There is now a lot of evidence that second language learning stimulates neural pathways (makes brains work better). Extra languages can promote cultural understanding and help us with trade. Is it time to move forward on this ?
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Wednesday poll – should a second language be compulsory and if so should it be Maori ?
Posted by Trevor Mallard on July 28th, 2010 Loading ...
Mandarin is going to be (actually almost already is) the tool of business and trade in Asia Pacific’s 21st century, just as English was around the world in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Agreed Loota.
The only purpose of having Maori in Schools is to keep alive a language which would otherwise die and it should be an option not compulsory.
I am unable to vote for some reason but I would definitely go for Maori compulsory throughout the entire of the school curriculum until 7th form and a third language compulsory for at least a couple of years.
Puts me in mind of David Mitchell’s take on support for Gaelic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvlQXPNwrqo
Rob, I didn’t think that English was compulsory until the last year of high school? (7th form was abolished years ago?)
Just looked it up, I see that English tends to be a compulsory subject through to and including year 12.
I never voted in this poll, and yet I only see results at the top!
@Rob, the trouble with that is that you then limit the other subject choices that the students have. A student may not like the language and prefer to take German and French but not be able to because they are stuck in Maori. People should learn Maori because they want to not because they have to. People tend to gravitate towards the right languages for them. Right now I’m seeing Maori as an attractive option to learn, but five years ago it was German that was the right language.
Three languages at once is a big ask. A person’s strengths may be Maths, science and economics subjects and it would be a waste of time to force them to get passes or fails in languages when they could be getting excellence in the other subjects.
Mandarin is more useful on the world stage, I’m not sure that it should be compulsory, but indeed useful. Maori I suspect will become cooler as time goes on and more people will take it up methinks
A Maori man once said to our school assembly, Maori is an easy language to learn if you want to and a difficult language to learn if you have to.
Maori I suspect will become cooler as time goes on and more people will take it up methinks
As slang (kind of like…right now), but not whole conversations or even sentences – too much effort!
Spud: A person’s strengths may be Maths, science and economics subjects and it would be a waste of time to force them to get passes or fails in languages when they could be getting excellence in the other subjects.
I’m not sure that this makes sense. The point of formative High School type education is not really (or not mostly, anyway) about trying to collect a few Excellence grades. It is about learning stuff.
Wouldn’t it be sensible to make people work on subjects that they are *not* so good at? I think that would make them better rounded, more educated people than allowing students to ghettoize into the subjects that they are already good at.
I don’t think that three languages is a big ask. Many students in European countries seem to learn three or four languages in school.
While Maori fluency is not all that common, Joe & Jane Kiwi do use a lot of Maori-isms in everyday language.
To name just a few examples…
* Cyber-hui
* Electric puha
* roflnui
* ngati cappuccino
And funnily enough, the Maori word for computer is the same for Chinese language – “electric brain”.
@Richard – tell that to the students who want to get into limited uni courses or courses full stop thanks to NACT
I think primary school is a better place to put wider learning and let’s face it a primary school student is going to have an easier time learning a language than a high school student.
@DeepRed I saw something written for Maori Language week and tried to look up a word on three different Maori online dictionaries and they all said word not found.
Richard – you are right about rounded people in general
I really think the Maori language is on the up and up rather than dying.
Hi Richard, can you please change your name. I think I was here first. What is posted above was not by me. Cheers.
Students in Asian countries also learn several languages..not that uncommon to find young people who speak five languages..Experts say the important thing is learning as a child..ideal ages between 2 and 12. This has been in the media again recently.
My husband speaks three languages fluently plus 4/5 Chinese dialects..all but one of these he learned as a young child. The dialects were of necessity having to fit in with the Chinese community in a new area. He is an engineer , very good at maths and science..I think the choice of either of these groups of talents is artifically created.
I recently went to German classes having learned some German about 40 yrs ago..I had a strange and interesting experience..whenever I was trying to learn new German vocab , the latin and Maori words would come to mind at the same time …I learned Latin about 40 years ago and some Maori about 25 yrs ago..It seems to me that languages are all stored in the same part of the brain..brushing up on one helps you learn and remember another. For the record , I started leaning a second language when I was eight years old.
@Richard; 12:28pm.
Good for you. Why don’t you change your name if you are concerned?
@Theresaj – yes it’s called second language interference
Can the Moderators please advise who was here first using this username and let one of us know to change.
