Gov injects $11.8m into school trial for language learning app

<h2>The Morrison Government has announced it is providing an additional &dollar;11&period;8 million to expand the Early Learning Languages Australia &lpar;ELLA&rpar; program – a play-based digital application to help children learn a second language&period;<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p>More than 80&comma;000 kids at almost 2&comma;500 preschools are already using the program&period; From 2019 ELLA will be trialled for primary schools in foundation to year two &lpar;F-2&rpar; classes and will continue to expand in preschools&period; The Government has provided &dollar;27&period;5 million to the ELLA program since 2014&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><span style&equals;"text-decoration&colon; underline&semi;"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www2&period;deloitte&period;com&sol;au&sol;en&sol;pages&sol;economics&sol;articles&sol;evaluation-early-learning-languages-australia-trial&period;html">Deloitte undertook a a review of last year&&num;8217&semi;s trial in preschools and found there were short-term language-learning benefits to the program&period; <&sol;a><&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Minister for Education Dan Tehan invited schools to take part in the digital program&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Speaking more than one language is an increasingly valuable skill in a globalised world&comma;” he said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Children who are comfortable with learning a language and have done so are more likely to continue learning it throughout school&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Kids using ELLA apps demonstrate deeper&comma; more consistent and engaged learning than those using other apps&period; There were also identified benefits for children with language delays&comma; hearing impairments and from linguistically diverse backgrounds&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The app in question is a federal government initiative&comma; funded by the Australian Government Department of Education and Training but managed by a company called Education Services Australia&comma; which is a national not-for-profit ministerial company owned by the state&comma; territory and Australian Government education ministers&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>ELLA teaches a range of languages which complement the Australian Curriculum including Arabic&comma; Mandarin &lpar;Chinese&rpar;&comma; French&comma; Hindi&comma; Indonesian&comma; Italian&comma; Japanese&comma; Modern Greek and Spanish&comma; and work is underway to offer German&comma; Korean&comma; Turkish and Vietnamese&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Free training is offered to participating educators and teachers to support program implementation&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;education&period;gov&period;au&sol;early-learning-languages-australia"><span style&equals;"text-decoration&colon; underline&semi;"><strong>More information on the trial&comma; including expressions of interest&comma; is available online&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;span><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;

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