Australia's present and future is multilingual.
Every child in Australia should grow up at least bilingual.
Languages education starts before school life and should continue throughout.
The Languages Action Alliance is preparing an online survey for parents / guardians / care givers of children and/or parents-to-be to identify their attitudes, experiences and needs relevant to the support of language learning.
The survey will be online by Friday 5 September 2008.
Emeritus Professor Michael Clyne, one of Australia’s foremost experts on and advocate for multilingualism, gave The Year of Languages Lecture on 19 August 2008 at Monash Uni.
“This year, the UN International Year of Languages, countries all over the world have been reflecting on their achievements in languages and what they could be doing better.
In Australia, we have seen the continuation of a public discourse which started the previous year, on the benefits of second language learning and the decline in language programs over the years.
I will argue that this discourse will remain on the surface if it does not take into account the linguistic diversity we are blessed with, and if we cannot overcome our pervasive monolingual mindset.
I will also suggest a different, more holistic way of thinking about the benefits of plurilingualism, that is the use of more than one language. “
As well as being Emeritus Professor at Monash University and an honorary professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne, Michael Clyne is a bilingual parent of a bilingual child and is a member of the Languages Action Alliance.
Poppy Masselos is a registered teacher with decades of experience in the classroom.
A large part of her career in the past has been to help teachers to make sense of new and emerging technologies and to help infuse these in all curriculum areas in all grade levels.
Poppy maintains a blog for the Brisbane Courier Mail on digital resources for the classroom.
In this post she has provided an impressive list of links to websites related to languages learning. Go there now
Reprinted from Languages in Education newsletter 22 August 2008
NB: There are quite a few broken links on this page, but there are also some gems.
Allysia Finley, 13 July 2008
Public schools aren’t helping students compete with foreign counterparts
The Register recently ran a story on HABLA, the Home-based Activities Building Language Acquisition program, which aims to help teach toddlers from low-income, Spanish-speaking families English and Spanish by sending language coaches into their homes.
HABLA is based on the premise that the more children communicate at a young age, the more quickly they develop language skills.
While the program remains controversial because of its bilingual approach, recent studies by the Brookings Institution suggest that improving toddlers’ native linguistic skills helps them more easily learn English.
Regardless of the arguments for or against HABLA, its premise – that children best learn languages when they are young and that frequent communication is necessary for language acquisition – should be considered in constructing foreign-language education in America.
Most public school students do not begin studying foreign languages until high school, and then it is usually to fulfill a graduation requirement. After all, it is difficult to see any reason to study a foreign language since much of the rest of the world is becoming fluent in English. Read more
Reprinted from Languages Education in Australia newsletter 21 August 2008
The Modern Language Teachers Association of Queensland (MLTAQ) holds its 2008 Biennial Conference under the banner “Languages Matter!” from 1-2 October 2008, hosted by Gold Coast Branch and Griffith University
Languages Matter!
Languages matter in developing classroom pedagogy.
In understanding teacher professional standards.
In quality interactions in the language specific classroom.
In building bridges to the world.
In developing intercultural and other literacies for Australia’s future.
Share with your colleagues how you are making Languages Matter.