Richard you were – and were here earlier still including your surname. Having said that there appear to have been 5 different “Richards” and we are not going to tell people to use particular names. If you guys want to call yourselves RichardM or something that will sort but frankly I don’t care. Trevor
Funny out of the two Richard’s its easy to see that one guy is quite a reasonable, polite chap and the other is…not
@Loota at 1:52pm
I agree.
Thanks, Trevor.
Please Spud not your job Trevor
So what age do you think languages should be introduced into school? 
education is about training children in certain methods and ways of thinking… the stuff is largely irrelevant
of course education is the ultimate propaganda tool, even (if not especially) in free countries.
Insidious isn’t it
I will learn Maori, when the Maori learn english bro
Trevor, you could have mentioned NZ Sign Language in one of your options. It is an official language, and needs nurturing.
No and No…
Yes! Sign language, I’ll learn some – just for you Hilary
Thanks Spud. But don’t do it for me, as I only know a few words. Do it to support the culture and identity of our Deaf citizens.
There is also other research.
Neural stimulation as such is gained from may activities and no widely accepted research conclusion validated language as superior except in the learning of languages.
Having your engineer learning another language to become a better engineer is not valid. Similarly with may other abilities which are not highly language based.
It is a fallacy to loosely imagine language as being the thinking tool so is beneficial to all activity.
A mathematician or musician, carpenter, electrician or mother uses language to communicate ideas when leaning or interacting. You don’t need to do it in several languages but can if you have too in settings that demand it.
The time and other overheads of learning extra languages is high and unless they are needed for a purpose then they are a luxury in most setting.
Idle rich used to learn foreign languages because they related more comfortably with rich classes elsewhere than the people of the land they lived in.
This issue is a distraction.
Schools have been a dumping ground for all sorts of responsibilities and treatment of social ills.
Now just to mention that schools should follow up this current topic is at the best absolutely fool hardy.
I watch tiny children in kindergarten of mainly asian and European ilk spoken to in Maori to by their teacher ritually each day because it is the policy put together by some politically timid administrator of politically radical evangelist. Kindergarten is deemed as an important time of preparation for a range of developmental task ahead.
Who is it that is determining that teaching of a language outside of that of instruction is a valid activity wanted by all parents who’s children attend. Some communities will want this and others Iraqi or Thai.
The chance of children to engage in 3 to 5 year appropriate cognitive development through a range of long established activities should not be displaced by the capturing of a state education by sectoral thinking.
It is a delicate matter.
Would you want National Standards in such language teaching.
@Loota English is practically compulsory for year 13 also due to University Entrance requirements not usually being met in year 12 by those who aren’t good at English and those who are wanting to keep doing it. I didn’t know anyone at my school who wasn’t doing it right through. There is no longer officially a 7th form but people still call it that.
@Spud The whole point of compulsory other languages is that they help increase your study abilities in other courses. I attended a specialist language college in the UK for a couple of years where it was mandatory to do 2 languages through until year 12/13 where it was mandatory to do one. It was achieved perfectly satisfactorily by giving unequal amounts of teaching time to courses according to their importance and made for a more rounded syllabus.
Also in general I see Maori as too important to our culture to not attempt to learn. I regret I did not get an opportunity to learn it fluently in school and will certainly be correcting it now.
@Rob, I’m pleased that you will be learning Maori, I plan to learn some Maori when I get the chance this year
Isn’t that useful in nerdy type subjects? 
If you want a useful language then how about Latin?
It depends on when you start learning these other languages. I’m sorry to say that I never really learned English grammar even to this day, people leave high school without knowing English grammar. This should be taught. Then they get to uni and lecturers have to help the class out with it. I was lucky to have well spoken teachers and Ma so learned pretty good English by osmosis.
It really depends on when you start the languages, by the time a student reaches high school language learning is no longer like a sponge. Languages are very time consuming to learn well – with the exception of people who just get fluent in six months
I’ve learned in my life that sometimes you have to put aside things that you enjoy, that are not quite your strengths in order to have the time to get ahead in life.
@Spud I am doing a law degree at the moment so am learning plenty of Latin. I intend to use my law degree later in life to exterminate as much of it from the law as possible because it degrades normal citizens understanding of it so much. Makes it hard for me to learn to like it although I do enjoy reading the occasional Roman text (in English) and wish I could read the real version.
I agree learning early is best but learning the high end syntax in grammar in language is actually quite helpful for understanding English grammar. Learning French actually helped my quite a lot with learning English because you see things in your own language you never noticed before. Learning to speak the language as a kid doesn’t do that as we all know from our learning of English.
I always thought – as a non lawyer – that the latin concepts in law were supposed to bring a historical and philosophical context to law.
