ENGLISH NEXT

“Protecting local languages and identities” (fragment)

TEACHING ENGLISH AND IDENTITY CHANGE

The argument about the language of education is also an argument about national identity, as much as about developing the intellectual skills of children. Amy Tsui, based in Hong Kong, has argued that many Asian countries are in the process of reinventing national identity at the same time as they are ‘legitimating’ the hegemony of English by making it a central feature of national development. In most cases, this paradox is resolved by appropriating English in ways which do least damage to their national language and identity. This includes pedagogical practices and systematic biases in research which evaluates them – traditional EFL* privileges very western ideas about expected relations, for example, between teacher, learner and text.
EFL may also privilege particular learning strategies. It could be argued that the cognitive skills needed to acquire literacy in Chinese, for example, are difficult to reconcile with those needed for learning spoken English. Rote learning necessarily plays a significant role in the former, whilst analytic, principles-based strategies plays an important role in the latter.
Hence, arguments about the priorities of different languages in education and the best age to start learning them may conceal deeper issues about cognitive learning styles and expected relationships between teacher and student.

SPEAK ENGLISH WITH A LOCAL ACCENT

Another form of appropriation relates to the form of English learned. One of the more anachronistic ideas about the teaching of English is that learners should adopt a native speaker accent. But as English becomes more widely used as a global language, it will become expected that speakers will signal their nationality, and other aspects of their identity, through English. Lack of a native-speaker accent will not be seen, therefore, as a sign of poor competence.

GRADDOL, D. “Protecting local languages and identities” (fragment). In: English Next – Why global English may mean the end of ‘English as a Foreign Language’. London: British Council, 2006. p. 117.

* EFL - English as a foreign language