We Link

The Australian Government is funding the National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program (NALSSP) to increase opportunities for school students to become familiar with the languages and cultures of China, Indonesia, Japan and Korea, and is also funding the construction of 537 language-learning centres.

The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) has contracted Education Services Australia to build an online environment that collects and hosts data and facilitates connections between language-learning centres that promote the teaching of Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese and Korean languages.

Education Services Australia is working in partnership with Telstra, the Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations and the Asia Education Foundation to develop the technology platform and infrastructure to support primary and secondary schools across Australia to connect and collaborate online to develop and share language-teaching expertise.

The We Link project will be completed in late 2012. The online environment will enable teachers to:

• register their classroom and view other participating classrooms and institutions
• participate in live video conferences with other classrooms and institutions, and in webinars supporting the teaching of the four NALSSP priority languages
• view exemplar language lessons
• share digital content with all schools via the National Digital Learning Resources Network.

By belonging to the We Link community of practice, teachers and students will be able to participate in an expanded range of video conferencing opportunities with other teachers, classrooms, institutions and providers for both teaching and professional learning.

For further information, contact welink@esa.edu.au

_{Image acknowledgement: Reproduced with permission of Jane Weston.}