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Minding our language

By John Töns - posted Wednesday, 12 March 2008


Are we so naïve that we think the only brilliant ideas in the world are produced in English?

Just think of the competitive advantage we would have as a nation if we had people reading the academic literature in a range of languages. We currently rely on the really outstanding work coming to us in translated form, which essentially means that we miss out on some of the formative ideas, the initial discussions that produced that outstanding work.

Do we really believe that discussions about global issues can only receive their full expression in English? There is some brilliant work being done in South America - much of it only available in Spanish. Along with Israel, we are the most linguistically diverse nation on the planet. (I am ignoring countries like New Guinea with many more indigenous languages than either Israel or Australia.) We should be tapping into that expertise.

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Were we to tap into that linguistic heritage we could fast track language teachers. To introduce a second language to all four-year-olds is daunting simply because we do not have the teachers - recruiting bilingual Australians and training them as teachers, as well as improving their own language skills, will increase the pool of available teachers. (Merely being bilingual does not mean that you have sufficient command of a language to teach it.)

The other obstacle faced is the myth of the overcrowded curriculum. How is it that in many countries around the world there is room to teach two, three or four languages without any adverse impact on the curriculum? And why is it that in Australia it is the languages area that causes the crowd? Perhaps, as a way of opening up our ideas to the possibility of including languages other than English as part of the core curriculum, we should encourage an exchange system with countries where teaching two or more languages in the primary years of school is the norm. Their knowledge as to how everything fits in their domestic curriculum can be a major asset.

There is also of course the debate about some languages being more important than others. So how do you decide? Does anyone know who our significant trading partners will be 20 years from now?

If it is China, are we going to confine ourselves to Mandarin or should we also make sure that we have knowledge of Cantonese and Hokkien? (The Chinese Diaspora is one of the most significant trading networks in the world - if one does business in Asia more than likely one will be dealing with the Chinese Diaspora, many of whom do not understand Mandarin.)

Perhaps we should consider India - then which of the many Indian languages? Tamil? Urdu, Gujurati or perhaps Hindi?

Suppose we focus on the Middle East - that is of course much simpler isn’t? True Arabic will help you get just about everywhere but it would be wise to be familiar with the intricacies of Gulf Arabic not to mention languages like Farsi and Kurdish.

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What any language teacher will tell you is that once you have more than one language it becomes much easier to communicate with people regardless of whether or not you speak their language. I have been in the middle of conversations where we chased one another through Italian, French, German, Latin and Greek with the odd English word thrown in.

So what will happen to this latest report? Will it be incorporated in the fabric of a national curriculum? Or will it be taken seriously and then put on the shelf for someone else to revisit five years from now? Let’s hope we will finally take languages seriously.

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About the Author

John Töns is President of the Zero Carbon Network a network established to promote clear thinking about the issues associated with climate change. In addition to operating the only zero carbon boarding kennels in South Australia he is also completing a PhD at Flinders University in the area of Global Justice. John is a founding member of a new political party Stop Population Growth Now.

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