ACQ Vol 13 no 3 2011

Main languages spoken (excluding English): Arabic, Cantonese,Mandarin, Greek, Vietnamese, Hindi, Bengali, Italian, Samoan, Spanish, and Tamil

Figure 1. Main languages spoken by Australian children aged 4 to 5 years in each state and territory Note: The darker shade indicates 16–26% of children aged 4- to 5- years in NSW and Victoria speak languages other than English. The lighter shade indicates 4-9% and the lightest indicates 1–3% of children speak languages other than English in that state/territory.

The main languages other than English spoken by the children differed for each state/territory. The languages spoken by more than or equal to 0.5% of children in each state are listed in order from most to least and are displayed in Figure 1 and Table 2: New South Wales: Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Greek, Vietnamese, Hindi, Bengali, Italian, Samoan, Spanish, and Tamil. Victoria: Arabic, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Italian, Mandarin, Greek, Hindi, Turkish, Assyrian, and Somali. Australian Capital Territory: Other, Bengali, Cantonese, Croatian, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Macedonian, Russian, Tamil, and Urdu. South Australia: Greek, African languages, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Other, and Spanish. Western Australia: Vietnamese, Arabic, Cantonese, Italian, Spanish, and Somali. Northern Territory: Greek, and Other. Tasmania: Cantonese.

( n = 291, 5.8%), “not done at all” ( n = 1166, 23.4%), and “don’t know” ( n = 1424, 28.6%), and there were missing data for the remainder of the participants ( n = 256, 5.1%). Parents’ language status Primary language spoken by the children’s parents Forty-two different languages were spoken by the children’s parents. Most of the children’s parents spoke English as the primary language at home (parent 1: n = 4113, 82.5%; parent 2: n = 3480, 69.8%). There were missing data for 15% of parent 2 on this question ( n = 745). The next most common languages spoken by parent 1 were Arabic ( n = 89; 1.8%), Cantonese ( n = 66, 1.3%), Italian ( n = 59, 1.2%), and Vietnamese ( n = 54, 1.1%). After English, the next most common languages spoken by parent 2 were Arabic ( n = 87, 1.7%), Italian ( n = 56, 1.1%), Greek ( n = 47, 0.9%), and Mandarin ( n = 45, 0.9%) (see Table 1). Parents’ proficiency in spoken English Preschool children’s developing speech and language skills are facilitated by copying the models provided by their parents (Kohnert, Yim, Nett, Kan, & Duran 2005); consequently, it is of interest to understand the children’s parents’ English language proficiency. Parental proficiency in spoken English was determined during the first LSAC interview. Interviews were conducted with parent 1. The majority were conducted in English ( n = 4786, 96.0%); however, some interviews were conducted with people interpreting for the parent, specifically: a member of the family or friend ( n = 77, 1.6%), a professional interpreter (n

Queensland: Samoan, Vietnamese, and Italian. Children’s educational language environment

Over one-fifth of the children were regularly spoken to in a language other than English ( n = 1093, 21.9%). During the interview, parent 1 was asked to indicate “How well does the child’s teacher, centre or preschool understand the needs of families from a non-English background or indigenous background?” These parents indicated: “very well” ( n = 1050, 21.1%), “well” ( n = 796, 16.0%), “just okay”

115

ACQ Volume 13, Number 3 2011

www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au