Six years is good but eight years is better
By Ricardo Ma. Duran Nolasco, Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, December 23, 2011—One of 10 things that President Benigno Aquino promised to fix in the country’s basic education relates to the medium of instruction. While campaigning for the presidency in 2010, his exact words were:

“From pre-school to Grade 3, we will use the mother tongue as the medium of instruction while teaching English and Filipino as subjects.  From Grades 4-6(7), we will increasingly use English as the medium of instruction for science and math and Filipino for Araling Panlipunan (social studies). For high school, English should be the medium of instruction for science, math and English; Filipino for AP, Filipino and tech-voc education.” (Emphasis supplied.)

The phrase “increasingly use English as medium of instruction for science and math and Filipino for Araling Panlipunan” can only be interpreted as the continued use of the learner’s first language (L1) as primary medium of instruction (MOI) throughout the elementary grades. It does not mean that English and Filipino will become the MOI starting Grade 4 as some have misinterpreted the phrase to mean.
The President’s intentions are clear. Before his term ends in 2016, he wants to institute an honest to goodness mother tongue-based multilingual education program (MTBMLE) to replace the outmoded bilingual program laid down by Marcos in the early 1970s. He also wants to improve on the Arroyo administration’s Department Order No. 74, issued in 2009, which already provides for the L1 as the learning medium up to at least Grade 3.

Language-in-education research worldwide has consistently shown that students learn better and faster when they are taught in their L1…

(To be concluded next week)

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Six years is good but eight years is better (Conclusion)
By Ricardo Ma. Duran Nolasco, Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, December 31, 2011—Research has shown that it takes six to eight years of first language (L1) education for children to develop their cognitive and linguistic skills in that language. Only then is it advisable to shift them to second language (L2) instruction. But why has the Department of Education chosen an early-exit model (three years of L1 education) for its K-to-12 curriculum?

One reason implies that we are very slow learners, so slow in fact that it took us more than 30 years before realizing that we were going the wrong way in our language-in-education policy. In truth, even today we are still implementing a distorted version of bilingual education where two L2s are used as media of instruction.

Meanwhile, for the rest of the world, bilingual education has always meant using the language that children use most and another language of wider communication as languages of instruction.
Another possible reason is—to quote creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson—the tyranny of common sense, which goes like this: if we start our children early enough in English, they will master it in no time at all. The more time there is for English, the better. This notion is completely a myth, as empirical evidence repeatedly shows.

Stephen Walter compared the reading proficiency of Grade 3 children in Eritrea, all of whom were taught in the L1, with that of Cameroonian children in Grades 4, 5 and 6 who were taught in the L2 in a submersion program.  He found out that in an L2 instructional model, it takes five to six years to approximate the reading skills learned in three years or less in an L1 model. According to Walter, even after six years in an L2 model, children read with low levels of comprehension.

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Notes for public speakers
By Butch Dalisay, The Philippine Star

MANILA, December 19, 2011—I’ve been attending quite a few conferences lately — a condition that seems to afflict academics and professionals in their 40s and 50s — giving me the chance both to make and to listen to presentations on various subjects of literary interest. That means talking and listening to other writers from all over the world, which can be as thrilling and as informative as either your wedding night or watching paint dry on the wall.

While there’s no doubt that there’s important knowledge to be gained at these conferences, the practical truth is that half the time, sitting in the gallery, your thoughts are elsewhere halfway around the planet, because the speaker simply isn’t connecting with you. It’s a sad waste of the speaker’s effort and the listener’s time, something that could be prevented if speakers are as mindful of their audience as they are of their message.

This is probably one reason why academics make poor politicians: they’re used to mumbling and droning among themselves about the most obscure subjects. Given a larger, more diverse crowd to address, they retreat into their competencies — their comfort zones.

Some people, you might say, are born speakers — and yes, some of them not only become politicians but make great despots. Those who aren’t could yet improve, without having to resort to the reputed method of Demosthenes of speaking with pebbles in his mouth. If you’ve seen The King’s Speech, you’ll see how it’s possible to correct even the worst of speech defects.

I’ve been told that I have a good speaking voice — a blessing all the males in the family got from our late dad — but voice is hardly the make-or-break factor in public speaking. It helps, but if you have nothing to say or are saying something badly, then silence will be preferable to your boring baritone.

What I’d like to deal with today isn’t so much a problem of the tongue as of the mind, having to do with making sure that your message is getting across to its intended recipient.

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Some notes for a seminar on editorial writing
By Juaniyo Arcellana, The Philippine Star

MANILA, December 19, 2011—Be current, maging makabuluhan,

Not all topics will interest kids of your age,

Pero iwasan maging trivial o ‘yung pasuroysuroy (pasaway)

Lang ang sulat.

Write in the language you are most comfortable in,

Sa madaling salita, magsulat sa wikang

Kinagisnan, at gawing ugali ang magbasa,

Because the things you read filter into the language

Of dreams, and so make you a natural.

Di importante ang may tugma, o rhyme and meter,

Pero nakakatulong ito, lalo na pag gusto mong

Matuto ng disiplina. Kelangan pa bang imemorize yan?

Oo, lalo na kapag flip-top.

(Patalastas ni Boy Pickup:

Ba’t mahirap maging journalist?

Pakalat kalat kasi, eh).

Come to think of it, each of us has his or her

Own language, ang lagay eh gusto lang natin

Makumbinsi ang nagbabasa na mas makabuluhan

Ang ating pagiisip…

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Where we are in digital publishing
By Butch Dalisay, The Philippine Star

December 12, 2011—Let me share the highlights of a talk I gave last week at the University of Western Australia in Perth on how digital publishing has changed the face of literature in the Asia-Pacific region.

There’s no doubt that digital publishing has taken the Asia-Pacific by storm. A tsunami may be a terrible metaphor to apply to the region, but a gentler version of this big wave is what it is, a steady and sure encroachment of digital media on the terrain of traditional publishing.

A cursory review of what’s out there will show that the region has been eager to adopt digital publishing — by which I mean not just the application of digital processes to printing but the publication of e-books, e-magazines, and such —albeit with certain apprehensions and reservations.

In China, where the 2nd Conference on Digital Publishing in Asia-Pacific was held last week in Shanghai, industry leaders are looking to serve more than 120 million digital readers in a market of Internet users expected to exceed 750 million by 2015.

In South Korea — where as of 2009, 95 percent of all homes had broadband —the government has decided that all public-school textbooks will be digital by 2015, a move for which it has allotted $2.3 billion. Scholars and industry analysts are closely tracking Korea’s transition to a totally networked society, particularly the impact of e-books on education — not just books ported over from print, but “books that integrate media and social networking,” according to one expert.

In Singapore, a homegrown e-book reader called the KeyReader may be late to the party, considering the predominance of the iPad and the Kindle, but it has one big plus going for it: free access to over 900,000 e-book titles in the collection of the National Library Board.

By contrast, Malaysia seems to be running late in the e-book department; as of mid-2010, it had yet to have an online e-book seller, and a Chinese-made e-book reader was just being brought in by a media company.

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A city where people speak French and English is a burden
By Roberto S. Salva, Philippine Daily Inquirer

December 4, 2011—When I traveled to Quebec City, the heart of French Canada, I realized that I had been misinformed. The locals, it turned out, were not really bilingual. They spoke French, and English was a burden.

Since I did not speak French, the only Quebecois I talked to with some depth while I was in Quebec City was a deaf psychologist. And we conversed in ASL (American Sign Language).

I was able to travel to Quebec City to present a simple statistical analysis of deaf sexual abuse in an international congress. Before I left, I promised myself to show my gratitude to the people of Canada whose taxes made me participate in the congress. Thus, when I was there, I tried to befriend at least one of the locals and tried personally to give my gratitude. But I had difficulty conversing in French.

I arrived three days before the start of the conference and on my first day, I was only able to eat once. I did not understand the directions to the nearest fast food from the university residence where I was staying. The locals tried their best but I could hardly grasp the directions they gave me. I could also not easily memorize the French names of the streets and establishments nor get them right—they were not words and sounds I was used to.

The Quebecois’ native language is French and English is a language they seldom use. They use English as often as Cebuano speakers like me use Tagalog in our Cebuano-speaking hometowns, which is almost never. In Quebec, most of the television programs, street signs and written materials are in French.

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Teachers need to get caught reading, too
By Neni Sta. Romana Cruz, Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, December 10, 2011—After three heady days of rubbing elbows with superstars Junot Diaz and Edward P. Jones, two Pulitzer Prize winners who flew in from the United States to grace the National Book Development Board’s second international literary festival, savoring what they and many other admired and respected homegrown writers led by Cebu-based Resil Mojares had to say about their craft, it seemed imperative to tackle the question of literacy and readership. And to get even more basic, starting our readers young. And continuing to want to read.

Thus, one of the final sessions of the three-day Great Philippine Book Café at the Ayala Museum, after all the discussions on honing the craft of writing and having authors talk about their books, had to be on getting children to read. For this we had a panel of fervent literacy advocates: university professor Ralph Galan, children’s literature blogger Tarie Sabido and digital publisher and book blogger Honeylein Peralta. The three speakers offered practical tips that parents and teachers can use not only in the reading month of November but all year round, no matter the season. And they debunked many prevailing myths about reading and young readers.

Sabido offers a website that she swears by for all kinds of no-fail reading ideas: www.kidlitosphere.org which is administered by the Society of Bloggers in Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Among the staggering wealth of ideas are themes like “Nonfiction Monday,” “Poetry Friday,” “Time Slip Tuesday,” and accompanying writing lessons and arts and crafts for specific titles. Ultimately the best lure for children to read is a good book that will make reading an unforgettable experience.

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A mid-November treat
By Butch Dalisay, The Philippine Star

November 28, 2011—It won’t be the first thing that will come up when you Google the acronym “MILF” (and neither will certain secessionists down south), but for the second year in a row now, the Manila International Literary Festival (Nov. 16-18) has been a resounding success, proving that writing is alive and well in this country, and that we’re beginning to look outward for new readers to reach, even as we develop our local audiences.

Krip Yuson beat me to a recap of the MILF’s calendar of events last week, which is just as well, because I can now simply say thank you to National Book Development Board executive director Andrea Pasion and her indefatigable crew for organizing MILF2 and for inviting me to be a part of it, as panelist, moderator, and member of the audience. I have been to many literary festivals around the world — in New York, Sydney, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Shanghai, among others — and can say with certainty that while our fledgling festival may be smaller in scale, it was just as well-organized, as useful, and as lively and provocative as any I have attended.

