With new Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott freshly back from
his visit to Indonesia, I recalled my blog
post from February 2013 when I predicted that the ambitious language
policies of neither major party would survive the election. ''We are supposed to be adapting to the Asian century, yet
Australians' study of foreign languages, especially Asian languages, is in
precipitous decline,'' Mr Abbottt said in May 2013, promising that forty percent of high school
students would be studying languages within ten years.
As the
election neared, we had the depressing news that the University of Canberra was
axing its languages program; would a Liberal victory turn the
decline around?
So imagine
my thrill recently when I checked the Liberal Party website and saw in the 'our
plan' drop-down menu the word 'languages', only to be crestfallen when I found
that these simply led to versions of 'our plan' in Arabic, Chinese, Greek,
Italian, Korean, and Vietnamese. Probing further into the list of 2013 policies
I searched in vain for some mention of language learning - Asian or otherwise.
Nothing.
A
dispiriting feature of Australia's political leadership is its dogged
monolingualism. Kevin Rudd was a rare exception, but Alexander Downer's sour comments about Rudd's Mandarin
skills in 2007 were perhaps symptomatic of an ingrained fear of stepping
outside the cosy sphere of English. What we lack in Australia is role models
and champions of bilingualism among our political leaders; multilingual Mathias Cormann
provides a possible spark of hope here.
·
Choose Indonesian: You don't have to learn a new
script and you can learn some basics quickly.
·
Start with a few hours of study a week, but be
modest in your expectations; you're too busy to develop more than elementary
skills.
·
Skim the Indonesian press online when you have spare
minutes, and paste the headlines into Google Translate. Soon you'll be able to
read some simple sentences unaided.
·
Have someone write some simple speeches for you,
and learn to read them aloud.
·
When you visit a school where Indonesian is taught,
make a speech in Indonesian.
·
When you are next at an official function in
Indonesia, make a short speech in Indonesian; you can rehearse it beforehand
and simply read it out.
Mr Abbott, it's that simple for you to give language
learners in Australia the mainstream role model they need and at the same time to
hone your image as a statesman. Just get off your bike!
© Stuart Campbell
Buy Stuart's e-book novel 'The Play's the Thing' for US$1.25 with one click at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BMIF0J0
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© Stuart Campbell
Buy Stuart's e-book novel 'The Play's the Thing' for US$1.25 with one click at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BMIF0J0
Download THAT Authors Collective free sampler First Press at
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/THATAuthorsCollective