Empowering Asian Language Speakers Symposium

Hosted by The University of Queensland School of Languages and Cultures and supported by the Asian Studies Association of Australia.

It is important for schools to teach languages because more and more people are speaking languages other than English at home. The Australian government recognises the importance of different languages in the community and history of Australia, but Asian languages are largely seen as “national strategic languages”, rather than languages of Australian society. In addition, the reported “imposter syndrome”, where migrant background youth do not wish to maintain their heritage languages to become “true” Australians, often means that their linguistic skills and cultural knowledge are not always valued in the education system.

Currently, there are not enough students studying languages in high school. A shortage of qualified language teachers is cited as a reason, but the relationship between teaching qualifications, university studies, and learner profiles is hardly acknowledged as an issue that contributes to the problem. Many universities don't offer programs suitable for language skills and cultural knowledge of heritage speakers.

The symposium will bring researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and community members of six major Asia languages in Australia —Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese – to share their experiences and insights into possible solutions to the problem.

This symposium will:

• evaluate the current system for becoming qualified language teachers;
• address problems surrounding opportunities for native and heritage speakers within the education system for language learning; and
• propose a change to increase the number of qualified teachers in Australian schools.