What’s even more remarkable is that this was practically an all-volunteer event, with the local speakers and moderators all freely contributing their time and effort to ensure the festival’s success. The festival sponsors included the Ayala Museum, Philippine Airlines, the Filipinas Heritage Library, National Book Store, the Book Development Association of the Philippines, Penguin, Vibal Foundation, the Manila Bulletin, and CentralBooks.

My choicest assignment at MILF2 was a one-on-one conversation with the Dominican-American fictionist Junot Diaz, whose first novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007. (The other big name in MILF2 was the very affable Edward P. Jones, also a Pulitzer Prize winner for his novel The Known World.) I guess I drew this assignment because I had met and had it off well with Junot before, at the Sydney Writers Festival in 2008, where I shared the stage with him in one of the festival’s penultimate events (and I thought for a minute back there that the organizers had decided to do the pairings alphabetically, with Jose Dalisay landing the spot beside Junot Diaz).

Forget, for a minute, the Pulitzer and all the accolades earned by Oscar Wao — read the book for yourself…

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Why schools are failing our children (Part 2)
By Magtanggol T. Gunigundo I, Philippine Daily Inquirer

November 25th, 2011—Many Filipinos think that a learned person is one who can speak English fluently. This is clearly a residue of our colonial mentality that looks up to a foreign language as superior to Philippine languages.

This kind of thinking has seriously undermined students’ learning in Mathematics, Science and the other subjects. In 2008, the UP National Institute for Mathematics and Science Education (UP Nismed) stated that “most students, even high school seniors, (cannot) understand what they are reading and (neither can they) do the necessary calculations to solve scientific problems.”

According to UP Nismed, one of the culprits for this sorry state is the language of instruction (LOI).

The Philippines participated in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) tests in 1995, 1999, 2003 and in 2008.  During those years, most of the world prepared for and took the tests in their first or native language (L1). Our country chose a second language (L2), which is English, in each occasion and came out a consistent bottom placer in these tests.

According to UP Nismed figures, an overwhelming 91 percent of Filipino test takers use English in their homes sometimes or never at all. If English is the language of learning, then we would expect Filipino students who always speak English at home to score higher than those who seldom or never use English as a home language.

Our 2003 TIMSS scores, however, paint a different picture. Filipinos who never use English at home scored higher (320) than those who always speak it (317). Those who sometimes speak it at home outperformed (377) those who almost always speak it (343). Of the four groups, those who always speak English at home scored lowest.

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Towards that great café of books
By Alfred A. Yuson, The Philippine Star

November 21, 2011—Congratulations to the winners of the 30th National Book Awards handed out by the National Book Development Board and the Manila Critics Circle on Nov. 12 at the National Museum.             

Rhoderick Nuncio’s Sanghiyang sa Mundo ng Internet (Vibal Foundation and DLSU Press) won for Social Sciences. Simeon Dumdum Jr.’s If I Write You This Poem, Will You Make It Fly? (AdMU Press) won for Poetry. Romulo P. Baquiran Jr.’s Sagad sa Buto (UST Publishing House) won for Non-Fiction Prose.

For the category of Leisure, the award went to Celebrations (Anvil), with Karla Prieto Delgado, Gianna Reyes Montinola, Cristina Roces-Garcia, Ginny Roces-de Guzman, Sylvia Roces-Montilla, and Vicky Veloso-Barrera as co-authors.

The award for Design went to Felix Mago Miguel for To Give and Not to Count the Cost (AdMU Press). The Alfonso T. Ongpin Prize for Best Book on Art went to The Urian Anthology, 1990-1999 (UP and Film Development Council of the Philippines) by Nicanor G. Tiongson, while the Isagani R. Cruz Prize for Best Book in Literary Criticism was awarded to Banaag at Sikat: Metakritisismo at Antolohiya (NCCA) by Maria Luisa Torres Reyes.

The Juan C. Laya Prize for Best Novel in a Foreign Language was given to Blue Angel, White Shadow (UST) by Charlson Ong, while the Juan C. Laya Prize for Best Novel in a Philippine Language went to Lumbay ng Dila (C&E and DLSU Press) by Genevieve L. Asenjo.

Citations were given for the books Watersheds (Wide Angle Media) by Grace Roxas and The Great Men and Women of Asia (Ramon Magsaysay Foundation and Anvil), while University of Santo Tomas Publishing House was declared Publisher of the Year.

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Why Spanish?
By Jorge Domecq, Philippine Daily Inquirer

November 21, 2011—On Wednesday, Nov. 23, language teachers and experts from all over the region will assemble in the Instituto Cervantes de Manila for the Second Conference of Spanish as a Foreign Language in Asia and the Pacific which will be inaugurated by Speaker Feliciano Belmonte. Many will remember the common heritage and the historical bonds between our two countries but wonder why reviving the Spanish language is an issue of interest in the Philippines as we enter the second decade of the 21st century.

Way back in 1937, President Manuel L. Quezon, referring to Spanish, said that “the Latin-American people believe and feel that we Filipinos form part of that vast family, the children of Spain. Thus, although Spain ceased to govern those countries many years ago and although another nation is sovereign in the Philippines, those Latin-American peoples feel themselves as brothers to the people of the Philippines. It is the Spanish language that still binds us to those peoples eternally if we have the wisdom and patriotism of preserving it.”

However, the 1987 Philippine Constitution abolished Spanish as an official language of this country. Although this decision could have been avoided, the truth of the matter is that the majority of Filipinos then no longer used Spanish in their daily lives and therefore the constitutional reform only represented a statement of fact.

It makes no sense to look back on the Spanish language just as an element of our common past, which is no longer there in our efforts to enhance our bilateral relations, to get to know each other better and to better understand our history and culture. We must admit, and we would be foolish not to do so, that there is so much about the Filipino culture that can only be understood fully if we have knowledge of the Spanish language.

Without forgetting Rizal, we can affirm that the “Golden Age” of Philippine literature (which paradoxically coincided with the American period in the Philippines and as Spanish began to disappear from all official communications) produced first-class writers like Pedro Paterno, Isabelo de los Reyes, Apolinario Mabini, José Palma and Fernando Ma. Guerrero, who wrote all their works in Spanish…

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Why schools are failing our children (1)
By Magtanggol T. Gunigundo I, Philippine Daily Inquirer

November 19, 2011—Despite its claim to being research-based, the present K-12 curriculum actually ignores language-in-education findings when it provides for the use of the first language (L1) as medium of instruction for only up to Grade 3 and thereafter, with no transition whatsoever, shifts to English and Filipino as second languages (L2s) for instruction. The scheme clearly underestimates the role of oral language development in the early grades as a strong foundation to learning to read and write in both the L1 and in the L2. The provision for the L1 as a separate subject is laudable but cannot make up for the deleterious effects of the early-exit nature of the K-12 curriculum.

The challenge of language-minority students in the United States who cannot read and write proficiently in English led the Department of Education in 2002 to create a panel to address this problem. One of the panel’s major findings is that oral proficiency and literacy in the L1 are crucial determinants for literacy in English.

The research suggests that the disparity between the word-level and text-level (comprehension) skills of non-native and native English learners can be traced to the difference in their oral language proficiency. Oral proficiency in English is not a strong predictor of English word-level skills among non-native English speakers, but is strongly associated with comprehension and writing skills for these students.
Children’s ability to learn an L2 is enhanced when their L1 is the primary language of instruction throughout the elementary grades…

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Merely the punctuation
By Butch Dalisay, The Philippine Star

November 14, 2011—I’ve been fortunate to receive quite a few awards for my work as a writer and teacher, for each one of which I’ve been deeply grateful. Two weeks ago I received another one, and this was special because it went all the way back to my childhood and to the school that taught me words, and more. Last Oct. 28, I joined more than a dozen other alumni who were conferred Lasallian Achievement Awards in fields that ranged from business, philanthropy, information technology, and medicine to sports, education, and, in my case, literature.

I’ve written here before about my time in La Salle Green Hills, from 1960 to 1966, and I really don’t want to keep harping melodramatically on what it was like to be poor in a rich boys’ school, except to say the obvious — that it wasn’t easy and led to an awkward moment now and then. What I did emphasize in my acceptance remarks was that what I remembered more strongly from those years was the kindness of my classmates — some of whom offered me rides home, others their sandwiches—and the generosity of the Brothers, who let my cash-strapped parents (whose only fault it was to dream of sending their eldest child to this school) pay for my fees in trickles. Because of this, I said, I learned resolve instead of resentment, and hope instead of hate. Along the way, I learned to love books, which was how and why I became a writer.

Purely by coincidence, I’ve just finished writing the draft of a yet-unpublished book on the 100-year history of the La Salle Brothers in the Philippines. It follows the story of how a small French religious order reached our shores at the behest of an American Catholic archbishop at the turn of the 20th century, and then began the college and later the university and 17-school, nationwide “One La Salle” system Filipinos know today. There are many wonderful stories in that book — some tragic and touching, many uproariously funny — about the Brothers.

The personal upshot for me was that I reconnected with my Lasallian roots, and began to understand questions that had troubled me since childhood, such as “Why does an order pledged to serve the poor build schools for the elite?”

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Teaching English to US kids: a Pinay’s success story
By Julita L. Lizardo, The Philippine Star

November 8, 2011—It was in November 2004 when the agency contacted me and said that I was one of the teacher applicants who was scheduled to be interviewed by the human resources representatives from the Baltimore City Public Schools. They told me the time of the interview and that it was going to be held at the Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati City. I had mixed emotions when I learned about this great news. I was ecstatic because I knew that I was getting close to achieving my “American Dream.” At the same time, I was also nervous because I knew that it was going to be a tough competition among the teacher applicants.

So, I started planning and preparing for that interview.  I began thinking about the professional attire that I was going to wear. I also started reviewing my notes and books on special education and did my research about the Baltimore City Public Schools and Baltimore City in general.  After my research, I learned about the special education programs they had that time, curriculum, population, products, famous places and its wonderful people.  As a matter of fact, the city earned its name as the “Charm City” in the United States because of its beautiful people. In addition, I have also learned that one of my favorite authors, Edgar Allan Poe was from Baltimore City. You can just imagine how excited I was after learning all of these facts even before my interview.

When the day of my interview came, I went to the hotel equipped and ready to be grilled with questions. There, I saw a lot of teachers waiting outside the room. Just like me, I can see in their faces excitement and nervousness. I was able to witness different behaviors while waiting for my turn. Some were reading and reviewing some notes and books. Others were just chilling and waiting for their turn to be over, while the rest were having conversations with each other. Based on the conversations, I learned that everyone had only one goal! That was to pass the interview because that was our ticket to have the taste of the “American Dream.”

