Recently, the language policies have been reworked, and a variety of factors have led to a decrease in the stigmatization.

From what I remember reading, the new bilingual schools have a fantastic reputation.

I’m also reminded of some information I learned recently about the revival of Irish (Gaelic) in Ireland. (I don’t have the materials in front of me, so I may not be wholly accurate.) For decades, students were required to study Irish in school, and people were required to take language competency tests in order to get government jobs. However, the lack of daily use of the language outside of school (along with a lingering stigma associated with the Irish language and probably some other factors) led to only a tiny fraction of Irish people actually being able to speak Irish, in spite of the years of mandatory school instruction. (The system turned out “temporary bilinguals”.) Recently, the language policies have been reworked, and a variety of factors have led to a decrease in the stigmatization. There has also been a great increase in popular cultural materials (film, music, radio, and written literature). Now, the numbers of people who can speak Irish are increasing.

Anyhow, it seems that mandatory language instruction is not enough. I guess I agree with Cooper that it’s a complicated issue. On the other hand, I do share your hope that the legislation will help move things in the right direction.

(I guess I did have more to say than I thought…in fact, I started this comment last night, and didn’t have a chance to finish it until just now.)

Couldn’t agree more.

Firstly, there’s no such choice for students until year 7 at the moment, at least where I went to school; everyone learned Italian. In year 7 everyone does a third of the year in Japanese, French and Italian, then in year 8 we choose one of these three to carry on with for another year. In 9 and 10, languages are options, alongside history, geography, business studies, drama, music, etc.

I would say that the purpose of learning another language in High School (others would certainly disagree though) is not to produce fluent speakers of Kiswahili or anything, but rather, to exercise whichever part of the mind is used in learning language in the hope that it doesn’t become fixed too early. This is just my opinion, that learning even the very basics of other languages prepares you for more involved language learning later on. But also, and this is really just a personal theory, that learning another language can open up the individual to be less… single-minded, perhaps. MrsChili, this relates to that Whorf quote you mentioned,

a change in language can transform our appreciation of the cosmos

It’s a bit of a romantic notion I know, but I believe there is inherent value in linguistic (and cultural) diversity, not just across a population, but individually as well. To put it another way, I equate monolingualism with monoculturalism, with homogeneity, with uniformity.

MY frustration is with the college level. As an undergrad, I was able to satisfy my language requirement with American Sign Language (which is beginning to gain recognition not only as a language in its own right (as opposed to some sort of hybrid of English) but is being recognized as being a completely DIFFERENT structure from English, so it’s counting as a “foreign” language, as well). When I got to grad school, though, I was told that the four-plus years I’d spent in ASL classes would not serve me in grad school, and that I’d have to pass a proficiency exam in a foreign language if I wanted an advanced degree in English. Since no one could adequately explain the reasoning of such a thing to me, and because the Education department had a better deal, I ended up with a degree in English Teaching rather than a straight English degree.

Who makes this stuff up, anyway?

Firstly you’d have to ensure that the kids were learning the same language from grades 1-10, and in the current situation that would be a nightmare. Presumably you’d want to allow students some choice, but creating choice across the board, from primary to secondary, seems very unlikely.
Therefore you’d have to start severely limiting which languages to offer. Which language should be compulsory? I’d rather not hear that debate.

Secondly, languages (which language?..again, no consistency) are already compulsory up till grade 8 (here in QLD at least), so another 2-3 years of it, especially if it’s compulsory, won’t give us a ‘global advantage’. You only need to look at the level which that 6 percent of grade 12 language learners graduate with to realise the futility of this idea.

Compulsory exchange programs would be more effective, but given that that will never happen, the time each week would probably be better spent improving mathematics grades…

Thirdly, even once you get them to graduate from school with it, there’s still a very low carry-over rate to university level courses (according to someone speaking at a recent Chinese competition).

So I think this is a ridiculously simple solution to a rather complicated problem.

Still, I’d love to be proven wrong.