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Little taste for foreign tongues
Most universities aren’ t offering many language study options, and even fewer students are taking them.
By Antonia Maiolo
The number of students learning a second language is in decline, with a shortage of qualified teachers and the high-cost of offering languages at university partly to blame, professor Jane Simpson argues.
Simpson is deputy director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language at The Australian National University. She says evidence shows fewer students are doing languages at HSC level.
In 2013, only 8 per cent of HSC students sat a foreign language exam, down from more than 50 per cent in the‘ 50s.
“ Overall, we are not producing the bilingual people that we need for Australia to be really competitive in the next 30, 40 years,” Simpson says.
She notes many children these days will want to work overseas for at least part of their lives.“ They will be more competitive if they speak the language of the country they’ re working in,” Simpson says.“ It’ s going to be harder for them to get those jobs if they don’ t have a second language.”
Simpson says the lack of opportunity to study a foreign language is due to a decline in the number of universities that teach languages, and in the number of languages those universities teach.
“ We’ re also facing problems in shortages of language teachers, really qualified language teachers, really experienced language teachers,” Simpson says.
She says language teaching at university is expensive and many institutions are not making the investment because of revenue cuts. Language teaching is intensive and it requires small classes and a number of hours to teach.
“ The amount that the government gives to pay for language teaching is not enough to cover the cost,” Simpson argues.“ Many universities are cutting the number of hours that they offer in language teaching and they’ re cutting the number of languages, because the combination of the low demand for some languages and the expense of teaching them means that universities can’ t afford to do it.”
Simpson says the decline in secondlanguage study is also partly because learning languages is not recognised as an achievement.
“ We don’ t believe that people recognise what a triumph it is to learn a language,” Simpson says.
To address this, the ARC Centre of Excellence has launched the Patji-Dawes Award to celebrate language teachers.
“ We want to celebrate language teaching and learning and draw public attention to what an intellectual achievement it is to learn a language,” Simpson says.
The award is named in honour of a young Eora woman, Patyegarang, and First Fleet settler Lieutenant William Dawes. The two shared a student-teacher relationship in which Dawes mastered the local Sydney language in what is the earliest documented instance of a settler learning an Indigenous tongue.
“ We want to encourage students from high school, community schools and universities to nominate teachers [ for the award ],” Simpson said.” I would also like to encourage immigrants who have come here and learned English to nominate a teacher who has inspired them.”
She also said ANU had actually expanded the number of languages it teaches. Simpson calls the awards just one part of the solution.
“ In terms of the solution for the decline of language teaching in Australia, I think we have to emphasise more and more the advantages and importance of learning languages to students; this will really help them.
“ It’ s an intellectual achievement and it will open many, many doors.” ■
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