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Writing about place (Part 2)
By Butch Dalisay, The Philippine Star

November 7, 2011—Presumably there’s some advantage to writing about place from the stranger’s or visitor’s point of view. The artistic process of de-familiarization takes over — you see things from a fresh and often startling perspective, and observe ironies that others might miss. The outsider’s senses seem more alert, more absorbent,

Here’s Stanley Stewart writing about going upriver in Borneo:

In Borneo there were only two destinations: upriver and down.

 Downriver were the sorry towns of Chinese shop-houses, the shuttered government offices and the anxious people of the coast. Upriver was the interior, a world of forests and fat brown streams, of head-hunters and disappointed missionaries, of blowpipes and all-night raves in longhouses decorated with human skulls. Upriver took you to places the roads couldn’t reach. It was not merely a destination. In Borneo it was what people were: hulu — upriver.

Down at the dock the river clawed at the rotting pylons. The boats looked like airplane fuselages that had lost their wings in some nasty incident. Inside the passengers sat in rows of broken seats, mesmerized by the onboard entertainment, a relentless diet of kung fu videos. I took my place between an enormous bald Iban in the terminal stages of emphysema and a boy with a lapful of roosters. A cloud of diesel fumes signaled our departure.

Note the discrepant element here: amidst all that exotica pops up the image of “kung fu videos”; note, as well, the contrast between the big man approaching death and the scrawny kid full of life.

For me, however, the challenge lies much less in writing about the exotic than in finding freshness in the familiar.

Sometimes a place lies somewhere in the mind, more than in any specific location. See how Nancy Gibbs evokes summer camp in this piece she wrote for Time:

… It’s not only kids who thrive on time travel. Time dissolves in summer anyway: days are long, weekends longer. Hours get all thin and watery when you are lost in the book you’d never otherwise have time to read. Senses are sharper — something about the moist air and bright light and fruit in season — and so memories stir and startle. Go on vacation with your siblings; you will be back in the treehouse of code words and competitions and all the rough rivalries of those we love but do not choose as family…

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Writing about place (Part one)
By Butch Dalisay, The Philippine Star

October 31, 2011—I had the opportunity to hold a workshop for aspiring writers—eight lovely ladies—in San Diego, California, two Saturdays ago. I’d handled a similar workshop for Marivi Soliven-Blanco’s San Diego Writers Ink three years earlier, and it was good to touch base again with the organization and its members. This time my chosen topic was “Writing about place,” and I put down some notes to introduce the subject.

I’m sharing those notes with Penman readers, many of whom, from the messages they send me, seem to be interested in the writing process. I’ll probably expand these rather disjointed notes at some point into a full-length essay, and provide more examples drawn from Philippine literature (my audience was American, so I tailored the selections to them), but in the meanwhile, I hope these will be of some help. So here goes:

At some point in writing, whether fiction or nonfiction, the need inevitably arises to write about place. Most often place is used as a location or a setting where important events happen; sometimes — as in travel writing — place is the subject itself, the literal and figurative destination of the piece.

There are many ways of writing about place — from the panoramic to the microscopic, from the comprehensive to the impressionistic, from the scientific to the evocative. Quite often these approaches can be combined and interwoven to reveal more than one facet of a place.

The kind of writing about place that most people seem to know is the touristy summing up provided by magazines like Travel and Leisure, thus: “The Catskills Mountains are a perfect getaway from the hustle and bustle of New York City, and a great place to soak in the best of fall, with picturesque hiking and horseback riding trails, quirky antique shops to explore, and gourmet restaurants and markets.”

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Philippine writing, according to Butch Dalisay
By Katrina Stuart Santiago, GMA News Online

November 5, 2011—At the Singapore Writers Fest 2011, Filipino writer and teacher Butch Dalisay might be the most political I’ve heard him, probably the most comfortably honest. It isn’t everyday after all that we admit to a lack of readership where we come from in Manila and sincerely seem sad about it, not often that a powerful writer from our shores will bravely enter into a conversation about what ails his writing production, what limits it, what renders it moot and academic given the state of the nation from which it sprouts.

Not every day that we hear any of our writers admit matter-of-fact, “I’d rather have a thousand readers at home than have 10,000 readers in New York," and actually mean it. Here is where Dalisay proves he shouldn’t be dismissed as one of the older members of the local literati, which is still in the bubble of believing the romances that surround cultural production, at the core of which is the idea that the task of writing is apolitical and is just about the craft, removed and extraneous to context.

A recent anthology of Philippine poetry asserts that “the Filipino is not a theory <…> we are not academic,” and discourse while “necessary <…> must not be propelled by a presumptuous tone that actually stunts literature’s growth” (Joel Toledo and Khavn dela Cruz from Under The Storm, 2011) – all very dangerous statements to make at a time when literature is necessary weapon.

I’d rather have a thousand readers at home than 10,000 readers in New York, says Dalisay.
This is why Dalisay’s assertions about writing in the Philippines, truthful and honest and self-deprecating, can only be important and relevant…

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No Union, please, we’re English
By John Lloyd, Reuters

December 29, 2011—In France, it is les Anglais. In Germany, die Engländer. In Italy, gli Inglesi. In Russia, Anglichane.

The peoples of the United Kingdom, for most other peoples, are habitually “English.”

Not unnaturally. The English part of the UK accounts for close to 90 per cent of the country’s population; the language is English; the capital is London, long the English capital; the accents heard are overwhelmingly English; the long-held stereotype of the country is an upper-class English gent, snobbish, prudish and insular.

This suits at least some of the English, who often do the same as foreigners when referring to their nation state.  Frequently, without any malice, they have assumed that Britain is co-terminus with England (until recently, England supporters waved the Union Jack—which represents all of the British nations–at international football matches). Once, years ago, when speaking to a former senior Royal courtier, I mildly corrected his use of “England” to “Britain.” He wagged a humorous finger at me (a Scot) and said: “Now now, none of that Scots nationalism!” – which is, when you think of it as an answer to my objection, incomprehensible, except in terms of a certain English mindset. Yet, though illogical, it was also thoughtlessly generous: the English nation had dissolved itself into the state, and by waving the Union Jack, gave an implicit invitation to the other nations of the British state to do likewise – though only the Northern Irish did.

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“He’ll always have Paris”
By Juliette Mitchell, The Guardian

December 24, 2011—It was early spring when I set off for Paris with just a small suitcase and my four-year-old son, Wilf. We were leaving behind our life as we knew it – including Wilf's father – but, from whichever angle I looked at it, it seemed a good thing to do. There was one overwhelming reason for embarking on such an adventure: we wanted Wilf to speak French, and it was time to do something about it. Feeling at home in two languages is a great advantage, and the pleasure of two languages is more than the sum of their parts.

My mother is French and I was brought up bilingual. My experience of being able to switch effortlessly from one language to another has been a happy one. But Wilf was not at an age to see the positives and, despite the fact that I spoke to him in French, English was fast becoming his mother tongue.

The early days had been simple. I had talked to him in French, and this was enough to feel I was doing my job. But he had never really fulfilled his side of the bargain. And now that he had started to develop an understanding of the linguistic choices open to him, he was clear about his preferences. Apart from a few early French words, his side of any conversation had always been in English.

I had a vague idea that a spell in France would fix things. But that was impossible: I had a life in England to sustain. Or did I? Dismantling such a life would not be so very hard, and change, I reasoned, could be liberating. I would leave everything behind – job, husband, house – for a new life. And I had the benefit of French family, which would ease the difficulties, financial and otherwise, of taking up residence in a new place…

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Musing on our wonderful English language
By John Avison, Huddersfield Daily

December 29, 2011—I hope it goes without saying that this column is written in modern English.

Just 20 years ago its style would have been regarded as slapdash and impertinent. Its sentences would have been too short, its sentiments too abrupt.

At the turn of the last century my English would have appeared to most to be too colloquial. It would have been readable, but many of its phrases would have led English readers to conclude I was some kind of foreigner. Which, of course, I would have been or am – a creature from an unimaginable future.

Think what Shakespeare would have made of it. If we consider Shakespeare to be florid, complicated and too full of thees and thous, just think what he would have made of our fast forms, truncations and abbreviations.

He would have been shocked by our directness and would have assumed we were ignorant.

In classical terms, he would have been right. Thou art as fine-wrought as Aphrodite, as Venus in all her sea-spumed glory, he might have said to Anne Hathaway. That was his wife, not the actress.

We just don’t talk or write that way anymore. I made that “quote” up, by the way, so don’t go looking for it in your handy Shakespeare concordance.

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Christopher Hitchens: He died too young, with too much left to say
By Nick Cohen, The Observer UK

December 18, 2011—Why are so many who love the English language and human freedom in mourning for Christopher Hitchens? His full-length books never showed his talents to the full – not even God is not Great, his atheist bestseller. With typical modesty – and he was always self-critical, despite appearances to the contrary – he thought that only his literary essays would be read after his death. The dominance of theory-spouting obscurantists in university English departments meant he had that field pretty much to himself, and his writing on Larkin, Powell, Rushdie, Bellow and, above all, Orwell is indeed “imperishable,” to use his favourite word.

But if I may break the news to belle-lettristes as gently as I can, any aspiring author who tells publishers that he or she can make them rich with collections of essays will be shown the door, rather than a contract. Christopher Hitchens could do much, but he couldn’t sway the minds of hundreds of thousands of readers by literary criticism alone.

In conversation he was the most intellectually generous man I have ever met. More writers than readers like to imagine are fretful and suspicious. They bite their tongues and hide their thoughts in case rival authors “steal their ideas.” Hitchens was too much of an enthusiast for life and debate to waste time being pinched and cautious; too engaged in the battle of ideas to worry about others taking his.

When you had an argument you needed to work through or a book you had to deliver, he would sit you down, fill your glass to the brim and pour out ideas, references, people you needed to talk to and writers you had to read. You would try, and fail, to keep up and hope that you could remember a quarter of what he had said by the time the inevitable hangover had worn off the morning after.

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Coming to terms with the Chinese-American-English language
By Brian Salter, ChinaDaily.com.cn

December 15, 2011—I used to think, before coming to work in China, that I would have a hard time coming to grips with the Chinese language. Not just were the sounds so very different to anything I was used to in Europe, but one had to account for the different tones too, not to mention the fact that the language was written in ideograms.

What I certainly had not been expecting, however, was having to relearn—or at least re-think—the English language that I had grown up with and which, in my ignorance, I had assumed I was pretty “au fait” with.

The problem arises from the fact that the majority of Chinese people who studied “my” language have actually learned American-style English from teachers with American accents. And so it is hardly surprising that they speak like a “Yank” and have difficulty understanding the Queen’s English.

