I know a big focus and a big interest of this government — and of myself, personally — is cultural and language diversity. Languages, of course, hold the cultures and hold different ways of knowing. We know now that language development takes place especially early in life. That’s when we get hard-wired for it, and we have the ability thereafter to speak it. But we need to have a lot of exposure early in life.
What programs do we have that actually get our most proficient language speakers together with our very young? Are we supporting our elders and those who can speak these languages most proficiently? Are we supporting them getting
together with very young children, even if they’re just speaking in their presence, not necessarily teaching them? Apparently that will do the job. What programs do we have to support that?