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澳洲联邦政府日前悄悄推出一个颇具挑战的计划，打算斥资六千万元，在今后的十年内使能够流利运用中文、日文、印尼语以及韩文的亚洲语言的学生人数翻一番。联邦教育部长Julia Gillard同时坦诚，这个计划很有挑战性，因为有些学校和学生在学习亚洲语言过程中，没走对路子。
现任政府早前就表示学习除英语之外的第二语言，尤其是亚洲语言，对于澳洲将来的国土安全，以及经济繁荣都有很重要的帮助。
这六千万元主要用于在高中设立更多亚洲语言课程，教师培训，以及设立一套专门的课程。
政府希望在2020年之前，12%的高中毕业生能够熟练运用汉语，日语，印尼语或者韩语。
Schools set Asian lingo challenge
http://www.theage.com.au/national/schools-set-asian-lingo-challenge-20090214-87pv.html?page=-1
Josh Gordon
February 15, 2009
THE Federal Government has quietly launched a $62 million Asian language plan with an ambitious goal to double within a decade the number of year 12 students fluent in Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian or Korean.
Education Minister Julia Gillard conceded that achieving the target would be a major challenge because participation in some Asian languages had troublingly been "going in the wrong direction".
"In just four years between 2001 and 2005, which coincided with the abolition of the National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools Program in 2002, the number of Government school students studying Indonesian and Japanese declined by about 60,000, while the number enrolled in Chinese languages increased only marginally," she said.
"The Rudd Government considers learning languages other than English, in particular Asian languages, important to Australia's future security and prosperity in an increasingly globalised world."
The money, to be spent over the next 2½ years, will fund extra Asian language classes in high schools, teacher training, and development of a specialist curriculum for students with language skills.
About $44 million will be carved up among state and territory governments and non-government schools, with a further $10 million handed out through a grants scheme open to organisations such as high-education providers, businesses and Asian communities. An additional $6 million will be spent on a schools' grants program to be run by the Asia Education Foundation.
The recently formed National Curriculum Board has been told to oversee the scheme and boost the number of qualified Asian language teachers, monitor Asian language courses in schools for consistency, and offer incentives for students to become proficient in a language other than English.
Compared to other developed nations, Australia's education system has failed spectacularly to boost participation in foreign language studies, despite sporadic efforts by previous governments.
Figures from the Department of Education show less than 14 per cent of year 12 students are studying a foreign language and only 5.8 per cent are studying an Asian language.
At universities, the proportion studying Asian languages is even lower, at just 3 per cent.
To achieve the target, about 12 per cent of students leaving year 12 will need to be fluent in Mandarin, Japanese, Indonesian or Korean by 2020.
Business Council of Australia policy director Patrick Coleman said the funding boost, which started to flow at the start of this school year, was long overdue.
He said Australia had failed to invest sufficiently in Asian languages.
"An increasing amount of trade and investment is carried out in Asia and it's not just China and Japan," Mr Coleman said. "It's the wider number of countries in Asia and we need to give it a higher priority. It's not just the direct learning of languages, its interacting with people from those countries." |
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澳洲罪犯黑帮之明信片大盗Brendon Abbott (2010-8-5) JuJu 
发表于 2009-2-15 11:14