As if that isn’t bad enough, I find myself practically every day learning new “English” words and expressions, thanks to my Chinese work colleagues who are surprised to find I don’t understand some of the expressions they regard as normal.
Things aren’t made any easier when I am left wondering whether a passage in English has been translated from its original Chinese using Google translate (or some other computer-generated translation) rather than using a new Americanism I have not yet come across.

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Plain English Day: Tell it like it is
By Juno Baker, The Guardian UK

December 9, 2011—Today is Plain English Day. You can expect to hear the results of the Plain English Campaign’s “Golden Bull Awards” soon—and you should hope your council isn’t on the shortlist.

Local government English is infected by jargons. We’ve always had the law and government policy to make language sound overblown and formal, but more recently marketing consultants have added to the problem, introducing natty acronyms and a fashion for business speak.

So now we “team up” and “partner,” instead of simply working with other people. Everything, from policies to publications, is “robust.” Hurdles are climbed and plates are stepped up to. Reports “signal direction” while councillors “launch” initiatives with names like JUMP or ShOUt. Life today is an ongoing “improvement journey” with “critical friends” following “road maps” to avoid “barriers.”

At this time of year the Local Government Association usually issues a list of banned words. This year, I’m told, the organisation has been too busy with the chancellor’s autumn statement and the public sector strikes to draw up its regular list. So I’m stepping up to the plate to fill the breach—to help you write sentences that are better than this one.

Write shorter sentences

Aim to write sentences of no more than 25 words. Where you see a comma, a which, a but or an and, try starting a new sentence.

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Dialects: Reveling in Linguistic Freedom
By Lesley Lanir, Decoded Science

December 9, 2011—English is the national language of several countries, so speakers worldwide can hold conversations, and more or less understand each other, even though each person’s spoken English has unique variations. As linguists Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman point out, “differences in speech can be due to age, sex, health, size, personality, emotional state and personal idiosyncrasies.”

Each person’s speech is phonologically distinctive and is composed of slight variations in sentence structure and word choice. A person’s unique speech is known as their idiolect. Since there are approximately half a billion English speakers, there is the same number of idiolects.

When English speakers from different geographical regions demonstrate “systematic” speech variations, the groups are described as speaking different dialects.

“Accent” and “dialect” are not to be confused; they are not synonymous linguistic terms. Neither are “dialect” and “slang,” or “dialect” and “jargon” for that matter. Having a “different accent” refers only to demonstrating distinctive differences in pronunciation with regional phonological or phonetic distinctions. Slang and jargon, on the other hand, refer to trendy or topic-related vocabulary items that often have a limited life. The linguistic term “dialect” includes accent variations and changes in sentence-structure, word-choice and innovative word deviations as well.

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The cool twists of language
By David Bellos, Guardian.co.uk

November 21, 2011—The Oxford philosopher JL Austin once observed in a lecture that in English a double negative implied a positive meaning, whereas no language had been found in which a double positive implied a negative meaning. Another philosopher who was in the audience that day made a very simple counterclaim just by saying “yeah, yeah.”

Over time words and expressions change in sound, in spelling and in use, sometimes at a snail’s pace and sometimes almost overnight – as contributors to the Guardian's letters page have recently reminded us with reference to “cool.” A change in meaning may follow a comprehensible if always tortuous path (from the coarse cloth, or “bure,” on the tables of medieval clerks to the modern “bureaucrat,” for example), or it may switch at a stroke into its opposite. Rien, the French word for “nothing,” for example, is derived from the Latin rem, which means “something” (in the accusative case). By what path can a word get from meaning “something” to meaning “nothing”? It’s like asking how anything can be “hot” and “cool” at the same time. Obviously, they can be – especially if you don’t even know whether the jazz throbbing through the speakers is hot, cool, or just loud.

In Chekhov's short story Agafya, two rather disreputable fellows offer a girl a glass of vodka. She replies with a colloquial expression – Выдумал! – that means something like “Where did you get the idea [that I drink vodka]?” or “What put that idea into your head?” or “Don’t insult me!” A thoughtful professional American translator of Chekhov expresses the force of the girl’s response by “Oh! Please!” To my British ear, however, “Oh! Please!” is not a negative but an extremely positive expression…

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Losing language
By Tanya Rosie, ImpactNottingham.com

November 20, 2011—The University of Nottingham is described as a “truly global university” and with campuses in both China and Malaysia alongside over 7,500 international students on our own campus, it is easy to feel part of a worldwide community. And with any global community, there is an array of native speakers of a number of foreign languages. There are roughly 6,900 different languages spoken in our world today, and a wealth of different tongues spoken by Nottingham students alone. But how does belonging to this community affect the way we approach the concept of language? That is, when everyone speaks English, does it affect us at all?

Stephen Fry’s new documentary “Fry’s Planet Word” explores language and its permeation into our cultural and individual identities. In the second episode of the series, “Identity,” Fry explores the way in which our language is intrinsically linked with our characteristics, our personality and even our individuality. He examines the startling rate at which dialects and languages are dying out, as an increasing number of societies disregard them in favour of more widely spoken languages such as French and English. Indeed, linguists have predicted that by the end of this century alone, over half of the world’s languages will have become extinct.

It’s hard not to be saddened by this notion, in the same way we would mourn the loss of the last panda or rhino, or the last trees of the rainforest. We align the loss of language with the loss of diversity, and spice, of life. What’s more, if people lose their mother tongue, do they lose part of their culture, their ethnicity, or, as Stephen Fry argues, their identity? Yet, if we rejoice in the globalisation that we witness everyday at Nottingham, can we then be critical of the globalisation that inevitably plays a huge part in fewer languages being spoken worldwide?

The fact that people of all backgrounds and nationalities can communicate freely and without inhibition, in English, is an incredible thing. Friendships can forge between people from entirely disparate backgrounds, and allows people to learn about different customs and ways of life.

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These words are now banned from the English language
By Brian Moylan, Gawker

December 30, 2011—Every year Lake Superior State University bans a bunch of words and phrases from the English language for good. They just released their list today and, I must say, it is amazing. Oh wait, we can’t say “amazing” anymore.

The number one word for removal was “amazing,” which people say is overused but I say is actually quite handy. How can you get rid of “amazing?” I can see how you would get rid of the affected “a-mah-zing,” but banishing “amazing” is like kicking “awesome” to the curb. You wouldn’t do that, would you? It would be like throwing out your Rubik’s Cube!

Here’s the rest of the list:

“Baby Bump”
“Shared Sacrifice”
“Occupy”
“Blowback”
“Man Cave”
“The New Normal”
“Pet Parent”
“Win the Future’
“Trickeration”
“Ginormous”
“Thank You In Advance”

Yes, “baby bump,” “man cave,” and “ginormous” are all awful. Kill them with fire (oh, speaking of phrases that need to be banned...). But what is going on with some of these other ones?  

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The English bear
By Ted Landphair, Voice of America

The English bear that confronts newcomers to our land isn’t entirely English.  And it isn’t big and brown.  But it can be an unruly beast.

English is a mystery, almost impossible to explain rationally. It’s the American strain of the English language, a sort of functional gibberish that must sound, at first, as comprehensible to the foreigner as would obscure Tagalog, Oriya, or Igbu.  Our version of English is part hoary, having been carried through the ages from Old and Middle English. It’s part crass and crude and commercial, as you might expect from a rambunctious lot like us.

And a whole lot of it is borrowed — and often corrupted — from other tongues. Gumbo from Bantu. Polka from Czech. Ketchup from Cantonese. Blink from Dutch. Amen from Hebrew. Mammoth from Russian. Flannel from my Welsh ancestors. Even cooties — and yo-yos — from Tagalog.

So trust me — or rather, ask any immigrant who arrived with few or no English skills — American English is a challenge and a half. You soon learn that it has rules, but that the rules often don’t apply. Even the simplest little English word — “in” or “on,” perhaps — that you think you couldn’t possibly misuse, doesn’t always fit where it logically should. Why else would we ride in cars but on trains, buses and streetcars?  Words we use all the time can mean completely opposite things, as I’ll show you in a bit.

First, though, a tangent from my own experience.

The terror that foreign-born learners of English must face reminds me of my own nightmare in high school, not with English but with German… 

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American Dialect Society to choose “Word of the Year”
National Public Radio, USA

December 16, 2011—Lovers of the English language are coming together to select the coolest word or phrase. Last year, “app” was voted the word of the year by the American Dialect Society. Now that group of etymologists, writers, historians and other language experts are considering new words for 2011. Linguist Ben Zimmer talks to Renee Montagne to offer his picks for 2011.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
It’s that time of year when best-of lists are being drawn up, and lovers of the English language come together to select the coolest word or phrase. Last year, we were talking about app, which was voted the word of the year by the American Dialect Society.

Now that group of etymologists, writers, historians and other language experts is again calling for your nominations. Linguist Ben Zimmer is the chair of the New Words Committee, and joined us to offer his picks for 2011. Good morning.

BEN ZIMMER: Good morning.

MONTAGNE: Ben, what is the top of your list?

ZIMMER: Well, in terms of the word that I think is most likely to win, I would say it’s “occupy.” That word has certainly been hard to avoid over the last few months, and it's really taken off in a surprising way, so that this word “occupy”—starting with “Occupy Wall Street”—has had a kind of modular affect. You can occupy, fill in the blank, anything that you would like. There are even parodies of it: “Occupy Sesame Street,” “occupy my couch”—lots  of different variations on the theme.

And it’s become so powerful that it has become a kind of a call to action in itself. It’s an old word, of course, but it’s been invested with lots of interesting new meanings.

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English, once a barrier, opens a door
By Margaret Ho, The New York Times

December 16, 2011—For Hui Lin, 17, English has been something of a lifeline. Five years ago, she could barely speak the language, struggling to count to 10 even after finishing seventh grade at a school in Chinatown in Manhattan.

For the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families and the elderly in New York. To celebrate the centennial campaign, an article will appear daily through Feb. 10. Each profile will illustrate the difference that even a modest amount of money can make in easing the struggles of the poor.

Last year, 10,457 donors contributed $6,061,024, which was distributed to those in need through seven New York charities.

“Every time I learned a new vocabulary, I would forget the next minute,” she said of those early days.

Hui said she often felt “frustrated.”

“I feel like I have a lot to learn,” she said. “There are so many words I don’t know.”

English words may not tumble quickly from Hui’s lips, but in a recent interview, she barely hesitated when asked to translate certain questions into Mandarin, the language of her parents.

