Page 47 - Languages Victoria December 2019

Languages Victoria
languages retaining a higher proportion of students as they move from Years 7 to 12 (Table 2). The percentage of students who study French, German, Greek and Japanese in Year 7, for example, holds across the school years, while other languages such as Indonesian and Italian lose a higher proportion of students as they transition across secondary school. This results in particular challenges for these languages and languages programs, including the need for additional support in increasing the profiles and sense of prestige for these languages. Chinese (Mandarin) is unique in that high numbers of students take up study of the language at the senior secondary level, distorting the proportions of students across the secondary year levels.
Table 2 - below: Secondary enrolments as a percentage of all Languages enrolments, selected languages, Years 7 (2013) and 12 (2018) (DET, 2019, p. 44)
Language
Year 7 (%)
Year 12 (%)
Chinese (Mandarin)
8.3
26.8
French
19.4
21.1
German
13.4
10.3
Greek
0.7
0.9
Indonesian
21.7
7.8
Italian
19.6
7.3
Japanese
19.6
19.2
VCE languages study
Although the study of languages through to the Year 12 (Unit 4) level varies across languages, the flexibility of the Victorian Curriculum strongly supports the ability of students to access languages study through to Unit 4 through a variety of providers, and at different entry and exit points. As can be seen in Table 3, over 45 percent of students completed their Unit 4 studies before they entered Year 12, with students of languages spoken more widely in Australian communities, such as Chinese (Mandarin) and Vietnamese) more likely to finish their studies before Year 12.
Volume 23 Number 1 Page 47