Australia has always been a multilingual country. According to the latest census, 24.8 per cent of Australian households speak a language other than English.
Multilingualism is not rare or uncommon. In fact, the majority of the world's children are multilingual.
Being multilingual has advantages and benefits for both individual children and society as a whole. However, many Australian children are at risk of losing their home language because of the heavy influence of English monolingualism. Children may need extra support to maintain their home language.