At 3 years old, Hui watched her father, Hua Wu Lin, leave their home in Guantou, a small rural village in Fujian Province, for New York City…

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What to get the bookworm on your list
By John Linsenmeyer, Weston-CT.Patch.com

December 3, 2011—We first have a brand-new fifth edition of the splendid American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, which its publishers and others proudly abbreviate as The AHD. I have long thought that this is the best of the specifically American dictionaries (honestly now, do you want your kiddies to learn to spell “labour,” “programme,” “aeroplane,” etc?) and it is now even better: better graphics with thousands of marginal color illustrations and maps, and updated entries by a useful tool which so far as I know is unique to this dictionary, the Usage Panel notes.

If you want to see why every literate household, and surely every university student, needs a good dictionary, all you need to do is compare the entries in the AHD with the stuff you get searching for definitions on a computer. The difference between good, even elegant, writing and the normal careless sludge you read is nuance, what the ever-precise French call in the phrase coined by Gustave Flaubert, le mot juste, “exactly the right word.”

The AHD is particularly good on giving a definition including examples of usage, and I like the Usage Panel notes for some special words. For example, one of my pet peeves is the misuse of the word “decimate” as a fancy synonym for “totally destroy” or “devastate.”  “Decimate” means “reduce by a tenth” and comes from the old Roman Legions, who would punish cowardly or mutinous units by executing every tenth soldier, chosen by lot. I just checked the new AHD and found that the Usage Panel thinks I’m halfway old fashioned: a majority will accept “decimate” if used to express killing, but will not if used simply to express large-scale destruction…

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The dead language requirement
By Luke Massa, DailyPrincetonian.com
   
NEW JERSEY, December 1, 2011—Last Sunday, millions of Catholics in the English-speaking world found themselves saying “consubstantial” for what might have been the first time in their life. This was in accordance with the Roman Missal, Third Edition, the biggest change in the English-language Mass since the beginning of the English-language Mass in the 1960s. While the official liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church continues to be in Latin, the translation into English has been updated to be truer to the original Latin. “I believe,” for example, was considered a more accurate rendering of “credo” than was the older “we believe.” Why the Catholic Church waited more than 40 years to correct what any first year Latin student could point out is indeed an intriguing topic. However, this language update has something else to teach us, something about the differences between modern and classical languages that may lead us to rethink Princeton’s language requirement.

This updated translation matters because it affects the very words that are said by practicing Catholics. The written Latin version of the Mass has not changed. But the act of worshiping no longer occurs in the dead language of Latin, instead in living, breathing English. There is a power in the spoken word, one spoken by the community of the congregation, that is simply not present in words on a page. People chat, love, learn and debate as they worship, in the spoken word, with members of the community of fellow speakers.

Princeton’s A.B. language requirement, as it currently stands, fails to recognize the importance of this language community by considering dead languages satisfactory for fulfillment. Students can fulfill this requirement by demonstrating proficiency in Latin or ancient Greek, either by placing out or taking courses…

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Immigrants without English: Only a few thrive
By Gail O. Mellow, The New York Times (Letter to the Editor)

November 15, 2011—Re “Moving to U.S. and Prospering, Without English” (front page, Nov. 9):

Yes, a tiny group of immigrants will thrive without learning English, but mastering English is a prerequisite to becoming part of the middle class in today’s America. It’s why immigrants flock to free or low-cost English language programs that community colleges across the nation offer.

Sadly, the patchwork of private and government money falls far short of meeting demand. Right now at LaGuardia Community College, people hungry to learn English are placed on a waiting list that extends up to two years.

If we want immigrants to prosper, and to advance our democracy, it is a huge mistake to tell those who are desperate to learn English today to take a number and we’ll get back to them in a couple of years.

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Language in words few take on board
By Stuart Kelly, Scotsman.com

November 16, 2011—The idea of what a language actually is used to be a simple proposition. The Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary definition is the most succinct: “the words, their pronunciation and the methods of combining them as used and understood by a community.” More sardonically, a language was once said to be “a dialect with an army and navy.”

Languages evolved, but unconsciously—no one sat down and set out to create a language. But over the past 100 years, and with increasing speed and sophistication in the past 30 years, those woolly certainties have been undermined and made problematic to a staggering extent. A combination of French philosophy, political activism, American sci-fi and literary experimentation has radically changed what we mean by “language.” Above all, the Internet has made it easier than ever for researchers to see exactly which words and languages are being used, while at the same time changing how those words and languages are used.

A new book, edited by Michael Adams and published by Oxford University Press, unfortunately called From Elvish To Klingon: Exploring Invented Languages, is far less geekish than the title might suggest. Although the Scots language is relegated to Appendix VII, the book ought to be read by anyone with an interest in the future of Scots, Gaelic—and even English.

Linguists used to categorise languages as “natural” (like French, or Swahili), “dead” (like Latin and Anglo-Saxon) and “invented”—at the time, these invented languages, creations such as Volapük and Esperanto, were sometimes described as “auxiliary” languages, whose Utopian premise was that if European leaders could use a mutual tongue, they wouldn’t go to war as swiftly.

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English language a unifying force in US
By Jason Morrow, PostCrescent.com (Letter to the Editor)

BLACK CREEK, Wisconsin, November 10, 2011—This is a response to the column, “Languages open door to understanding” by Rachel Martens on Oct. 30. I have a problem with Martens’ explanation concerning the lack of regard for foreign languages in America.

She seems to think that America is inhabited by mostly intolerant, reactionary chauvinists. She states that Americans don’t respect other cultures and that we have grown close-minded. She cited these as the main reasons for our lack of foreign language skills.

This perspective is typical of modern liberalism. Today’s liberals see bigotry and racism everywhere, despite much evidence to the contrary. Modern liberals, obsessed with enhancing diversity and multiculturalism, perceive nationalism as a divisive force instead of a unifying force.

Certainly, a child’s brain is stimulated by learning a foreign language and one’s life can be enriched by it. However, our reluctance to put time into learning other languages is more likely a function of geography and pragmatism.

Europe is a small continent with many countries, each possessing a language or dialect different than its neighbors. The ease of travel and communication between European countries makes knowing multiple languages very useful. But, the United States is a large country, with neighbors that speak English.

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The China conundrum
By Tom Bartlett and Karin Fischer, The New York Times

November 3, 2011—Dozens of new students crowded into a lobby of the University of Delaware’s student center at the start of the school year. Many were stylishly attired in distressed jeans and bright-colored sneakers; half tapped away silently on smartphones while the rest engaged in boisterous conversations. Eavesdropping on those conversations, however, would have been difficult for an observer not fluent in Mandarin. That’s because, with the exception of one lost-looking soul from Colombia, all the students were from China.

Among them was Yisu Fan, whose flight from Shanghai had arrived six hours earlier. Too excited to sleep, he had stayed up all night waiting for orientation at the English Language Institute to begin. Like nearly all the Chinese students at Delaware, Mr. Fan was conditionally admitted — that is, he can begin taking university classes once he successfully completes an English program. He plans to major in finance and, after graduation, to return home and work for his father’s construction company. He was wearing hip, dark-framed glasses and a dog tag around his neck with a Chinese dragon on it. He chose to attend college more than 7,000 miles from home, Mr. Fan said, because “the Americans, their education is very good.”

That opinion is widely shared in China, which is part of the reason the number of Chinese undergraduates in the United States has tripled in just three years, to 40,000, making them the largest group of foreign students at American colleges…

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What teachers can learn from English-language learners
By Lesli Maxwell, Education Week

ARLINGTON, November 4, 2011—I am blogging from the Education Trust conference this afternoon in Arlington, Va., where one of the few presentations focused on English-language learners featured student voices.

Dr. Betty Smallwood from the Center on Applied Linguistics presented a fascinating video of students from Arlington County, Va., talking about what teachers can do better to teach them English. The video is part of a professional development program developed by the Center for Applied Linguistics.

Students were asked to explain what makes learning English easier, what makes it harder and what teachers can do to help them.

Four middle schoolers, all of them beginners in learning English, said that when teachers talk too fast, they struggle to learn. That seems like something that can be relatively easy for teachers of ELLs to fix, if they just are made aware that it's a problem. Students said distractions in the classroom—such as noisy classmates—are also a hindrance.

They all said that working with their peers in small groups is very helpful, a strategy that Dr. Smallwood said is supported by research. Aeydis from Mexico said teachers need to be more patient with her and not give up on her if she doesn't understand or get it the first time. Hababo, from Ethiopia, said teachers sometimes give her too much information and confuse her about what is most important.

Elementary students from Arlington County also had advice for teachers. From Beza, who is from Ethiopia: Give us more time to read what we want to read. And David from El Salvador said encouragement from his fellow ELL students was important for his success…

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Best puns in the English language
By Warren Boroson, NewJerseyNewsroom.com

November 1, 2011—Some 20 years ago, I conducted a poll of a bunch of literary people – among them, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee, writer Cleveland Amory, critic John Ciardi and historian Jacques Barzun.

The question I asked: Which are the best puns in the English language? And I listed my 41 favorite puns.

The lowest-rated pun, I am sorry to report, was my own contribution: “One man’s Meat Loaf is another man’s Adelina Pate.” (Adelina Patti was an opera singer – I assume that you remember Meat Loaf.)

Other good puns that did not make the top ten included:

“A fool and her money are soon courted.” (Helen Rowland)

“Half a love is better than none.” (Helen Rowland)

“Take care of the peonies and the dahlias will take care of themselves.” (Franklin P. Adams)

“Upon looking over this report, I find that I have knocked everything but the chorus girls’ legs—but nature has anticipated me there.” (Percy Hammond, drama critic)

“One man’s fish is another man’s poisson.” (Carolyn Wells)

“Time wounds all heels.” (Jane Ace)

“An historical novel is like a bustle, a fictional tale covering a stern reality.” (Augusta Tucker)

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A perspective on students in India using English to get top jobs
By Rahul Manekari, Technorati.com
 
December 24, 2011—English is the language of business, of science. The worldwide use of English has been the consequence of the British domination of the days gone by and the influence of the USA in the modern world. The deep roots of English in India, of course, were put forth by the 200 or so years of British rule in India.

In India, its popularity and usage has increased exponentially even after independence. In this diverse country of around 18 official languages, English also plays the role of lingua franca alongside the national language Hindi. The growth of English in India has been fueled by the better employment opportunities available if one is proficient in English. For those with an English medium school education the advantage begins in college, where the medium of instruction is English.

Students from a vernacular educational background find that overcoming the disadvantage of language is time-consuming and affects their scores, if not throughout, at least in their initial college years. There have even been cases of multitudes of students from not-so-affluent homes dropping out from college, unable to overcome the hurdles of studying in a language completely alien to them. This also throws light on the standard of English being taught as a second language in vernacular schools in India. The teaching just equips them with, at the best, basic reading skills.