Not suitable for laypeople who need only plain language explanations, but for an expert it seems quite suitable. I suppose the same applies in medicine, which also seems full of latin.
Your last paragraph indicates that you do appreciate the contribution another language brings in terms of colour and depth to a passage so perhaps latin could be considered in the same light?
@Rob, Aw, just a personal opinion but I like Latin being in subjects – dumbing down of language seems such a pity and there’s so much history in it. You can trace so much from knowing Latin. Plus it helps if you want to learn more romance languages
I see language learning as a child differently. If they start in primary school then they will have a better chance of learning the second language grammar in high school than starting from scratch.
German helped me understand English – I never knew we had a present continuous tense or even the existence of one. We did learn a lot about advertising Jargon and war poetry though
@Loota – beautiful post, brings a tear to my eye
Have you got only one eye Spud? I thought spuds had lots of eyes.
LOL
John W – “I watch tiny children in kindergarten of mainly asian and European ilk spoken to in Maori to by their teacher ritually each day because it is the policy put together by some politically timid administrator of politically radical evangelist. Kindergarten is deemed as an important time of preparation for a range of developmental task ahead”
What a small minded thing to say. I see kindergarten and year one and two kids being taught very basic Maori, i.e. days of the week, months of the year, count to 10, animals, “my name is ….” etc… There is also fun in these lessons, songs to sing. I see kids loving this.
John W: Having your engineer learning another language to become a better engineer is not valid.
No, of course not. That’s not the argument.
You have your engineer learn another language to become a better person.
It would be a good idea for a linguist to learn a smattering of engineering for the same reason.
Actually, its not entirely true that learning another language would not make a better engineer. A lot of engineering is about communicating ideas. Learning a second language *does* help with communication skills in the primary language. But sure, it probably won’t help much with the calculation components of engineering.
The time and other overheads of learning extra languages is high…
Yes, there is a cost associated with education. So, what? What is important is whether the benefit outweighs the cost.
Would you want National Standards in such language teaching.
Of course not.
@Simon uma rapiti uma rapiti uma uma uma
Well when the engineer is tired and cusses at his mistake he can do it in another language
To be any good in a language you either have to immerse yourself in another country or spending many hours studying hard. It’s just an endless stream of words to learn 
A person ought to do it out of wanting to rather than anything else 
Simon
Thanks for the comment. I support what you say re learning counting and greetings plus rudimentary introduction to Maori or any language particularly at Kindergarten or other pre-school but balance and appreciation of what is important to the child is paramount.
That is not what I see in the case quoted where ritualistic greeting and farewell in another language had replaced the common language used, in this case English. Young kids love learning and a mixture of cultures in a community gives an opportunity to share. Kids who grow up together learn to understand something of differences around them, and the essential similarities. That area of learning is a part of the foundation building for their own confidence and feeling accepted.
A policy approach on what languages are to be shared and how, would seem to be just loading learning institutions rather than creating understanding of children and their communities.
Dick
I agree with your extension of my late night comment. Diversity is a strength in a community and personal development highlights the expression of that.
As much as the great education clobbering machine rolls on with many swings to varied bright ideas and emphasis, individual grow and blossom. many at different times of their lives. Some feel less happy about how the education system treated them.
My point about an engineer was not meant to refer to his wealth of personal growth but as someone who provides specialised technical knowledge and perspective.
Whether she/he be rich, poor, from a multitude of cultural and language exposure, they are not the determining factors as to whether he or she is competent as an engineer in the technical setting.
Adding rich alternative language experience and learning is applauded by many but is just another point of view as to what is important.
Comment and research around the advantages of learning another language is varied. There are swings and roundabouts.
You can’t do everything in the busy years of growing up.
Appropriate achievement and some measure of acceptance is a basis for a healthy individual in any culture.
In NZ we have a very mixed cultural legacy which is experienced in varied ways for each of us. No one way is right but home is the base for most and the language of the home is very important.
A lot of research points to the level of home language acquisition being a strong determinant in a persons language functioning. Rich experience in home language before the age of 6 seems particularly important. Research with multi lingual home situations generally does not run counter to this important finding.
The matter of a young persons identity also appears to be quite strongly linked with home language.
National standards and minimal standard in English are elitist and destructive in my view.
Making Maori compulsory is silly as it is a minority language in NZ. No denigration of Maori implied.
Do we need one compulsory language ? Having English as the main language of instruction is difficult enough for many, English speaking and otherwise.
To have a life shaping judgment made on your ability to measure up to an arbitrary standard in a language is an old system that continues to be promulgated.
That is the mark of a system based on competition, winners and losers.