Editorial

Abstract

Welcome to Volume 52. Volume 51 finished with a focus on the teaching of Chinese in Australian schools and universities, as part of the global increase in the teaching and learning of Chinese. Thank you to all those who wrote to the editors congratulating them on this issue, including many teachers of other languages, and from across school and university years of teaching. Over the next few years, we hope, from time to time, to provide a similar focus for other languages, and the important role each language plays in shaping languages education in Australia and connecting Australian learners to languages, cultures and experiences of global communities. The rise of Spanish, for example, warrants attention, as do the newer languages introduced in the last round of curricula development in the Australian Curriculum: Languages, including Arabic, Hindi, classical languages and the sign language Auslan. The core mission of the Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations (AFMLTA) is to champion the learning of all languages, and to support their teaching and teachers. This mission is, and remains, a key focus for Babel, as its academic journal.