There have been agitations against the growing importance of English and the decline of Indian languages. There have even been suggestions to make vernacular education mandatory in India, but none of these have been anything more than a flash in the pan, as they were merely politically motivated vote-bank shams…

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A tale of two brand statuses
By K V Sridhar (Pops), Business-Standard.com

December 12, 2011—In the English language, there are words which are distinguished from each other in meaning, by slight shades of differences. Consequently, either they end up being used as replacements for each other or being used erroneously. The other day, while having my afternoon tea in office, I witnessed an argument between my two creative directors. The reason for the quarrel was how do brands become cult and iconic and whether there lies a marked separation to differentiate the two set of brands. Also, do both these categories harbor different brands or have few brands in common? Well, my mind wandered from their debate into its own while trying to figure out the tale of Cult Brands and Iconic Brands.

What is a Cult Brand and what is an Iconic Brand? Merely saying that any popular brand which is not a cult brand is an iconic brand only leaves the other person looming in dark for answers. Below I have attempted to present my understanding and learning about the two types of brands to lend some clarity on the topic.

Whether the brand is a cult/iconic brand it must definitely stand the test of time. Both these statuses demand a brand to stand for values beyond functionality and must be rooted in popular culture and find a place in people’s lives over a long period of time.

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Tongue twister
By Satish K. Sharma, The Times of India

December 6, 2011—English is a rich language in every sense of the term. Its already-staggering wealth of words is ever-expanding, thanks to the open arms with which it welcomes words from other languages. The official website of the Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the second edition of the 20-volume dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words.

Yet, there are occasions when one feels the language falls short of an apt word or phrase to describe a situation, person or emotion. Mercifully, other languages can fill this gap. Imagine someone says something to you that leaves you so outraged that you're at loss for words to return the compliment. Later, thinking about it, the words come to you but by then the moment is gone. English has no term to convey such slow-to-respond wit. French has. It’s called l’esprit de l’escalier (literally, “staircase wit”).

Of course, one always has the option to forget and forgive. As they say in Gujarati, “Manav matra/bhool ne patra” (To err is human)... One could go a step further and turn the other cheek. We all know the word for that: Gandhigiri. However, two cheeks are all one has. So, would it not be fair to hit back the third time? Well, there is one language which has the ready word for such a policy. The word Ilunga comes from Tshiluba, a branch of Bantu language spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Actually, after the third insult, the aggrieved person could be forgiven for thinking that the aggressor's face is backfeifengesicht - in German, that means “a face badly in need of a fist.”

Talking of faces, there’s a word in Arabic for resolving a dispute without any party losing face: tarradhin. It isn’t the same as “compromise” but a positive win-win for the two sides…

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Will English kill off India's languages?
By Mark Tully, BBC

November 29, 2011—Why shouldn’t India build on its advantage in English?

Whether the government, the private sector or NGOs should deliver development is a question which will not have much relevance unless India's wealth continues to grow to pay for that development.

English is one of the advantages India has which are said to be propelling it to economic superpower status.

There are all those Indians who speak excellent English. It’s the mother tongue of the elite and effectively the official language of the central government. Then there is the growing number of parents who now aspire to give their children an education through the medium of that language. But is the craze for English an unmixed blessing?

Back in the sixties the British regarded Indian English as something of a joke. The comic actor Peter Sellers had mocked it so comprehensively that I found it well nigh impossible to get the BBC to allow anyone with even the faintest Indian accent on the air.

In India, we native English speakers laughed at quaint phrases like “please do the necessary and oblige,” or more simply “please do the needful,” and “it is suggested that the meeting be preponed,” which appeared regularly in Indian official correspondence.

A senior British diplomat once suggested that his PA should find some less geographically specific way of answering the telephone when he couldn’t take the call than saying, “Sahib is not on his seat.” Much to the diplomat’s dismay a colleague told him that his PA had misunderstood the instruction and been even more specific. He’d told the colleague, “Sahib is in the lavatory.”

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The English fight back
By Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, Business-Standard.com

NEW DELHI, November 14, 2011—If Sherlock Holmes’ gets an SMS it will flash against a translucent background on your TV screen. It is the sort of startling attention to detail that hooks you to Sherlock, a series on the newly refurbished BBC Entertainment. On the same channel the handsome Adrian Lester forces you to see “Hustle” before you realise that it is an edge-of-your-seat con caper.

Graham Norton always manages to make you blush with embarrassment and roar with laughter as he puts celebrities in a tight spot. And for some old-fashioned laughs there is always “Frasier” (FX) or “How I met your mother” (Star World).

Welcome to the new riches on offer on English general entertainment channels (GECs). The language long derided as that of the ‘elite’ is making a comeback on television with some of the best produced and written shows we have seen in a long time.

From three channels two years back there are now nine English GECs, a treat in a country where entertainment is overwhelmingly driven by local languages. This surfeit has helped to nearly double the viewership of English GECs.

On the revenue front numbers are hazy. According to one estimate English GECs get about Rs 100 crore in ad revenues, a figure than broadcasters expect will grow rapidly.

“This is a market waiting to explode,” says Saurabh Yagnik, general manager and senior vice president, English channels, Star India. Note – this is only about English GECs not about English news, movies or infotainment channels like Discovery.

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Worldwide, English remains the choice for communication
By Ramachandra Guha, Telegraph India

November 4, 2011—In 1905 and 1906, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, his wife and their children shared a home in Johannesburg with an English couple, Henry and Millie Polak. Later, writing of their life together, Gandhi recalled that “Polak and I had often very heated discussions about the desirability or otherwise of giving the children an English education. It has always been my conviction that Indian parents who train their children to think and talk in English from their infancy betray their children and their country. They deprive them of the spiritual and social heritage of the nation, and render them to that extent unfit for the service of the country. Having these convictions, I made a point of always talking to my children in Gujarati. Polak never liked this. He thought I was spoiling their future. He contended, with all the love and vigour at his command, that, if children were to learn a universal language like English from their infancy, they would easily gain considerable advantage over others in the race of life. He failed to convince me”.

Gandhi added that while he insisted on his children speaking at home in Gujarati, and learning through that language, “they naturally became bilingual, speaking and writing English with fair ease, because of daily contact with a large circle of English friends, and because of their stay in a country [South Africa] where English was the chief language spoken.”

The private debate between Gandhi and Polak has had very many public echoes down the decades. In the 1920s, Gandhi and Tagore argued in print about whether a love for the English language betrayed a colonized mindset. The Mahatma thought it did, whereas the poet, a prophet of a rooted cosmopolitanism, argued that Indians could glory in the illumination of lamps lit in languages and cultures other than their own.

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Poking fun at our use of the English language
By Karan Thapar, Hindustan Times

November 12, 2011—It’s time to once again poke a little fun at the English language or, more accurately, our use of it. So, if you’ve had your fill of Anna, inflation, petrol prices and the 2G accused, this is very possibly the remedy you need. Sit comfortably and read on for a little frivolous pleasure.

First, consider how the English language has changed. When I was 10, “rubber” meant “eraser,” “ass” meant “donkey,” “gay” meant “happy,” “straight” was “linear,” “cock” was a “rooster,” “pussy” a “cat,” a “prick” was a “jab,” a “poke” a “nudge,” and a “screw” was what a carpenter used. Oh yes, in case I forget, a “tit” was a response for a ‘tat.” Now, today, even if you’re gay, you’re unlikely to admit it whilst many more are “pricks” and don’t know it. And very few use a “rubber”! We prefer to use “pens” or “type.”

Now, here’s an apocryphal account of what the Irish have done to the language. My cousin Arjun claims the Irish Medical Dictionary has the following unique definitions for words you and I have always understood differently. “Bacteria” is defined as “the back door to the cafeteria,” Caesarian Section as “a neighbourhood in Rome,” “Cat Scan” as “searching for Kitty,” “Coma” as “a punctuation mark,” whilst “Dilate” is “to live long,” “Enema” is “Not a friend,” “Fester” is “quicker than someone else,” “Fibula” “a small lie,” “Labour Pain” “getting hurt at work,” and “Morbid” “a higher offer.” “Nitrates are “rates of pay for night work,” a “Tablet” is “a small table,”, a “Pelvis” is “a second cousin of Elvis,” “Secretion” is “to hide something,” “Urine” is the “opposite of you’re out,” and “Terminal Illness” is “getting sick at the airport”!

However, more than the Irish, when it comes to destroying the English language the real offenders are the Americans…

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Web content in local languages
By Amarjit Batra, Hindustan Times

October 30, 2011—India has one of the fastest growing internet populations in the country. Market researches reveal that the Indian internet user base could touch 250 million by 2015 from the 2010 estimates of about 81 million of user base. And digital content consumption can further rise as high as $9.5 billion with rising adoption of mobile internet.

However, if we look into the demographics of the country, factors such as the high illiteracy rate and the population with a lack of familiarity with the internet space are perhaps big loopholes in the growth of internet consumption.

The mobile internet space is taking the digital content consumption market to altogether different heights. The mobile internet market space, flooded with infinite number of low cost phones along with the extended reach of networks by mobile operators, are actually fuelling demand in tier 1 and 2 cities. However, the more exciting story is the devices that are increasingly being used to have access to content — mobile phones with 3G and subsequently 4G capabilities.

The significantly lower access cost of mobile phones has already resulted in a teledensity of over 60% (on population) and penetration into nearly 150 million households. Mobile penetration today has already caught up with TV penetration and is set to scale past effortlessly. Users around the globe have shown quick adaptability to the mobile interface for accessing the internet, and there is no evidence to show that India will be any different.

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Now for some Inglish
By Karan Thapar, HindustanTimes.com

October 2, 2011—English is a delightful language and I never cease to marvel at its richness as well as its winning eccentricities. I’ve often written about the vagaries of its pronunciation, the peculiarities of its spelling and the contortions of its grammar. Today I want to share with you a few fresh insights into how the language is spoken or, in places, distorted. First, are you aware English can be moulded to say significantly different things while using the same words on each occasion?

The credit for what follows goes to my old school chum, Praveen Singh, who’s sent me an email about a certain Professor Ernest Brennecke of Columbia University. The good professor has “invented a sentence that can have multiple meanings” simply by changing the location of a single word. Of course, catching the changed meaning depends critically on how you speak the sentence. Try for yourself:

“Only I hit him in the eye yesterday” (that is, no one else did). “I only hit him in the eye yesterday” (that is, I didn’t hit him elsewhere). “I hit only him in the eye yesterday” (that is, I did not hit anyone else in the eye). “I hit him in the only eye yesterday” (that is, he doesn’t have more than one eye). “I hit him in the eye only yesterday” (that is, either as recently as that or not today).

