For Principals: April 2007

The Queensland Department of Education, Training and the Arts has identified Languages Other Than English as a key learning area in its curriculum development and has crafted a systematic and organised approach to providing school principals with both an understanding and a means to apply that understanding in supoporting the development of LOTE in the school system.

The headings used in the DETA web page on Curriculum Support for LOTE provide an indication as to where the Department sees the priorities:

  • LOTE within the Curriculum
  • Syllabus Implementation
  • Sustainable Language Programs
  • Intercultural Language Learning
  • LOTE and Literacy
  • LOTE and ICT
  • Boys and LOTE
  • Supporting your LOTE Teacher
  • Exemptions
  • Combating Racism

Each of these headings expands into specific and well thought out ideas on how and why to promote the learning of languages other than English.

A few quotes to whet your appetite:

"In an era of increasing global connectedness, learning a LOTE means that students must be able to use information communication technology (ICT) effectively to communicate and transfer knowledge across languages and cultures."

"By incorporating intercultural language teaching into its ethos, strategies and goals, LOTE seeks to broaden students' understanding of people from other cultures, and thus impact beneficially on attitudes and practices within school communities."

"Languages as part of a connected curriculum
  • Language learning is placed in a whole-of-curriculum context and connected to other learning areas; and the student's developing knowledge and skills are planned, overt and celebrated.
  • The contribution of languages to wider-contextual learning, such as internationalisation and intercultural competence, is planned and actioned in whole of-school ways.
  • The time allocation for language learning is appropriate to achieve linguistic growth."

Not only does the DETA website provide a clear and structured approach to developing languages education, it offers ample downloads providing practical suggestions for the planning and implementation of a successful languages education program.

Starting at the DETA LOTE home page and undertaking a little mouse-powered exploration should prove productive for all primary and secondary school principals.


Site Search
What You Can Do

This section of the Languages Education in Australia website focuses on principals who want to establish or augment the study of languages other than in English in their schools.

We aim here to present on a monthly basis a resource that may help to inform and empower principals to expand their understanding of the benefits of languages education.

It may be that your school has a high representation of students who speak a language other than English at home and you want to find a way to help them retain their cultural heritage.

Perhaps members of your local community, including students, parents and teachers, have expressed interest in developing a more practical focus on languages edcuation in your school and you are in turn seeking a means to structure this effectively to fit within the academic and social objectives for your students.

Or maybe you recognise that Australia's future lies in engaging more fully with the region in which we are physically located, and you seek an opportunity to develop the attention your curriculum pays to this issue.

We hope to present opportunities to underpin your understanding of the importance of languages education and provide by example some useful methodologies and practical applications at a school level.

Submissions for inclusion are most welcome.