Australian governments have prioritised the need for our children to develop improved skills to communicate within a culturally and linguistically diverse Australia and in an increasingly interconnected globalised world. However, there has been widespread failure to provide for the key learning area of languages education, especially in disadvantaged rural schools. Collaborating with the VIctorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, this project identifies discourses surrounding instances of both successful and unsuccessful provision of languages education within these settings, with the aim of developing solutions to facilitate the re introduction and long-term success of languages programs within this marginalised sector.
Researchers
John Hajek [Research Unit for Multilingualism and Cross-cultural Communication, Faculty of Arts, UoM]
Jo Lo Bianco [Melbourne Graduate School of Education, UoM]
Russell Cross [Melbourne Graduate School of Education, UoM]
Therese Mercader [Department of Education and Early Childhood Development]
Research outputs
Publications
Slaughter, Y., Lo Bianco, J., Aliani, R., Hajek, J., & Cross, R. (forthcoming). Language programming in rural and regional Victoria: Listening to local viewpoints and designing new ways forward. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics.
Slaughter Y. & Hajek J. (2014) 'Helping to understand and support language education' Languages Victoria 18(1):41-43