These five sentences illustrate that your meaning doesn’t simply depend on the words you use but also where in the sentence you place them and, then, when you speak, how you stress the critical word.

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Pakistanis thriving in Afghan market
By Ahmad Fraz Khan, The Dawn
 
KABUL, July 5, 2011—With the Americans and their subsidiary companies – construction, supplies, telecom etc. – now running the show, Afghanistan has emerged as another labor market for the Pakistanis.

Security in Afghanistan is precarious and even Kabul wears the look of a war zone. The Afghan officials waste no opportunity to show their dislike, even hatred, for anything Pakistani. Yet underneath the political tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the market appears to define and rule the relationship between Pakistani labor and their employers in Afghanistan. There are, according to unofficial estimates, over 70,000 Pakistanis working in different sectors – hotels, telecom and banking – and some are even running printing presses.

According to the Pakistanis working in and around Kabul, two factors – dollarization of the Afghan economy and prevalence of English language – have opened the Afghan market to labor from Pakistan.

The Americans, one way or the other, are pumping over $100 billion into Afghanistan. “Even if three to four per cent of this money trickles down to a common man, it is more than enough to lift his economy,” says Haris Ali, country head of Aircom International in Afghanistan. Artificially pegged to dollar, the Afghani has improved to 45 Afghanis to a dollar; meaning that an Afghani is almost worth two Pakistani rupees. This exchange rate, though artificial as per economists’ claims, has become major attraction for the Pakistani labor, he concludes.

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A red card for “foul” language
By Percy Zvomuya, Mail&Guardian (Zambia)

October 28, 21011—In a classic essay, Politics and the English Language, writer George Orwell railed against bad English, imprecise ­diction and “general abuse of language.”

“Modern English, especially ­written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble,” Orwell wrote.

One cannot say the same about the Frenchman Arsene Wenger’s use of the English language. The fact that he's from Alsace—a a region that has, over the centuries, moved borders between France and Germany—must surely help.

Wenger, Arsenal’s manager, has conjured up new words, phrases, sayings—Arsenisms—that didn’t exist until he set foot in England. This was in a game afflicted with clichés and dull expressions.

Football has everything that Orwell railed against. Talk about dying and worn out metaphors, the game boasts plenty.

Some common football stock phrases such as “ring the changes” and “swan song” were even used as examples by Orwell in his famous essay.

How many times have we heard of a “coach ringing the changes”? Or, before a match between a big club and a smaller one, a player saying, “there are no easy games”? Or the game being a “game of two halves”?

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In battle to save Chinese, it’s test vs. test
By Brittany Hite, WallStreetJournal.com (blog)

September 29, 2011—Chinese students’ obsession with learning English is apparent. Chinese cities are littered with billboards and fliers for teaching institutes, and the demand for native-speaking teachers and tutors seems endless. For many, the TOEFL, or Test of English as a Foreign Language, ranks second only to the infamous gaokao college entrance exam as a driver of candle-burning study habits.

Worried that this preoccupation with English is contributing to a decline in native language skills, officials at the Ministry of Education are now trying to get students to return to their linguistic roots. How? By introducing another test.

The newly developed native-speaker Chinese exam measures listening, speaking, reading and writing skills and is meant to promote Chinese people’s “interest and ability in their own language,” Xinhua reports.

The National Education Examinations Authority, a body affiliated with the Ministry of Education, said it will promote the test to job seekers and college applicants before it is introduced nationally. It will be launched on a pilot basis in October in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Yunnan and Inner Mongolia, according to the Shenzhen Daily.

Despite the existence of dozens of local dialects, written Chinese is essentially the same across the country. The speaking portion of the new test will measure proficiency in Mandarin, often described as “standard Chinese” (putonghua).

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Banish the banal for more engaging English
By Mike Guest, The Daily Yomiuri

December 19, 2011—I often find out very interesting things about my students. One is a nationally ranked canoeist, another an amateur golfer of some note. I know of a student who has won prizes in classical music competitions in Europe, another who put out a nationally distributed rock CD, and yet another who is considered one of the very best vocal percussionists in the country. Still more--one whose father is the head of a major corporation, another whose father was a well-known Olympic athlete and one whose mother, being an English professor at another university, has presented at the same academic conferences as me.

Do you know how I learn these things? Well, my first classes involve student-to-student interviews in which they are given chances to talk and write about themselves and learn about others. But to be honest, I never learn the interesting stuff there. Rather, I hear about them later at drinking parties with students or other informal get-togethers—often secondhand.

Why don’t they tell me these interesting things about themselves when doing the opening class information gathering? Perhaps one could say that Japanese modesty is a factor—that it is widely considered unbecoming to trumpet your own abilities or pedigree. But more revealing is what they actually say or write instead.

My guideline instructions in this opening lesson include items like: “Ask about, then write, something unique about your partner.” But a typical response is something like: “I keep a cat.” I encourage follow-up student-made questions. A typical one might be: What’s the cat’s name?

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Break on through (to the puppet side)
By David F. Hoenigman, The Japan Times

It is often said that truly gifted teachers make their subject matter come to life. Jesse Glass has taken that concept to a new level by asking his students to take literary characters off the page and dance them about the room.

So in this professor’s classes you might find a thigh-high likeness of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus bragging of his scholarly accomplishments and enormous intelligence to the delight of a group of highly attentive students, as follows:

“How I wish old Archimedes could come back from the dead for a debate. Or Aristotle! I’d show Aristotle who knows what about what! I’m the smartest man in all of Wittenberg, all Germany, all Europe, the whole world! I want to know more! How can I learn more?”

The student controlling Faustus receives feedback and encouragement from his classmates and professor, fiddles with the puppet’s strings, laughs happily, and continues with his recitation.

Another group rehearses lines from a scene that will see each one assume the role of one of the seven deadly sins. Still another group surrounds a table, thoroughly engrossed in the process of drawing and coloring a large sheet of paper that will serve as backdrop scenery within the puppet theater.

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Can the word of God be translated?
By Dow Marmur, TheStar.com

TORONTO, December 26, 2011—As Jews began to gain access to Western culture in the 19th century, many of the world’s literary classics were translated into Yiddish, the language of East European Jewry. A story has it that a title page of one such translation read: “Hamlet by William Shakespeare: translated and improved.”

Reading some of the books marking the 400th anniversary this year of the King James Version of the Bible (KJV), I thought of that title page. Despite the enormous impact that the KJV has had on the Western religious imagination and on the English language, scholars have shown that, alas, it’s by no means an improvement on the original.

In his informative book, And God Said, with the telling subtitle, “How translations conceal the Bible’s original meaning,” the American scholar Joel Hoffman writes: “Twenty-first century readers who encounter the lofty, archaic English of the KJV wrongly conclude that it was meant to reflect lofty, archaic Hebrew. It was not.”

Hoffman identifies three kinds of problems: “The Hebrew was misunderstood. The English didn’t represent the Hebrew. And the English, even though it used to match the Hebrew, no longer does because English has changed.”

Perhaps it’s to eliminate such issues that the synagogue insists on reading scripture in the original. It seems that every translation, however seemingly impressive and ostensibly accurate, will only allow access to the text as if through a glass darkly. Knowledge of Hebrew has, therefore, become a fundamental requirement in Jewish education.

But the KJV is, of course, primarily holy writ for Christians…

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Quebec cinema: the cultural doors are open
By Brendan Kelly, The Montreal Gazette
 
MONTREAL, December 27, 2011—Whenever I try to explain to people what I do for a living, I always make a joke that’s not really a joke: I say that I write about the movies none of my readers go to see.

Now, don’t fire off an angry email to tell me how you’re a card-carrying bloke who loved C.R.A.Z.Y. and De père en flic. I know there are anglophones who sometimes go to see Québécois films, listen to local francophone singers, and maybe even tune their TV to Radio-Canada and TVA on occasion. In fact, Luc Déry—who produced the hottest Quebec films of the past two years, Incendies and Monsieur Lazhar—was happy to tell me this week that the English subtitled versions of both those films did blockbuster business at the AMC Forum cinema.

But the reality is that most English Montrealers still mostly consume English-language culture. So my job is to try to provide a window into the vibrant Québécois showbiz scene that surrounds us, but that we’re still not fully a part of.

And sometimes I do the opposite. I sneak across the cultural divide and try to stand up for us squareheads in the French-language media here. Hey, what I won't do for Team Anglo! I've even ventured into radio studios with nationalists like Nathalie Petrowski and Josée Legault to explain why we've been slighted by the latest Louis-José Houde joke or Louis Morissette skit.

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The stakes are raised in war on English
By Don Macpherson, The Montreal Gazette

MONTREAL, December 10, 2011—Testifying in his trial on drug-trafficking charges this week, Tony Conte, a 47-year-old Montreal native, said he could not understand certain text messages that he had received that were alleged to concern a drug transaction because he doesn’t understand English.

Conte, an actor, testified that he has even had to turn down roles because of his lack of English.

For this heroic personal sacrifice, and for his exemplary, lifelong resistance to English assimilation, I nominate Conte for the next “patriot of the year” award of the anti-English Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal.

Now if only he’ll be available to attend the award ceremony next November.

By then, he might merit serious consideration for the award, if the renewed war in Quebec on English and those who speak it continues to escalate. Consider some recent developments.

The enemy is no longer only the gradually vanishing anglos who still don’t speak French. Now it’s also those who do, but are deemed not to speak it well enough.

A commentator on Montreal’s most popular radio station, Benoît Dutrizac, invited municipal politicians Michael Applebaum and Marvin Rotrand onto his show, then ridiculed their French as hard to understand.

And another commentator, Mathieu Bock-Côté, complained in the Journal de Montréal about being greeted in Montreal businesses in accented French.

The war is also against the public use of English, even when it is still legal.

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The CSDM’s French-only dictum is at odds with global realities
 By Céline Cooper, The Montreal Gazette
 
TORONTO, December 5, 2011—For some of us concerned about how best to promote French in Quebec and Canada as a whole, the language restrictions introduced by the Commission Scolaire de Montréal seem sorely outdated.

In a network of schools where 53 per cent of students do not speak French as a native language, the CSDM will soon require everyone to speak French beyond the classrooms, in the halls, cafeterias and schoolyards. The idea is that by discouraging the use of other languages, students (most of whom are legally obliged to be in the French system) would be more likely to master the French language and therefore reach a higher level of educational success.

This move is part of a broader effort to stanch the hemorrhage of students who are dropping out of school, something that is particularly urgent in the French schools, where the dropout rates are higher than in the English system.

