Editorial.
Morgan, Anne-Marie
The final issue of Volume 49 of Babel takes up issues that continue
to influence the delicate balancing act we do as teachers of languages
working across the range of education contexts. These issues are
transition considerations, as students move from early years to primary
years, to secondary schools, and to university; the confounding
complexity of teaching Chinese to widely diverse learner cohorts; and an
old thorny issue of considering how to teach and have learners learn
increasing language 'banks' or resources, in the form of
vocabulary, such that these banks can be used effectively in
communicative and intercultural contexts of language use.
The first two papers are 'partner' research, in which one
team of researchers sought to understand the experience and attitudes of
senior secondary language learners preparing for transition to tertiary
learning contexts, and their preparedness for the different learning
environment they would encounter; and the other looked at the same issue
with new tertiary learners of languages. Robyn Moloney and Lesley
Harbon's paper shows us how students in three schools in New South
Wales responded to questions concerning motivation to learn languages,
confidence in their own self-efficacy and capacity, and construction of
a 'future self' that they envisioned they would be in tertiary
learning contexts. Their findings indicate that assisting students to
construct such an image, and to have aspirations associated with
feelings of competence and motivation to continue to study languages do
indeed seem to prepare students well for this significant transition.
Carolyn Stott and Ruth Fielding, as the other half of the research team,
found in their study of first-year university students in one Sydney
university, that the transition to tertiary learning, and in languages
in particular, is perhaps not as challenging as is assumed, with most
students in their sample making a successful transition, without too
many surprises confronting them. All these authors, however, point out
that it is not always a smooth transition, and call for improved
communication between secondary and tertiary languages educators, as a
way not only of fostering smooth transitions, but indeed of promoting
increased take up or continuation of language studies at university.
Andrew Scrimgeour provides further insights into both the diversity
of learners of Chinese in Australian schools, and ways to consider
responding to this issue, with curricula targeted to cohorts of learners
of different backgrounds. He draws attention to the changing demographic
in learners of Chinese in Australian schools, and to the drift away from
the study of Chinese in the later years of school for all but background
and first language users.
He takes us carefully through the different state and territory
responses to this issue, and also expands on how the new Australian
Curriculum for languages, with its three curricula for Chinese,
recognising first, background and second language learner cohorts, are
provided for across the years of schooling. While not offering a
complete solution to this complex situation of infinitely varied
calibrations of diversity, the new curriculum does at least target and
provide for these three groups differently, and more appropriately than
previous curricula, especially that designed for primary and middle
years learners.
Finally, Matthew Absalom takes us back to the 'basic' of
vocabulary learning, and the need for beginner learners to build and
engage with an increasing bank of language that can be used for
communication. In a pilot study to provide more data in an area of
language learning that has insufficient research data, he considers
beginner learners in a tertiary context engaging with four different
approaches to learning vocabulary, including that provided by Education
Perfect (formerly Language Perfect), offering online banks of tailored
and/or general vocabulary sets for beginner learners. He has some
perhaps surprising findings about which was most effective in this small
study, but concludes that all methods tried increased language resources
for students. It makes for interesting reading to consider how teachers
of languages continue to engage with this issue, especially in an
evidenced way, rather than relying on gut feelings about what works
best- for all learners.
I hope you enjoy the issue.
Anne-Marie Morgan
University of New England
