Fears over Australia's language decline

By Phil Mercer
BBC News, Sydney

Fewer students are studying foreign languages in Australia today

Australia's foreign language skills are in decline.

Official figures show that only 13% of high-school students now graduate with a foreign language - compared with more than 40% in the 1960s.

There are concerns that these deficiencies could isolate Australia from its partners in Asia and pose problems for trade, diplomacy and security.

English is the lingua franca of global commerce but there is a feeling that it has made Australians complacent about the need to get to grips with the mother tongue of other countries.

Professor Elise Tipton from the University of Sydney believes that Australia's economic bonanza, which is driven by red-hot demand for its minerals, can partly explain this skills gap.

"I think there's something about Australia being a resource supplier," Ms Tipton said.

Australia's pretty remote and I wouldn't get much of a chance outside of class to have conversations with other people Rob Tyson, student

"China comes to us. We don't really have to beat down the doors and learn their culture and language in order to get business."

Ms Tipton says that Asian language classes - especially Japanese - remain popular at the university although students often do not see the courses as vital ingredients for a successful career.

"Fewer are studying Japanese for specific employment, whereas that's what they did in the '80s," she said.

"A lot more are from Asian backgrounds - whether from overseas or from Australia - who are interested in Japanese popular culture."

Isolation

Other academics worry that language training and teaching in both universities and schools has been eroded since the 1980s.

Back then the Australian government gave special attention to Asian studies as it sought to establish closer ties with the region.

As the world's economic power shifts to emerging trading blocs including Asia, Australia's language gap could be exposed.

Fluency in Asian language is not expected, Pippa McCowage says

Pippa McCowage, a 22-year-old economics student from Sydney, believes that many young Australians have a half-hearted approach to foreign languages.

"While it is encouraged in high school to learn another language, there's not really a realistic expectation that you will need to speak it," she said.

"I learned Japanese and went on an exchange... when I was 16 and found that the Japanese students of my age had a much greater proficiency in English than I did in Japanese.

"So in that sense it almost discourages you, in that if I were to do business with the Japanese everyone would be speaking English," she said.

Classmate Rob Tyson blames Australia's geographical isolation for waning interest in foreign languages.

"Australia's pretty remote and I wouldn't get much of a chance outside of class to have conversations with other people," he grumbled.

"It's not the same as being in Europe where you could pop across to France and get that interaction. We learn in great isolation here."

'Impossible to conquer'

Then, of course, there is the complaint that Asian languages are hard to master.

Varshini Thiagalingam, a Sri Lankan-born student from London, said learning Japanese was an exhausting experience.

"Kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese) are very difficult and it's impossible to conquer," said Varshini, who is studying for a year in Sydney.

Tipton believes that Australia will recognise the future lies in Asia

"I can write hiragana and katakana (two Japanese alphabets) but now that I've come to Australia I'm forgetting it all."

The last census found that almost 400 different languages were spoken in homes across multicultural Australia, where a quarter of the population was born overseas.

This linguistic rainbow reflects recent patterns of migration, but has not made Australians hungry to learn the lingo of their regional counterparts.

If former Australian Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone had her way every child here would have to learn Mandarin or Bahasa Indonesia at school.

"[Asia] is our part of the world, that's where we sit. Why can't we recognise that?" she lamented recently.

Ms Tipton believes Australia does realise where its future lies.

"Australia wants to be included in Asia - it doesn't want to miss out. The region is going to be the most important region economically in the 21st Century," she declared.