Towards the establishment of a WACE examination in Japanese as a heritage language: Critical perspectives

Learning languages Other Than English (LOTE) has been recognised as a vital element of Australia’s current school educational program. The Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE), the highest secondary school award in Western Australia, enables students to take either English or another L...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hasegawa, Hiroshi
Other Authors: Dunworth, K.
Format: Book Chapter
Published: Springer 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/33120
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author Hasegawa, Hiroshi
author2 Dunworth, K.
author_facet Dunworth, K.
Hasegawa, Hiroshi
author_sort Hasegawa, Hiroshi
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Learning languages Other Than English (LOTE) has been recognised as a vital element of Australia’s current school educational program. The Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE), the highest secondary school award in Western Australia, enables students to take either English or another LOTE as a second language. For examples, students who are native speakers of English can take a WACE subject, say in Japanese, while students with Japanese as their first language can take English as their second language. However, while this would seem to cater for the needs of both students, it causes a dilemma for others. Those whose parent(s) speak Japanese as native speakers, but who were born or grew up in Australia are eligible to take WACE in either English as a second language or Japanese as a LOTE but may end up taking neither if they are considered to be native speakers of both languages. The School Curriculum and Standards Authority in WA has been handling such issues on a case-by-case basis, and it is not unusual to find students who feel forced to abandon their language learning completely for heritage language education, which can no longer be regarded as isolated or rare. This chapter discusses the challenges and implications of the establishment of a WACE in Japanese as a heritage language.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-331202023-02-27T07:34:31Z Towards the establishment of a WACE examination in Japanese as a heritage language: Critical perspectives Hasegawa, Hiroshi Dunworth, K. Zhang, G. WACE Heritage language education Background speakers Japanese in Australian schools LOTE Japanese as a heritage language Learning languages Other Than English (LOTE) has been recognised as a vital element of Australia’s current school educational program. The Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE), the highest secondary school award in Western Australia, enables students to take either English or another LOTE as a second language. For examples, students who are native speakers of English can take a WACE subject, say in Japanese, while students with Japanese as their first language can take English as their second language. However, while this would seem to cater for the needs of both students, it causes a dilemma for others. Those whose parent(s) speak Japanese as native speakers, but who were born or grew up in Australia are eligible to take WACE in either English as a second language or Japanese as a LOTE but may end up taking neither if they are considered to be native speakers of both languages. The School Curriculum and Standards Authority in WA has been handling such issues on a case-by-case basis, and it is not unusual to find students who feel forced to abandon their language learning completely for heritage language education, which can no longer be regarded as isolated or rare. This chapter discusses the challenges and implications of the establishment of a WACE in Japanese as a heritage language. 2014 Book Chapter http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/33120 10.1007/978-3-319-06185-6_8 Springer restricted
spellingShingle WACE
Heritage language education
Background speakers
Japanese in Australian schools
LOTE
Japanese as a heritage language
Hasegawa, Hiroshi
Towards the establishment of a WACE examination in Japanese as a heritage language: Critical perspectives
title Towards the establishment of a WACE examination in Japanese as a heritage language: Critical perspectives
title_full Towards the establishment of a WACE examination in Japanese as a heritage language: Critical perspectives
title_fullStr Towards the establishment of a WACE examination in Japanese as a heritage language: Critical perspectives
title_full_unstemmed Towards the establishment of a WACE examination in Japanese as a heritage language: Critical perspectives
title_short Towards the establishment of a WACE examination in Japanese as a heritage language: Critical perspectives
title_sort towards the establishment of a wace examination in japanese as a heritage language: critical perspectives
topic WACE
Heritage language education
Background speakers
Japanese in Australian schools
LOTE
Japanese as a heritage language
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/33120