Welcome to Volume 53 of Babel.

This first issue includes further contributions from the 2017 AFMLTA International Conference held on the Gold Coast in July 2017, as well as articles on Year 12 language learning retention and a study on parental attitudes and understandings about Polish as a community language.

The lead article by Nina Spada on attention to language form in a communicative curriculum is based on her keynote address at the conference. Spada raises questions for language educators in terms of how attention to language form is best addressed in contemporary curricula, and considers how the Australian Curriculum: Languages may influence teachers decisions around focus on form in classroom language teaching. She explores the benefits and effectiveness of both integrated and isolated approaches to form focussed instruction and concludes that both approaches can play an important role in classroom instruction, She reflects on the increasing complexity of curriculum constructs such as the Australian Curriculum: Languages and the challenges teachers now face in integrating not only grammar into a communication-oriented curriculum, but also attending to content, culture, function and meaning, in teaching a language in an increasingly multilingual and multicultural context.

John Hajek presented the Keith Norwood Memorial Lecture at the conference. His presentation focused on improving support for language education, and in his article he explores the challenges of language teaching in a social context in which a pervasive preference for English monolingualism continues to persist. Hajek uses the COD (Capacity, Opportunity, and Desire) model developed by Grin (2003), and elaborated by Lo Bianco and Peytton (2013), to understand and respond to issues in heritage language teaching and learning. He argues for an extended construct he has titled DECODE (pun intended) that includes, initially, identifying issues in Demand for languages education in school, and the need to Explain or better inform the community of the benefits of language learning in schools, and concludes with the need to Evaluate our successes and reconsider approaches in the light of unresolved issues or challenges.

Naomi Wilks-Smith, Grant Cooper and Richard Johnson continue the theme of promoting language learning in schools by exploring learners' motivations to continue languages learning in the senior secondary years. Drawing on data from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth, the authors identify socioeconomic status, immigration status, and place of residence as significant predictors of participation in language learning in the senior secondary years. The authors argue for a reconsideration of how languages learning opportunities might be better enhanced to encourage more students from lower socioeconomic groups, in outer urban and regional areas, and from monolingual English backgrounds (as well as other language backgrounds) to not only engage in language study, but to commit to continuing that study through the senior years.

Robert Debski reports on a study that explores parental attitudes about the value of community languages maintenance, and knowledge of issues involved in language maintenance across generations. He finds that among Polish-born parents and grandparents, knowledge of issues and approaches to language maintenance is weak, and concludes that more needs to be done to assist parents to understand research and strategies to support language maintenance and transmission, and so parents might understand the benefits of heritage language maintenance and be better informed to motivate learners to both continue to learn and to actively use their community language at home and in the community.

Common themes emerge among these articles that reflect some of the challenges we continue to face in the Australian community, and in the language education context in particular. More than a decade after Michael Clyne's (2005) reflection on the pervasive monolingual mindset afflicting Australian attitudes to community/heritage language maintenance, and language learning in schools, we see a continuing need to rationalise the benefits of language learning and explore ways to assist communities, learners, and policy makers to appreciate these benefits, despite, as Spada highlights, the fact that we are living in an increasingly mobile, interconnected, and multilingual and multicultural world, where monolingualism is a hindrance to effective communication and understanding across countries, communities and cultures.

Yesterday I was sitting in the courtyard of a mosque in a small provincial city in central China. It was time for afternoon prayers. Believers were in the mosque praying and others were still arriving. A man approached me and greeted me in the usual fashion in Arabic, and I replied with the appropriate Arabic response. He then asked (in English) whether I spoke Arabic or English, then spoke to me in English, and welcomed me to the mosque, and asked me if I spoke Chinese, which I do. He then asked me in Chinese if I had completed my prayers. I told him I was Christian. He then excused himself, welcomed me to stay, and went to pray. He didn't question who I was or why I was there. He moved across linguistic and cultural and religious boundaries without question. This is the new 'normal' that we need to instil in our next generation; to be proud of your language and culture heritage(s), to expand your linguistic and cultural horizons, and to celebrate the diversities and rich cultural traditions that others bring to our extraordinarily diverse and dynamic society, that is Australia (and the wider world) today.

Thanks to Kylie Farmer for her assistance in preparation of this issue.

Andrew Scrimgeour University of South Australia

Anne-Marie Morgan University of New England

Please Note: Illustration(s) are not available due to copyright restrictions.