In todays headlines from the Antipodes.."Dumb Deal"

bababardwan

pretzell,

yeah,you're right,we definitely should get into it much earlier,especially with so much evidence supporting teaching languages early

bababardwan

bodawei,

Care to expand on that mate? I'm not quite sure what you're saying and whether you are talking in general terms or specifically referring to the decision to not make language learning compulsory.Any thoughts?

bodawei

I agree with the backflip... A former Premier was fond of saying.. 'we live in a society where you can change your mind and they don't break your arm.' I agree with that too.

I'm a liberal at heart but there are times when Governments need to use their considerable weight to educate the populace. I think that forcing the children to learn a second language will have net positive benefits for the Queensland community and the world at large.

I was schooled at a time (a low point?) in our history when it was unnecessary to include a foreign language into a liberal arts course at university. This coincided with possibly the worst language learning practices in our history. I think things are looking up. Qld State Govt... 加油！

bababardwan

奇怪..I replied to pretzell, and shortly after to you,but I'm sure I did it under your comment..hehe,whatever,may as well continue here.

'we live in a society where you can change your mind and they don't break your arm.

..yeah,also agree.

..oh right,I'm with you now.I forgot about the govt backflip part.Hmm,not sure where I stand on this one.Obviously I think it's highly desirable to encourage learning a foreign language as much as possible for a number of reasons.I'm not a big fan of bureaucracy though and govt interference.IMHO bureaucracy tends to have no mind and doesn't allow for special circumstances.But yeah,in principle I think all kids should learn at least a second language from as young as possible,and Australia doesn't have a great record in this department.I mean I think a significant percentage of us have studied a foreign language in high school but it's generally a case of too little too late,to be anything effective and particularly we are put to shame when you see how well the young Chinese are speaking English[not to mention other Asians and multilingual Europeans].When I was growing up a lot of it was blamed on geographic isolation,but it's even more of a global village now and I think we have to move away from that.