French war of words: Teachers refuse to surrender language

A GROUP of French language teachers has expressed outrage at a Department of Education decision to phase out French lessons in Bendigo public schools.The Loddon Mallee Network of French Teachers wrote to the Bendigo Advertiser to express concerns that dropping French subjects represented a “significant cultural loss for students and the Bendigo community”. The Department of Education, which is reconsidering the provision of languages other than English (LOTE), has instead decided to focus on two Asian languages – Indonesian and Chinese – and one European language, German.Department of Education regional director Ron Lake said the move to review foreign language studies was because of a decline in the number of students continuing to study a second language.Mr Lake said only eight per cent of year 12 students across the state, and two per cent in the Loddon Mallee region, studied a foreign language. “The numbers of students completing a language right through to year 12 is declining to a level where it is difficult to maintain pathways,” Mr Lake said.“It may be that we are offering too many languages and we may have better pathway results if we reduce the number of languages offered.” But French language teachers and network co-ordinators Jane Leahy and Barbara Pelly said the language review was about improving the provision of LOTE, not reducing the number of languages offered.“Why phase out an important international language spoken throughout the world and taught in most senior secondary colleges in Victoria?” Mr Lake said the final decision would rest with each individual school.He said written proposals for feedback would be provided to each school before developing a final policy, which would again be returned to Bendigo schools for approval.