Professor John Hajek (AFMLTA, Australia)

Professor John Hajek has a distinguished and lengthy career as a languages educator, and has made exceptional and outstanding contributions to the field as a leader of languages education throughout his career.

His contributions to community languages in Australia; to the professional engagement of teachers of languages in schools and universities; to the learning of languages in pre-schools, primary and secondary schools, in universities and in community schools; and his involvement in numerous projects to promote languages education and the importance of language recognition nationally and internationally in the political arena give him prominence that is recognised through many keynote presentation invitations, including several at AFMLTA international conferences and notably the Horwood Address in 2017, as well as consultation invitations from government, education departments, professional associations, and community organisations.

His work with schools and teachers of languages in schools is extensive, including consultations on pre-school and early years languages programs, with AFMLTA, with education departments and governments across Australia, and, of critical importance, with individuals and groups of languages teachers. His willingness to share and collaborate, to engage and give unlimited time to the profession has had a profound effect on languages teaching over the past decade. He is currently engaged in collaboration for a Vietnamese-English bilingual school, and has been active in bilingual schools networks, including for Italian-English schools and pre-schools. His work on literacy in these areas informs the collaborations and programs adopted in the schools, as well as engaging local communities.

His work in the school languages education space has led to development of new curricula, approaches to languages education, language teacher preparation, and community attitudes to learning languages and plurilingualism. He has provided extensive professional learning sessions for teachers of languages, across all the states and territories of Australia.

In summary, Professor Hajek has made exceptional contributions to the languages education field in Australia, that clearly meet the criteria for the FIPLV International Award. These contributions span community, school and university programs, and involve work with students, teachers, schools, departments, government, industry and communities. We believe him to be a highly deserving recipient of this award.