THE teaching of foreign languages in Australian schools has fallen as governments focus on getting migrants to learn English, says a report by the Australian Council of State School Organizations (ACSSO), Australian Associated Press has reported.
The report released this month found national apathy exists towards language teaching in Australian schools. A foreign language subject was not a normal part of the school curriculum. Languages had been overshadowed by other initiatives including values, history, literacy, numeracy, benchmark testing, etc.
The report said the primacy of learning English and emphasizing the assimilation of new arrivals are opposed to the ideals of multiculturalism. The federal government and the state governments "have allowed languages to languish", it said.
The discussion paper, forwarded to federal and state education ministers, recommends increasing the number of options for students wishing to study languages.
It was compiled after a web-based survey of 3,274 parents, students, teachers and language advisers.
In the survey, 17 per cent of students and 56 per cent of parents said it was not particularly useful to learn a foreign language because English was now widely spoken around the world.
ACSSO executive director Terry Aulich said the state of foreign languages was worrying, particularly for a nation like Australia that neighbors Asia and is increasingly intertwined in business with countries like China.
Labor's education spokesman Stephen Smith said a shortage of language teachers was contributing to the problem.
"The state of foreign language education in Australia is a glaring weakness for a country that is dependent upon competing internationally," Smith said.
