Issues Identified in the Previous Reports
Both Orton’s 2008 report and a study led by Lo Bianco(2009)have identified some common issues in the language education in Australian schools，including Chinese:
·a shortage of qualified language teachers
·decline in student，school，parental and community value for language learning
·insufficient time allocated to languages learning in schools
·lack of ability to study languages continuously and sequentially
·low motivation to study a language because of the fear in competing against native speakers and the perceived negative impact of language study on tertiary entrance scores.
These challenges can be attributable to the inherent difficulty of learning Asian languages，especially Chinese.Needs to achieve the same proficiency level upon graduation may vary between students—students learning their first language have very different needs from those learning their second language—and some languages require a greater time commitment to achieve proficiency than others(Department of Education and Early Childhood Development，2011).