Comments on: Australia’s Asia Literacy Debate

By: Roxxan

Roxxan — Sat, 28 Oct 2017 06:38:00 +0000

Thanks for such an interesting post. From my own experience, as Australian is a country of immigrants, there are many ‘foreigners’ who speak a different language especially Chinese including Mandarin and Cantonese. In other words, Chinese language gradually became the second language in Australia as an increasing number of immigrants. Thus, in order to cover different customers’ demands, more and more Asian shops, restaurants and supermarkets asks employees to be familiar with both English and Chinese. Furthermore, the menu of some Chinese and even Korean and Japanese restaurants are using Chinese characters, which may be convenient for Chinese customers. On the other hand, as many Australians could not speak Chinese, these native residents may lose many job opportunities.

By: rajni jaishi

rajni jaishi — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 06:32:00 +0000

Apart from the faulty policies in place, the diverse population or immigrants are also to blame for this dominance of English in countries like Australia, US, Canada. My personal experiences of meeting Asian immigrants here is that they try very hard to fit into the system by emulating their (the natives’) way of speaking English. If there was place for bilinguals and if linguistic diversity was appreciated well, probably they too wouldn’t hesitate to use and promote their own languages.
It is shocking that a country with such great diversity fails to include such a large part of its population in its education policy.

By: Elizabeth Gunn

Elizabeth Gunn — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 05:40:09 +0000

I absolutely love your post Hanna.

One of the real challenges of banishing the Australian monolingual mindset to purgatory and celebrating linguistic diversity would be a broad-based realisation that multilinguals possess the skills to help Anglophones overcome their skills shortage – that would be a turning of the tables!

Australian monolinguals have enjoyed a love affair with the notion that English is the only language necessary for global and local communication. Indeed it underwrites our whole international education industry, not to mention all the other economic ‘advantages’. They say that love is blind, but even the most myopic monolinguals are starting to realise that this notion of English domination now looks pretty tawdry and unfaithful. Other languages might be really useful! Multilinguals might have advantages! How could we have let this happen!

Two-way language learning will hopefully become the model du jour in Australian education. This is a model that has gained currency in other Anglophone countries and is a model that makes the most of, rather than negates, community language diversity. Who knows, one day maybe even Dinka or Amharic might be used as languages of instruction in Australian universities!

By: Hanna Torsh

Hanna Torsh — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 03:36:33 +0000

Lots of interesting points. I agree that without support, second or third generation migrants are unlikely to have the skills set that the government wants. I also agree that Asian Australians are rendered invisible in Bishops statement. And I think Jason you are right when you say that there is an assumption about values linked to migrant background here. What I find intriguing is that all these things reveal a discourse of assimilation rather than co-existence. Migrants are either discounted as not Australian enough for preserving their language as best they can with little social support or they are discounted as not Australian enough even when they do lose their language simply on the basis that they are migrants. They is no way they can ever really count as Australian in this evaluation. It is a lose-lose situation. I find it remarkable that even while seemingly promoting multilingualism, these kind of approaches are in fact quite assimilationist in their approach.

By: Jason

Jason — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 03:22:30 +0000

Good points. Could it be that the establishment look to non “ethnic” Australians because it believes these citizens are more likely to subscribe to a set of values and beliefs that the establishment want to project outwards? I.e. they are culturally more in tune with the establishment’s own cultural self image.

By: Donna Butorac

Donna Butorac — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 03:42:42 +0000

Great blog, Hanna! I wonder if part of the overlooking that is implied in Bishop’s call to language is a (probably) deliberate move to render invisible Asian Australians. In her statement, they become non-people in the Australian context.

By: Calvin

Calvin — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 14:35:57 +0000

Great post. I don’t know much about the situation in Australia, but here in the US heritage language ability generally disappears by the third generation. Among the second generation, abilities are generally weak and limited to certain domestic contexts. What kinds of supports are available in the education system to help immigrant youth and children of immigrants maintain and develop the language skills with which they came? Basic domestic conversation skills aren’t necessarily going to help further Australia’s soft power agenda–you need people who have the linguistic skills to navigate many domains, including professional ones.