DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Statistically significant results were found for all three research questions, although the level of difference between them varies. To summarise, for Question 1, the proportion of students discontinuing the beginners’ Japanese unit increased significantly in 2009( p = 0.04). For Question 2, the mean total mark decreased highly significantly in 2009( p = 0.002). And, for Question 3, the High Distinction grades decreased and the Pass marks increased markedly in 2009( p = 0.005).
The significant increase in the number of students discontinuing or passing with a lower grade in 2009 has implications and potential consequences at the individual, program, university and national level. For the individual students who discontinued this means that they become part of the group of those‘ having tried but failed Japanese’( Lo Bianco 2009b, p. 332). This begs the question: Why did these students decide to discontinue in 2009? It is surmised that they may have found the unit too challenging with only four face-to-face contact hours with an amount of material previously allocated for five face-to-face contact hours. They may have lost confidence in their ability to keep up with the work and consequently pass the unit, so decided to discontinue. Whether discontinuing brings with it a Fail mark or a Withdrawn mark, it is discouraging and disruptive to their studies and financially costly. This finding echoes Lo Bianco’ s
( 2009b) comments about the impact of failure being damaging on students and on the study of languages.
There is also a serious and detrimental impact on the Japanese language program. Of the students who completed and passed the unit, 32( 2007), 36( 2008), and 40( 2009) students continued to the second semester unit. Despite having a much larger initial enrolment in 2009, the actual number of students continuing on to the first year second semester unit was only slightly higher than in 2007 and 2008. The higher proportion of students discontinuing in this first year Japanese unit in 2009 has resulted in a higher attrition rate and therefore fewer potential students in the continuing first year, second year, third year and more advanced units. In addition, the lower proficiency of the continuing students in 2009 means that they are possibly not as well equipped to cope with the higher level units. Responding to this situation, after another two years of four hours of faceto-face contact, the teaching content was reduced and the amount of time for revision was increased in the higher level units. The higher attrition rate at first year level and the consequent fewer students in the higher levels also contributes to the everpresent possibility that units of study with smaller student cohorts will be cut due to budgetary constraints. Indeed, this occurred in 2012 when the 4th year units were cut completely.
For the university, the attrition of first year students since 2009 has meant that there is decreased revenue from first year Japanese but also in later years of Japanese study. This attrition has increased at the crucial first year level creating problems for students in their courses of study and significantly reducing the number of students progressing to higher levels of Japanese. This reduction in student levels also lessens the impact of the university’ s strategy to‘ internationalise’ its student population – that is, increase the number of students who have developed a linguistic and cultural literacy outside their own( University of Canberra’ s 39 Steps: Strategic plan 2008 – 2012, p. 15).
On a national scale, fewer students speaking Japanese with lower proficiency in this university contributes to a smaller number of people who are able to engage well with Japan and the Japanese people. If universities are to be part of the engagement with Asia( Wesley, 2009) it needs to be recognised that‘ good language education costs’( Kinoshita, 2012) and that to achieve quality language education, the investment in more faceto-face teaching hours is a critical factor.
Furthermore, the recommendations of the Nettelbeck et al.( 2007) study, in particular Recommendation 3:‘ There is an urgent need for governments and universities alike to recognise languages as a strategic and essential sector and to support them accordingly’( p. 27) needs to be adopted without delay.
REFERENCES
Go8. 2007a. Languages in crisis: A rescue plan for Australia: The Group of 8 universities. Retrieved 1 July 2010 from
http:// www. go8. edu. au /__ documents / university-staff / agreements / go8-languages-in-crisis-discussion-paper. pdf
Go8. 2007b. Communiqué, National Languages Summit, National Press Club Canberra, Thursday 7 June, 2007. Retrieved 1 July 2010 from http:// www. docstoc. com / docs / 5591737 / Communiqu % C3 % A9-National- Languages-Summit-National-Press-Club-Canberra- Thursday
Joint Australia-Japan Working Group for the Promotion of Japanese Language Education and People-to-People Exchange. 2010. Strengthening Japanese language learning in support of the Australia-Japan business and academic relationship. Retrieved 1 July 2010 from http:// www. dfat. gov. au / geo / japan / strengtheningjapanese-language-learning. pdf
Kinoshita, Y. 2012. Want to get ahead this century? Learn an Asian language. Retrieved 7 June 2012 from http:// theconversation. edu. au / want-to-get-ahead-this-centurylearn-an-asian-language-6247
Lo Bianco, J. 2009a. What chance? Babel, 43, 3, 28 – 29.
Lo Bianco, J. 2009b. Return of the good times? Japanese teaching today, Japanese Studies, 29, 3, 331 – 336.
Martin, D. & Jansen, L. 2012. Student motivation and retention in language and culture programs at the ANU. Retrieved 8 June 2012 from http:// www. lcnau. org / pdfs / MARTIN-JANSEN-Student-motivation-and-retention. pdf
Nettelbeck, C., Byron, J., Clyne, M., Hajek, J., Levy, M., Lo Bianco, J., McLaren, A., & Wigglesworth, G. 2007. Beginners’ LOTE in Australian universities: An audit survey and analysis. Canberra, ACT: The Council of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Retrieved 1 July 2010 from http:// www. humanities. org. au / Portals / 0 / documents / Policy / Research / Languages / txt / BeginnersLOTEAuditLASP1. pdf
Nettelbeck, C., Byron, J., Clyne, Elder, C., M., Hajek, J., Levy, M., & McLaren, A., Möllering, M., & Wigglesworth, G. 2009. An analysis of retention strategies and technology enhanced learning in beginners’ Languages Other Than English( LOTE) at Australian universities. Canberra: Australian Academy of the Humanities. Retrieved 1 July 2012 from http:// www. lcnau. org / pdfs / BeginnersRetentionLASP2. pdf
Pauwels, A. 2002. Languages in the university at the beginning of the third millennium, Babel, 37, 2, 16 – 20.
The University of Canberra’ s 39 Steps: Strategic Plan, 2008-2012. Retrieved 2 August 2012 from http:// www. canberra. edu. au / planning-quality / quality / attachments / pdf / Strategic-Plan-2008-2012-Re-Vision-2011. pdf
Wesley, M. 2009. Building an Asia-literate Australia: An Australian strategy for Asian language proficiency, Retrieved 1 July 2010 from
http:// www. griffith. edu. au / australian-strategy-asianlanguage-proficiency / report
Dr Judith Ascione is a Lecturer in Statistics at the University of Canberra and has been teaching statistics since 1988. She is particularly interested in statistics education.
Dr Nicolette Bramley is a Lecturer in Japanese at the University of Canberra. Her research interests are in Japanese language learning, children’ s language and adult migrant ESL learners’ motivation.
Volume 47 Number 2 29