So what language are you learning at school?

It should be a serious question. 

My attention was drawn to an article in the Spectator. Punjabi parents are apparently asking their children be taught Punjabi at school. 

My nephews went to "Greek school" on Saturday mornings - and hated it. I taught a child who was profoundly physically disabled and unable to speak. He wanted to go to Greek school like his brother and his brother admitted it was the only reason he liked going as well. (The child I taught can read both Greek and English now.) 

My goddaughter objected so strongly to learning Chinese that her mother eventually ceased trying.  She has had to try and learn Chinese as an adult pursuing a profession because it is essential in Singapore.

Children who go to school in an English speaking country are probably fortunate they are learning in one of the most difficult of all languages. Their linguistic achievements however will almost certainly be lower than a child who learns English as a second language or a foreign language. 

But which other language should you learn apart from English? It is an easy question and a difficult one. It is often easy for a child whose family speaks another language at home. They may already have some of the basics. There will often be good family, social and cultural reasons to learn such a language, even a "minority" language. 

We "teach a language" in junior primary and primary years here. The most common ones in this state are languages like Chinese or  Japanese, Italian,  Greek or perhaps French. It depends on who is available to teach and how fluent they are. The classes are concerned as much about "culture" as they are about the actual language. The result is that children really learn very little.  In high school they are faced with the same issue. They may not even be able to continue with the language they were supposedly taught in primary school.  More likely than not their teacher will not be a native speaker of the language.  They might get five forty-five minute lessons a week if they are lucky. You will learn very little Chinese or Japanese in that time and not much more Italian or French or Vietnamese.  We are told that Asian languages are important (and they are) but the reality is they are often badly taught in school. The head of an Asian studies department told me he would prefer to have students who had never studied the language they were there to study. They could start from scratch and not have to "unlearn" so much.

Part of the problem here is the insistence on being "multi-cultural". That sounds fine until you get a very small minority group demanding "their" language be taught so they do not "lose their culture". It cannot be done. There are more than eighty languages spoken at home in this country.  The SBS caters for all of them to some extent. It is an incredibly expensive exercise. 

There are about 240,000 speakers of Punjabi here. It is the fifth most spoken language in the country. That said there are only 20,000 in this state. How do you cater for their children? Is it the most important second language for them to learn? 

There are around 2,200 speakers of Pitjatjantjara in this state. A great deal of money is spent teaching the even smaller number of children who speak it. We are told this is essential so as to retain their culture and keep the language alive. It brings with it as many problems as it does benefits. Punjabi has a stronger case in terms of numbers but trying to suggest one language should be retained and another be given resources to expand is much more complex. 

It might help if we first really taught English in school - just so we can actually speak to each other.