Reversing the decline in language study

Over the past 50 or so years numerous government and non-government reports have argued Australia’s future lies in Asia and even more books have been published with variations on that theme in their titles.

At the same time, reports to both State and Commonwealth governments have recommended that the curricula of schools and universities should incorporate a greater focus on the history, politics and cultures of Asian countries and on learning their languages.  

Progress has been mixed. In the area of language learning we are going backwards: fewer students from English-speaking backgrounds are studying any foreign language, not just Asian languages, at year 12 level than a decade ago.  The teaching of Indonesian in schools and universities is collapsing at an alarming rate but the number of students studying other key Asian languages at an advanced level—excluding those who have a family background in the language—is also declining.

This situation will not improve if we simply continue teaching Asian languages as we have always done.   Developing broad-based language programmes in our school education system—and equally importantly sustaining them—is unlikely to happen.  The absence of broad school-based language programmes results in a lack of natural progression by students with a second language competency into higher level university language programmes. 

This contrasts with university foreign language programs at British and European universities where students have completed many years of language learning at school and are able to engage in advanced study using literature in a second language.

The result is that a lot of the resources of language departments at Australian universities are used on basic first-year level courses with only small numbers of students proceeding to higher levels and thereby achieving any real level of proficiency.  This is not to blame those who teach in these departments.  Language learning requires sustained hours of work on a daily basis.  It is nigh impossible for students to develop fluency starting from scratch with, at most, 70 hours of tuition for a semester length course.  The majority drop out after one or two semesters.  We need a different model if we want to increase the number of Australians with high-level fluency in an Asian language.

One option readily available to government is to take greater advantage of the New Colombo Plan. For more than a decade the NCP has proven very successful in enabling university students to enrol in courses and programs in the Asia-Pacific region.  Its objective, though, has been to develop breadth of ‘Asia literacy’ rather than depth of knowledge in any one language or country. 

Thousands of students have participated in short courses that, for the most part, have had little or no Asian language content.  This is an understandable approach, given the very small number of undergraduate students who are sufficiently fluent in an Asian language and able to participate in regular courses taught in languages other than English.   It is possible for holders of NCP scholarships to include a short-term language component in their program but only a small number have chosen to do so. 

This broad-based NCP program is important and should be continued but it should be complemented with a high-profile sub-program for undergraduate or postgraduate students or recent graduates to undertake in-country language programs of between 6 and 12 months duration.  The annual cost of, say, 20 NCP Language Fellowships would be modest—around $2-3 million—and could probably be accommodated within the existing NCP budget.  The long-term return to Australia would be considerable.

A second option would be to establish an alternative model for language learning in Australia at the post-secondary level based on intensive courses.  There is no doubt that intensive courses are by far the most effective way of acquiring competency in a foreign language.  Australia should learn from being at the forefront of the teaching of English as a second language to adult migrants and to overseas students seeking entry to post-secondary education.  The institutional structure and teaching methodology in the teaching of English as a second language could be adopted for teaching Asian languages.  An Australian Institute of Languages could be established in one or two locations, which over time could be expanded to other locations.

The Institute could deliver intensive courses in a few Asian languages in 10-week blocks with 20 hours of tuition each week.  A number of levels could be taught simultaneously by specialist language teachers in the same way that English language institutes employ specialist teachers.

Students could enrol in a 10-week module (200 hours of tuition) offering more than double the tuition hours in standard semester-length university courses.  Universities should be encouraged to give credit for successful completion (certificates could also be awarded).  Undergraduate students could pay for courses through the HECS-HELP system.  Companies, government departments and private individuals could enrol in a 10-week module on a fee-paying basis.

An Australian Language Institute could either be free-standing or be located within a university, but if the latter it would be important for it to operate as a separate entity in order to ensure an exclusive focus on intensive language teaching.

If we are serious in believing that Australia’s future lies in a much deeper engagement with the Asia-Pacific region then creating new structures whereby we can increase the number of people who are fluent in an Asian language is well worth the relatively small cost involved.

John Ingleson is an historian of Indonesia and an Emeritus Professor of history at The University of New South Wales.  He is a former president of the Asian Studies Association of Australia and was lead author of the 1988 Commonwealth government funded report “Asia in Australian Higher Education”.