• Assistant Minister for Education

Forty preschools across Australia have been selected from more than 1000 applicants to take part in the Abbott Government’s trial of a second language in the year before school in 2015.

Assistant Minister for Education Sussan Ley today unveiled the full list of successful preschools for the $9.8 million Early Learning Languages Australia (ELLA) trial, which will use play?based apps to help generate interest in language studies that can be built on in later schooling.

Ms Ley said the strong response to the trial – 1118 preschools in total – ensured a diverse representation of preschools involving every state and territory.

“Our children are now techsperts from early on, particularly with the vast array of interactive early education applications and games that are now available at their fingertips,” Ms Ley said.

“This play-based approach is therefore a fun and easy way to get our kids interested in learning skills for life, such as a language other than English, from early on in their education journey.

“These trials show the Australian public is clearly interested in the Government’s broader plans to promote participation in language studies from the early years through to year 12.

“And it’s easy to see why, when the proportion of Year 12 students studying a language other than English has dropped from about 40 per cent in the 1960s to about 12 per cent today.

“We also hope it will give our kids an early insight into other cultures and help promote inclusive communities, given almost one-in-five Australians speak a language other than English at home*.”

Ms Ley said there would be a total of 12 trial sites in NSW, nine in Victoria, eight in Queensland, five in WA, three in SA, and one each in Tasmania, the NT and the ACT.

This includes a mix of metropolitan, regional and remote trial sites across various preschool models, including government-run, standalone community-based and long day care, she said.

Ms Ley said each preschool would trial one of five languages – Mandarin, Japanese, Indonesian, Arabic or French – with the final language allocation to be confirmed before trials start next year.

“I would like to thank everyone who applied to participate in the trial. We’re essentially talking about one-in-seven preschools in Australia – a fantastic result,” Ms Ley said.

Ms Ley said the ELLA software was currently in the development phase and the first series of apps would be ready to be rolled out in time for the trials beginning early next year.

Early Learning Languages Australia (ELLA) trial sites

Complete Kids Early Learning Centre VIC Sunbury