[Indonesian_open] Change of leadership means justification

[Previati, Doriana]

Hi Indophiles,

As our school is undergoing change of leadership in both our prep and
senior schools, our Languages dept finds itself in the unenviable
position of having to justify its language choices. 

With Indo introduced in stage 4 and with French and Latin "safe" in
terms of parental and executive leadership support (surprise
surprise!!), the Indo programme is preparing anew to go a few rounds
with the imps of doubt and misinformation. 

Our numbers have trippled at stage 5 level with stage 6 continuers
results finally achieving some recognition as a valuable UAI subject. We
have 100% continuation of numbers from stage 5 into 6 (%'s sound
better!). 

Nevertheless,  we find ourselves in the position of having to justify to
the "new guard" our rationale behind teaching Indonesian. In their eyes
the ideal would be Japanese or Mandarin...we are a comprehensive school,
with minimum LOTE hours and teach boys - these are all elements that do
not auger well for basic proficiency in such complicated language
systems. But what do we, the professionals, know? 

This is my request- Can I please have some ammunition to blow the doubt
out of the water?? Who else is undergoing constant needling and how do
you maintain the support from up on high.  

 

The fight goes on!!

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/pipermail/indonesian_open/attachments/20070901/d1526587/attachment.html