Page 20 - Accents December

Languages Victoria
MLTA NSW - Response to NSW Curriculum Review: Interim Report
The Modern Languages Teachers’ Association of NSW thanks the Curriculum Review for their recognition of our document submitted in the first stage of the Review process, NSW CURRICULUM REVIEW SUBMISSION 2018.
We would like to express strong support for the proposal to introduce the teaching of additional languages in all NSW primary schools. There are many options for how quality language learning can be integrated into K-6 curriculum, to the cognitive, emotional and social benefit of all children. It is well known now that young children possess the cognitive elasticity to absorb, manipulate, produce and enjoy more than one language. This particular special ability is lost somewhat after puberty and replaced with a more logical structured approach, which is more a feature of Secondary language teaching. Young multilingual children both globally and within Australia demonstrate this capacity. The teaching of an additional language can be in creative collaboration with classroom teachers, and complement learning in many other areas of the Stage curriculum, such as literacy, numeracy, HSIE and Creative Arts. The committee may be interested to see the primary student-made films of our current Linguafest (foreign language film) competition, to see what is possible.
Very good pedagogies and resources now exist for the teaching of additional languages in primary schools, and increasingly, the NSW universities are developing specialised courses in primary language pedagogy training. We suggest that existing talented primary language teachers, of whom there are many, can assume mentoring and leadership roles in assisting with professional learning for new teachers. Recently, experienced primary school language teachers have developed, through the Sydney Institute Community Languages Education (SICLE) project at the University of Sydney, (in collaboration with Department of Education and other experts) a large portfolio of outstanding units of task-based units in primary language teaching in multiple languages. With good professional linkages to draw on, there is considerable expertise to draw on, to build this teacher upskilling capacity. While recognising that supply of trained and in-training teachers is an issue in this proposed change, there are good models of how this has been achieved in other contexts, both within and beyond Australia.
Apart from a few specialised schools with immersion programs, the goal in primary school language teaching is not to aim for high levels of complex production. It is to progressively stimulate and play with the foreign language, to enjoy communicating, engaging with simple reading and writing, and perhaps, in addition to having fun acquiring a script, in the case of non-Roman script languages. It will also explore the great interest
Page 20 Volume 8 Number 2