It's a bit different in AUS, because Spanish is basically worthless here, and the southeast asian languages are a lot more useful.
Basically, in every local area of 10 primary schools, at least one has to offer French, one German, Italian, Greek, Japanese, Bahasa (pref. Indonesian) and Mandarin (the most important/common languages in AUS), so that kids can either go to those schools especially, or go to the school with the language they want two afternoons a week (4 hours a week) via some kinda bus.
Alternativekly, just make each school have to teach one language as standard (harder to pick then in the US, where Spanish is the obvious choice) and offer all the others as after-school programmes. In High School, at least 3 languages out of the aforementioned, or languages associated with the religion of private schools/the community, etc. (ie, Lebanese in areas with high Lebanese populations, Indigenous Languages, Hebrew, etc.), and within a group of 5 High Schools all the languages must be offered.
I personally had no choice in my studies up until year 7. From grade 2 until grade 6, I had to do Italian, which I can barely remember
.
In year 7, I was given the choice of Frenc, German and Japanese, and chose French (because I thought it'd carry on from Italian...wrong. Big time mistake, and we were only allowed to chpose one. i know now that German or Jap should've been my choice...).
I changed schools in year 9 and was given the choice of two of French, German, Japanese, Indonesia, or at our sister school, Mandarin. (They don't teach German, so there was a bit of a swap). I decided to continue my French, and applied to pick up German but the spots went to those who had already done it and I missed out-bugger).
Anyway, I did compulsory French until the end of year 10, when LOTEs are no longer compulsory, but continued to do it in year 11, sucked and dropped it at the end of last year.
I wish I could be btter at languages; I'd love to be fluent in at least one foreign language eventually, mais je ne pense pas c'est possible maintenant.
