Abstract Summary
This study explores the approaches of school leaders and teachers towards policy for the teaching and learning of foreign languages in the monolingual context of Australia. With a qualitative case study research design and engaging with notions of governmentality, the presentation provides preliminary analysis of approaches at two secondary schools.
Abstract :
Despite there being decades of a parade of policies for the teaching and learning of foreign languages in Australia, the uptake of languages in Australian schools has overall declined. Alongside the more recent development of a national curriculum covering foreign or world languages, the Queensland department of education released new policies that reflected the challenge of becoming multilingual in a monolingual context. Drawing on scholars such as Lo Bianco (2009) and Pennycook (2006), this study focusses on how school leaders and teachers of foreign languages at two Queensland secondary schools approach policy for the teaching and learning of foreign languages. Through a qualitative case study research design and notions of governmentality (Foucault, 1991), the study aims to provide understandings of knowledges and mentalities towards policy and its practice for developing the teaching and learning of foreign languages. Governmentality explains how policies set procedures in place for the adoption of language in schools regardless of the largely monolingual context of schools and school population. Through a close examination of the specific linguistic ecosystem of the two schools, and through observations of classroom practice and interviews of teachers, this study aims to illustrate the complexity and often contradictory nature of foreign language learning within a largely monolingual context of Australia. Most significantly, this study brings to light ways of understanding and thinking about policy for languages that may contribute to school leaders, teachers and policy makers developing the teaching and learning of foreign languages. The study ends by suggesting the importance of effective policy implementation and teaching strategies for successful multilingualism in schools.
