What languages should children be learning to get ahead?
- Written by Warren Midgley, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, University of Southern Queensland
There are 7,099 known languages in the world today. Choosing which of these to teach our children as a second language is an important decision, but one that may be based more on feelings than facts.
There are several different ways of thinking about what languages we should offer at school. Research suggests that Australian school children may not be studying the right ones.
The world’s most commonly spoken languages
If sheer numbers of speakers is our primary consideration, and we want our children to learn languages that have the most speakers, then – excluding English – the three most commonly spoken languages are Mandarin (898 million), Spanish (437 million) and Arabic (295 million).
The languages of emerging economies
If the focus of language learning is to improve business prospects, then one strategy would to be to select those that are spoken in the fastest-growing emerging economies in the world.
At the beginning of the millennium, the four big investment countries were seen to be Brazil, Russia, India and China.
The mood seems to have swung, however, and a recent report of top emerging economies now lists the top three as India, Indonesia and Malaysia. Thus the top three would be Hindi, Indonesian and Malaysian.
The languages for travel
English remains firmly at the top of the list of languages useful for travel (spoken in 106 different countries). Other than English, the languages spoken in the highest number of countries are Arabic (57), French (53) and Spanish (31). This is the only list on which French, a popular choice with Australian students, is included in the top three.
The languages of Australia’s trade partners
Australia’s top two-way trading partners are China, Japan, the US and South Korea. Excluding the US – a predominantly English-speaking country – the top three second languages from a bilateral trade perspective would be Mandarin, Japanese and Korean.
The languages of other Australians
Another way to consider importance is to think about the languages most commonly spoken as second languages where we live. This can be measured at various levels. The top three second languages in Australia are Mandarin, Italian and Arabic.
Comparing ‘the best’ with what Australian school children actually learn
So how does our list of possible “best” second languages line up with the languages that are actually studied in Australian schools?
Of the ten “best languages” we have identified on our various lists, seven are in the top ten languages studied in Australian schools. However, three – Hindi, Malaysian and Korean – are not studied widely. And three of the most commonly studied languages in Australia – German, Greek, and Vietnamese – are not on any of the top three lists.
Authors: Warren Midgley, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, University of Southern Queensland
Read more http://theconversation.com/what-languages-should-children-be-learning-to-get-ahead-74305