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Speaker 1: Now let's talk about languages. So there are calls for

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Speaker 1: the country to make it compulsory to learn a second

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Speaker 1: language at school. It turns out there are now fewer

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Speaker 1: students learning a second language than there were in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirties. Juliet Kennedy as the president of the Association

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Speaker 1: of Language Teachers.

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Speaker 2: Juliet, Hello, Hi, Heather, how are you going very well?

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Speaker 1: Thank you? So are we talking about it making it

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Speaker 1: compulsory for years seven to ten? Are we?

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Speaker 2: Yes? That's right, Yes, we would like to make languages

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Speaker 2: compulsory from year seven to ten.

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Speaker 1: Aren't we missing? I mean, that's fine, but aren't we

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Speaker 1: missing the most important years to learn a language, which

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Speaker 1: I would have thought would be under five.

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Speaker 2: Well that's a really good question. Ideally in an ideal world,

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Speaker 2: and what many countries already do is teach languages from

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Speaker 2: year one right the way through to high school, such

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Speaker 2: as the likes in South Africa and Europe and some

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Speaker 2: parts of Australia and England. However, the recommendations put through

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Speaker 2: by the Chinese Language Week Trust are meant to be

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Speaker 2: immediately implementable, so we wouldn't have a workforce to start

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Speaker 2: from year one. All the way through to year eleven,

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Speaker 2: but we would have a workforce there from year seven

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Speaker 2: to year ten definitely.

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Speaker 1: And in an ideal world, we start basically the minute

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Speaker 1: they walk into the school.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely, in an ideal world, that is the best

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Speaker 2: time to start. But we need to make steps in

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Speaker 2: that direction before we can do that.

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Speaker 1: And what is the smart thing? I mean, what do

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Speaker 1: you guys think. Do you think that we get to

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Speaker 1: choose which languages our kids learn or do we just

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Speaker 1: have one and we go this is what you all learn.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's also an excellent question. I think we were

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Speaker 2: going to make language learning compulsory that it's quite a

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Speaker 2: complex issue, and so my personal view is that we

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Speaker 2: need to begin with tad l Marii as our official

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Speaker 2: language and our indigenous language, and also think about New

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Speaker 2: Zealand Sign language. But it's also really important that students

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Speaker 2: have a chance to learn other languages, including heritage languages

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Speaker 2: which is spoken in our community, but also kind of

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Speaker 2: world stage languages such as Chinese or French, or Spanish

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Speaker 2: or German or Japanese. So it's a very tricky question

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Speaker 2: to ask. I think some hard decisions would have to

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Speaker 2: be made by school communities but there are ways around it.

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Speaker 2: If we strengthen distance education, for example, in New Zealand

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Speaker 2: like they have in Australia, we would be able to

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Speaker 2: offer a wider choice for kids that didn't want to

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Speaker 2: go with the chosen languages of the school in the

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Speaker 2: school community.

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Speaker 1: Juliet, thanks very much appreciated, Juliet Kennedy, New Zealand Association

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Speaker 1: of Language Teachers Presidents.

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Speaker 2: For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to

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Speaker 2: the podcast on iHeartRadio.