Focus on these four languages, however, may yield short term gains but leave us exposed in the long term. On the one hand, few would have bet economically on Japan in 1950, China in 1970, or India in 1980. On the other, who would have predicted the need for Japanese speakers in 1930, Vietnamese speakers in 1950, or Arabic speakers in 2000. The ability to predict economic rise beyond a decade is fraught at best and the ability to predict crises is inherently the practice of a nearly impossible art.
Because picking ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ is so difficult, allowing more autonomy at the school level to select what best meets the local needs may be the best way to go. A mixed approach of targeted languages and local choices is another option. Under that scenario, my personal advice to school principals is to consider the option of Hindi and Tagalog along with Korean, and in light of our increasing engagement with our Pacific neighbours, French and Spanish.
Asia literacy and NALSAS-type funding also has unnecessarily created a vehement divide within the languages community. The European languages, community languages, and world languages professionals have seen the Rudd programs as coming directly at their expense. Whether justified or not the targeting of Asian languages has left those promoting and teaching the non-identified languages feeling that they are likely to get less of a static pie.
This is problematic because successful implementation of NALSSP-type policies requires support of the language programs in the local departments of education as well as schools. Asking French teachers to convert to teaching Indonesian may not be realistic in any event, and it leaves much passive aggressive resistance within the system.
The second major issue of Asia Literacy is the non-language half. One of the problems with promoting simply more languages generically is that for a predominately mono-linguistic country, this can be perceived as threatening as learning languages can be seen as ‘too hard’, elite, and ‘wog-ish’. A very reasonable response has been to encourage the learning of ‘Asian studies’ in English, as well as Asian languages, under the rubric of Asia Literacy.
Language without an understanding of the context in which it operates is an empty vessel. Inclusion of Asian studies is critically important as is relating language to other professional study. The risk is that Asian studies is used to dumb-down Asia Literacy. Indian cookery is substituted for an understanding of the Partition. The Beijing Olympics is taught rather than the Cultural Revolution. Manga and Anime substitute for The Tale of Genji and The Seven Samurai. And generalist Asian and international studies courses contain no depth.
Don’t misunderstand me: I think cookery, Olympics, and pop culture are all things worthy of teaching, but just as we need to teach our children about nutritious eating we also need to introduce them to substantive Asian studies. Failure to get the English language portion of Asia Literacy right will alienate both educators who need to find the space within in a crowded curriculum and students who can pick a bludge faster than you can say konnichi-wa.
It is in Australia’s short- and long-term interest to be ‘the most Asia-literate country in the West’. NALSSP-type programs will help achieve this. Less prescription on the languages covered and more depth to the non-language Asian studies aspects will shorten the odds of Asia Literacy delivering its promise.
It is a relief to hear of Rudd’s new Asia -centred policy.
However, implementing a successful program in schools is another matter. The concerns expressed in the article above are very real. It appears that languages in schools draws from a static pool of “good” students. In many cases this is true.
I have however, experienced this differently. As a former teacher of Indonesian, I found that students flocked to the classroom, given an excellent program, good management and a lure of the opportunity to travel to Indonesia as part of a school excursion. (pre Bali bombing) The “soft option” was not considered. They enjoyed the challenge of regular homework and high standards.
Research needs to be done to find the common threads that joined successful programs, and then train teachers along those lines. Of course, those who train the teachers would have been successful teachers in those programs.
Weight could also be given to students who undertake those studies at the HSC /Yr12 level. Extra points towards university study would be the carrot on the stick to continue studies further at university.
But how does one tackle prejudice and language envy at a government level? Alexander Downer made a monumental insult to our Asian nations when he attended an Asian teacher’s conference in the recent past, and arrogantly broadcast to the audience that he saw no need to study an Asian language. Indonesian teachers around Eastern Australia have long since disappeared after decades of trying to justify themselves, exhausted from anti -Islamic comments and having to face a Government warning against any visits to Indonesia. Within schools, they find themselves at the bottom of the ladder as the “lowest” language, a language of a third world country, as F teachers of any European language would haughtily comment.It seems all other teachers may be able to visit their country of choice to learn the language but Indonesian teachers are told that they may only go to Darwin tor Melbourne to study.
And of course, no school excursions. Rudd’s government has a lot of challenges ahead to get over these obstacles.
May I
A