How learning languages contributes to the curriculum
Language learning increases the knowledge and skills of students in intellectually and
socially unique and functional ways.
The following reasons for including the learning of languages in our schools are
interconnected: as with all learning areas, the outcomes of learning languages are
complex and entwined.
Cognitive connections

Recent brain research has indicated that particular learning areas develop
unique knowledges and skills. Languages, as a ‘subject’ discipline, develops
particular discourse and conceptualisation skills and knowledge.

Language cognition increases the repertoire and use of students’ ‘multiple
intelligences’

The cognitive development that occurs through language learning links to other
cognitive activities. These are not simply linguistic, but also spatial and
emotional and include other aspects of cognition.
Linguistic skills and knowledge

Using a language, beyond a cursory level of proficiency, encompasses
sophisticated knowledges and skills indicative of particular higher order learning
capacities.

Knowing more than one language extends competency in the first language.
The majority of the competent speakers of English in the world also are
competent in other languages. Bilingual English speakers have a wider literacy
repertoire and potentially greater linguistic flexibilities than monolingual
speakers of English.
Linguistic flexibilities

The development of globally operating information and communication
technologies (ICTs) has demonstrated the need for significant flexibilities in the
ways our students understand and use language. ICTs develop their own
‘languages’ (e.g. mobile phone text messaging) that increasingly draw on the
flexible application of the linguistic skills of users.

The information revolution exemplified by the internet and other accessible
communication and information sources draws on a range of languages, and an
understanding of how language works. For example, it is speculated that within
five years, the dominant language of the internet will be Chinese, not English.
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Connecting and interacting with multicultural, intranational and international
communities

Our students live and learn as part of a globalised community, as well as being
members of local, regional and particular language communities. Learning a
language and gaining skills of intercultural competence assist our students to
engage as members of, and moving within and across, many communities.

The curriculum of today with a focus on local-global connectivity, requires
cultural, linguistic and communication knowledge and skills, gained through the
study of languages.
Intercultural competence

Australia’s multicultural society is also multilingual. Skills in a language provide
students with insights into other cultures, and an ability to connect with them
and not simply observe them.

Language learning can develop intercultural competence by linking the ways
language and culture connect in students’ first-known and ‘learned’ languages.

Language learning develops understandings of language and culture as
concepts and the ability to reflect critically on languages and cultures, including
one’s own.
Connecting and interacting as part of the curriculum

Language encodes individual and social values. Developing … identity,
interdependence, communication and thinking requires understandings and
knowledge of languages.

Students … must have the notion that linguistic diversity and their own
language in particular are acknowledged and valued.

Languages make other learnings coherent with each other: artistic, linguistic,
geographical, mathematical/logical, historical and communication-based studies
and learnings connect with learning a language and its cultures. Language is
inseparable from ways of knowing the world: connecting with languages and
cultures involves connecting with world views and peoples.
Source: Dellit, J. 2002, Making Languages work: School models to consider, Adelaide: South
Australia Department of Education, Training and Employment, p. 5.
The information in the above document is sourced from material provided by the Asian Languages Professional
Learning Project, which is funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Education, Science and
Training under the Quality Teaching program. The views expressed do not necessarily represent the views of the
Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training.
The project is managed by the Asia Education Foundation (AEF) in partnership with the Australian Federation of
Modern Language Teachers’ Association (AFMLTA).
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