Situating the challenges in current languages education policy in Australia – unlearning monolingualism

Abstract

In situating the challenges in languages education policy in Australia in current times, I give an account of policy and curriculum development for the learning of languages in school education. In so doing, I highlight (1) the integral relationship between languages education, literacy and multiculturalism policies; (2) the meaning and consequences of the absence of a national policy on languages; and (3) the fundamental challenge of addressing the pervasive ‘monolingual mindset’, particularly in school education, as a major site for the formation of knowledge, understanding and values. I then draw on my recent experience of working on the framing of Languages as a learning area in the national curriculum, which is currently being developed in Australia, to illustrate the complexity of doing languages policy and curriculum policy work and the efforts to resist the forces towards simplification. I conclude with a discussion of the challenge of ‘unlearning’ monolingualism, both for those involved in the field of languages education and for those involved in education in general.

Keywords:

• multiculturalism
• literacy
• languages education
• languages policy
• curriculum
• monolingualism

Notes

1. At the recent 2013 federal election, the then government included Hindi as an additional ‘Asian’ language; the newly elected Liberal government's position on which languages of Asia will be prioritised remains to be seen.

2. The terms ‘on-country’ and ‘off-country’ refer to the fact that each Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language is unique to the country on which it arose. When a language is taught on-country it means that the language is being taught on the traditional, ancestral territory of that language. When a language is taught off-country it means that it is being taught away from the traditional, ancestral territory, as is the case, for example, for Pitjantjatjara, which is taught in places such as Adelaide, away from the Pitjantjatjara homelands. Where a language is being taught off-country, its teaching must be negotiated with the traditional owners as custodians of the language.

3. The Australian Curriculum: Languages is currently being developed for specific languages. The specific languages are Arabic, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Modern Greek, Spanish and Vietnamese. Chinese is the only language for which pathways are being developed for three diverse learner groups (first language learners, background learners and second learners). For all other languages, a decision has been made to develop one pathway only, the one that is seen to be ‘dominant’ for the particular language in the Australian setting. Debates are strong in relation to the nature of language learning. The proficiency/achievement debate continues to dominate despite the ‘settlement’ reflected in the Shape paper.