting, realtime voice interactions

webcasting, realtime voice interactions - one page primer on giving online presentations and lessons. To the point. I got there from the wonderful LearningTimes Australia site

EXLORING THE USE OF VOICE ONLINE a selection of resources collated for Yahoo Voice Conference on 'Hearing Every Voice'

Languages at school - a public forum

On Line Opinion - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

May Feature - Languages at school

What's the point of language teaching? Is it just economic, or are the biggest benefits intrinsic? What languages should be taught, how should we determine priorities? And what about "dead" and invented languages like Latin and Esperanto?

Email your contributions to Susan Prior susan@onlineopinion.com.au.

An excellent opportunity for those who care about languages to contribute to public debate.

All Chinese to us [ABC Radio National The National Interest recording - 2nd item]
Australia has its first Mandarin-speaking prime minister - it's hardly surprising, therefore, that the new government wants to boost the number of students with a foreign language. But have we missed the boat? Is Australia now so far behind that our exporters are already facing a skills bottleneck? Can we crack the Chinese market if we don't have enough Australian sinophones ready to hit the ground running? If the debate's sounding familiar, it could be because our language crisis was first highlighted almost 20 years ago. What can be done? How do we fire up linguistic excitement in potential students?

Voices Of The World

Voices Of The World - television documentary on SBS Television in Australia
7.30 pm 4 April 2008

How many languages are there in the world? There could be as many as 10,000 languages or as few as 4,000 languages. Whatever the number, half of those languages are likely to disappear within the next hundred years. Filmed across the globe in countries as diverse as Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Denmark, Egypt, Greenland, Iran, Mozambique, Nepal, Spain and Vietnam, Voices of the World offers a profound vision of a world where languages and cultures are disappearing. Every time a language is lost, one vision of the world disappears. Languages encode and encapsulate the culture of a people and this includes their music, their poetry, their songs and their stories. Language defines who we are. When a language disappears humanity itself is diminished. (From Denmark, in English, Danish, Arabic, and Mlabri, English subtitles) (Documentary) PG CC

Some interesting history of the Voices of the World Project can be found at http://www.ciplnet.com/voicesoftheworld2004.html and taught me that it is an initiative of UNESCO’s Goodwill Ambassador for Languages Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, based on an original idea by Janus Billeskov Jansen. She was 4th president of Iceland, and a tireless worker for education, human rights and women's rights. H. E. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir gave an address for the first International Mother Language Day celebration in 2006. Mrs Finnbogadóttir qualified languages as “humanity’s most precious and fragile treasures.”

Another interesting support site for the 2008 IYL
http://donosborn.org/iyl/
This site has a multitude of links to IYL information.

Don Osborn also alerted me to the Australian portal set up by our friends at ACSSO
http://www.languages2008.org.au/

and the Facebook Group
which is aiming for 10 000 members during the year (1500 when I joined on 27 March 2008)

Articles on Languages in the media

Four articles in the Australian media about Languages. Something's brewing.

Primary school pupils 'need extra language' by Lucy Hood, February 25, 2008 Adelaide Advertiser
Minding our language by John Töns - 12 March 2008 on National Online Opinion Forum
Big Neighbour Fading From Our Radar by David T. Hill The Australian 12 March 2008
Language skills push for schools by Farrah Tomazin The Age 24 March 2008
'Lost in translation' means same in any language The Age 25 March 2008
'Stop Minding Your Language Matthew Absolom in The Australian 2 April 2008
All Chinese to us [Radio National The National Interest recording - second item] ... our language crisis was first highlighted almost 20 years ago. What can be done? How do we fire up linguistic excitement in potential students?
Learning a language is not just words Matthew Davies April 28, 2008 The Age newspaper
Let's send a message to the world … in their languages, John Hajek and Yvette Slaughter, The Age, May 5, 2008
Learning languages in Australia - too much like hard work? by Fiona Mueller. A 2003 article that has lost none of its relevance.

Match language skills to booming markets

Match language skills to booming markets [pdf]

English is not enough for students in this multilingual environment, writes Professor David Hill of the Asia Reseach Centre, Murdoch University

The UN Year of Languages is featured in this article from 11 Feb. 2008 along with many other cogent arguments for reversing the decline in languages education.