indonesian_open FW: Languages Education in Australia Vol 1 No 10 19 July 2007

[Franks, Lyndall]

Teman-teman yang baik
Some interesting reading from the latest ACSSO Newsletter.
Lyndall Franks
Languages Consultant, Indonesian
NSW Department of Education and Training
3a Smalls Road
RYDE  NSW  2112
 
Ph: 02 9886 7640
Fax: 02 9886 7160
Email: lyndall.franks at det.nsw.edu.au
<BLOCKED::mailto:lyndall.franks at det.nsw.edu.au> 
 
 AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL OF STATE SCHOOL ORGANISATIONS (ACSSO)
The national voice of parents of children in Australia's public schools
and their school communities

LANGUAGES EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA  

Volume One Number Ten: 19 July 2007

Having trouble reading this email? Read it on the web at
http://www.languageseducation.com/newsl070719.pdf

========================================================================

Welcome to the Languages Education in Australia Newsletter.  Produced by
the Australian Council of State School Organisations (ACSSO) jointly
with the Australian Parents Council (APC), this Newsletter started as a
monthly publication and is rapidly evolving to be a much more frequent
event through 2007 - to inform school communities and other subscribers
about events, activities and initiatives around the country related to
languages education.   

We want this Newsletter, and our Languages Education in Australia
Website (http://www.languageseducation.com
<http://www.languageseducation.com/> ) to become increasingly
interactive, building two-way communication and providing a venue for
school communities to put forward ideas, discussion topics, suggestions
- and a gallery of good news stories and photos about how your school is
engaging its community around languages education.    Contact us on:
info at languageseducation.com
<mailto:info at languageseducation.commailto:info at languageseducation.comblo
cked::mailto:info at languageseducation.com>    

 

Enhancing the Australia-Indonesia Relationship 

Robert McClelland, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Speech to
Australia Indonesia Business Council, 15 March 2007

One of the best opportunities for Australia-Indonesia relations lies in
the field of education. Enhancing the linkages of our education sector
promises deep social and economic rewards for both nations.

Indonesia's proximity, its rich culture and climate have long attracted
many tourists from Australia - in 2005 nearly 400,000. Indonesian
visitors to Australia numbered some 81,000 last year. 

While there has been a steady downward trend since 1998 (Indonesian
visitors numbered 154,000 in 1996) the Indonesian figure is projected to
reach about 200,000 within the next decade. This travel ensures both
countries already have a decent sized class of cross-culturally aware
citizens.

The opportunity presented here is to develop tourism and business
interactions into exchanges and investment more genuinely focused on
education and deeper understanding.

Last year roughly 15,000 Indonesian students were enrolled in Australian
institutions - both secondary and tertiary. This ranks in the top 10 of
international student enrolments by nationality. But this figure of
15,000 actually represents a 6.7 percent drop from 2005 figures, which
was itself an 11 percent drop on the previous year.

The reduction in numbers is partially due to Australian universities
offering an increasing number of off-shore programs in Indonesia - some
11 institutions now do so.

But if you take into account the 2006 Lowy Survey, the decline may also
be attributed to unresolved suspicions and negative public perceptions
of one other. 

Read more at http://www.languageseducation.com/mcclelland070719.pdf
<http://www.languageseducation.com/mcclelland070719.pdf>   

OPINION

Language, the Missing Word in Our Schools

Matthew Absalom, Lecturer, Melbourne University, 6 July 2007

Walking around Preston Market this weekend, I was overjoyed to hear not
a word of English spoken around me. Despite the fact that Melbourne is a
linguistic hotbed, Australia has an appalling record with languages.

Commentators such as the Australian Council of State School
Organisations label this "an international embarrassment and national
disgrace". Influential groups such as the Group of Eight Australian
research-intensive universities call for "a new attitude towards
languages and the learning of languages in Australia".

Talk about languages in our schools is a hot topic. But nobody is
talking about the elephant in the room - how language programs in
government schools undermine languages education.

To understand this better, we need to survey some of the programs
offered. In primary schools, we find immersion/bilingual programs,
language awareness programs and Languages Other Than English (LOTE)
programs.

An immersion/bilingual program is one where everything is taught in the
language being studied. So, as well as doing maths in English, you would
do it in, say, Chinese. This would happen in all areas of the curriculum
and it requires teachers with expert language skills.

Language awareness programs focus on culture and include varied exposure
to the target language. LOTE programs concentrate more strongly on the
target language as the object of study.

In Australia, Italian has long been the language spoken most after
English. It is also one of the most taught languages in Victorian
government schools - it accounts for 25 per cent of all language
enrolments and its continuing strength in Victoria can be linked to
patterns of community settlement in Melbourne.

Startlingly, despite this, in 2005 there was not a single
bilingual/immersion program for Italian at primary level in any
Victorian government school. Even more perplexing is the imbalance
between full-blown LOTE programs (where Italian is taught as a language)
and language awareness programs (where students do things such as study
Venice's Carnevale, make masks and perhaps learn a little vocabulary).

In Italian primary programs in 2005, more students statewide (53 per
cent) were in a language awareness classroom than those studying the
language (47 per cent). Even at secondary schools, 4 per cent of
students were only offered language awareness in Italian.

This is a grave state of affairs, given the place of Italian in
Victoria's psyche.

Read more at http://www.languageseducation.com/absalom070719.pdf
<http://www.languageseducation.com/absalom070719.pdf>  

========================================================================


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/pipermail/indonesian_open/attachments/20070723/d56cbb1e/attachment-0004.html