Although it is not apparent how these new rules will be enforced (the CSDM website states that enforcement will not involve “imposition, coercion or obligation”), it is clear that the CSDM approaches language as a problem to be managed.

This is nothing new. Since Bill 101 came into effect, French-language schools in Quebec (from primary to post-secondary) have been invested with the responsibility of fostering a national identity based on a sense of cultural and linguistic uniformity.

Yet as public spaces, including schools, become increasingly globalized, the unilingual agenda at the core of the project de francization is bumping up against the reality of greater linguistic diversity, particularly in Montreal…

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The language debate and respect for rights
 By Marc Felgar, Montreal Gazette (Letter to the Editor)

MONTREAL, November 14, 2011—Re: “Fomenting a language crisis where none exists” (Editorial, Nov. 11).

The Gazette errs in a fundamental and dangerous way when arguing against the need for French-language activists to protest the supposed rise of English on the island of Montreal.

The activists are not wrong, as The Gazette claims, because Quebec has more pressing matters to address, such as corruption, bureaucracy and an excessive tax burden. Nor are they wrong because they use flawed statistics.

French-language activists are wrong because the rights of all citizens to express themselves in the language of their choice, whether in private or public, whether in politics, business or personal discussion, should not be up for debate.

The activists are wrong because no minority ought to be targeted and excluded from public life for practising a fundamental right, such as speech.

The activists are wrong because our rights are not privileges – they cannot expand or contract as the relative number of anglophones benignly expands or contracts on the island of Montreal.

French-language activists are wrong because the survival of the French language in Quebec does not require the eradication of the English community, but simply the use of French by the French community.

French-language activists are wrong because English has always been a significant part of the fabric and success of Quebec. They shouldn’t be surprised when they see it or hear it.

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Is English a phonetic language?? Of course. 100%.
By Bruce Deitrick Price, CanadaFreePress.com

November 18, 2011—Welcome to the Reading Wars. One of the weirder aspects of this conflict is that some so-called experts say a lot of untrue things, for example, that English is not a phonetic language. Sure, and birds do not fly.

To set the stage for this debate, I want to remind you that Rudolf Flesch concluded in his 1955 book Why Johnny Can’t Read that English is 97.4% phonetic. Denise Eide, in her recent book Uncovering the Logic of English, states that English is 98% phonetic.

These are wonderful smart people, scholars both, and I certainly mean no disrespect when I tell you they are wrong. English is 100% phonetic.

Now, to make that clear, let us look at a word that is surely not phonetic. For example, if wrtq were an English word pronounced “shuffleboard,” we would correctly say that it is not phonetic. That is, there is no connection between the letters and the pronunciation.

By the way, I searched for strange words on the Internet and found: “finnimbrun,” “nudiustertian,” “phenakism,” “pronk,” “pulveratricious,” “agastopia,” “cabotage,” “erinaceous,” “firman,” “gabelle,” “oxter,” “ulotrichous,” “misodoctakleidist,” “pulveratricious,” “inaniloquent.” But none of these whacky words turned out to be non-phonetic. If anything, our easy mastery of these never-before-seen words shows the genius of our phonetic language!

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Fomenting a language crisis where none exists
Montreal Gazette

November 10, 2011—This week, two little-known institutes reported that 13.6 per cent of Quebec’s public-sector workers use some degree of English in the workplace – a rate completely out of proportion, they sputtered, to the presence of anglophones in the population.

The institutes calculate that Quebecers whose mother tongue is English make up only 8.7 per cent of the population, overlooking the fact that according to a more reasonable measure – people who speak English at home – anglophones make up 13.4 per cent.

Language activists were also recently upset by what they charged is the increasingly English face of downtown Montreal, where global brand names like American Apparel, Banana Republic and Future Shop are the norm. Several hundred protesters marched down Ste. Catherine St. last Saturday, demanding that stores put up French versions of their corporate names.

Also in the headlines recently was a finding that 76 businesses are in violation of Bill 101 in the Montreal riding (Acadie) of Quebec Culture and Communications Minister Christine St-Pierre. A resident went around taking photos. Three of the 76 stores had certificates allowing English signs, something the resident found more annoying than exculpatory.

Out of such disparate and disjointed bits of “evidence,” French-language activists are trying to manufacture a linguistic crisis in Montreal.

The political roots of the alleged crisis are obvious. Support for sovereignty is dwindling, especially among young Quebecers. Backing for the Parti Québécois is also falling off. For French-language activists, a once dependable rallying point is in danger of dying a slow but entirely natural death.

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Paying top civil servants for French training is wasteful in any language
By Stephen Maher, Postmedia News

November 9, 2011—In December, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency hired Kevin MacAdam to be the director general of regional operations for Prince Edward Island.

MacAdam is a former provincial Cabinet minister who ran and lost for the federal Tories in 2000, then went to work for Peter MacKay as a political operative; the kind of savvy, tight-lipped character who makes things happen in the backrooms.

His appointment to a $130,000-a-year public service position looks bad, in part because a bunch of other guys close to MacKay got similar jobs.

It looks like MacKay was able to exert influence to get his buddies sweet civil service jobs, which is not the way things should work. The Public Service Commission is investigating.

And MacAdam is not busy giving loans to Summerside gift shops because he’s on French training in Ottawa, getting his full salary for up to two years, which is completement niaiseux.

In 1867, when Canada was established, the British North America Act provided that Parliament and the federal courts would work in both languages, and in the early days, when most civil service jobs were patronage appointments, francophones got their share of jobs. But they were eventually elbowed out by Anglos, and for many decades they could not get jobs in Ottawa, and if they did, they had to “speak white,” as our racist forefathers put it.

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English in its most hideous form
By Gen Why?, The Daily Post

September 25, 2011—You know the situation. You’re on the bus or in the supermarket line, trying your best to fit into the general milieu when a couple of fabulously exotic descent sidle up beside you and begin to talk in hushed, foreign tones.

The words are a blur, but the tone is unmistakable. Those flowing, rich expressions with too much phlegm and not enough vowels are definitely, unnervingly, about you. It doesn’t sound good. Chins lower, eyebrows raise, and stifled giggles ensue. It is impossible to tell the theme of the conversation exactly but as you stare at them vacantly, you’re positive you can decipher the words “philistine numbskull” ... positive. Unfortunately, ridicule is transnational.

Like many of my Kiwi counterparts, I am hopelessly monolingual. My intercultural success begins and ends with occasionally being able to convince people I’m from Belfast on St. Patrick’s Day. This usually succeeds only with people who are too drunk to hear. But it’s not for lack of trying. Over the last 20 years I have dabbled with several languages in the hope of becoming urbane and sophisticated.

The journey started in Year 7, where I flung myself passionately into Mandarin because everything else was full. From a 12-year-old’s perspective, my two-year affair with the language was a success. Whether it was due to academic devotion or the fortnightly trip to the West End Chinese Smorgasbord is still a matter of debate.

Yet as much as I delighted in the joy of oriental cuisine it also took me years to comprehend that chicken nuggets weren’t, in fact, part of customary Eastern cooking…

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A toast to public speaking
By Praseeda Nair, Khaleej Times Online

DUBAI, July 3, 2011—The two most frightening words in the English language for most high school students are public speaking, or so it seems from the sheer number of young people clamouring to join speech-heavy extracurricular activities, ranging from debate to Toastmasters clubs.

As a global communication and leadership training programme, Toastmasters International has over 260,000 members in over 80 countries across the world. Each region is divided into a numbered district and area, allowing for inter-club competitions and sessions to take place within a certain locale.

The latest addition to Area 40 in Dubai is the youth-based club, The Republic Toastmasters Club, headed by a former Gavel club member (an under-18 Toastmaster-affiliated programme), Anamta Farook.

“The common misconception people have of Toastmasters is that we only deal with public speaking. It’s not about memorising speeches, but more about how to think on your feet and communicate effectively, both in a group and one-to-one,” Anamta said.
Toastmasters clubs aren’t exclusively for the shy or for those battling stage fright. Some are reserved by nature, others self-assured and loud, but all of them share an interest in perfecting their formal speaking skills.

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English benefits children
By a Concerned Citizen, TheStar.com.my

PETALING JAYA, December 24, 2011—I have been reading about the plight and pleas of concerned parents for the English language to be reinstated in schools for the benefit of our children.

I support the move for the sake my children and children of friends and relatives and for all those who feel strongly about this issue.

What is so sinful or wrong to have our children speak English or learn subjects in English while in school?

Does mastering English make us:

> Less loyal to the country;

> Less proud of the country;

> Forget our mother tongue be it Chinese, Tamil or Bahasa Melayu;

> Country will not or stop to progress; and

> Less confused people or nation.

Does forcing the use of Bahasa Melayu to both teachers and school children guarantee that all will get superb results and be assured of places in foreign and local universities?

My concern is also over how our children, who have studied in Malaysia, gone to government schools and maybe colleges face the world’s challenges when they are short of knowledge in the most commonly used language in the universe?

And most families would have their children go abroad to earn a degree.

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English conquers all
By Nadiah Wan, TheStar.com.my

December 18, 2011—One piece of advice I would give to any aspiring Malaysian student is to improve their command of English. From my story, I hope you will see why.

There was nothing special about my upbringing beyond the fact that we spoke English at home. As a product of a multiracial marriage, English was a compromise between two cultures.

At school, I entered the pure science stream. I loved history and languages, but saw science as a way of deciphering nature’s own language or code.

I also actively sought to participate in everything from debates to sports meets. I learnt how to speak and present in public, and I learnt that determination, more than speed, is needed to win a long race. When I look back at my schooling years, it was those experiences I cherish the most.

After SPM, I was awarded a Public Service Department scholarship to study in the United States (US). For a student who enjoys both the humanities and the sciences, the American education system is perfect as it is flexible and allows students to explore different subjects.

At that time, Biotechnology was the “in thing” and I wanted very much to be part of this exciting new wave. To this end, I even obtained an internship to work in a lab at Universiti Malaya for a few months just to gain some research experience.

The application process to an American university starts a year before the application is due. The first obstacle is the SAT, which many find difficult due to the intricacies of the language and the biasness of the test towards English speakers. Therefore, to succeed, students must be as comfortable with English as any American student would be.

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The medium and the message
By Alex Cummins, TheStar.com.my

December 18, 2011—Love is said to be the most important word in English Language, although there are many who think that words like “sorry” or “you” are equally important. Whatever these words may convey, they are inevitably used in communication for without words, it will be impossible to love, worship, engage in business or social activities. We all communicate through a language and with our body with gestures and expressions of our eyes, hands or even our posture. We communicate from the time we are born, yet there are instances when our communication can go wrong.

With the exponential growth in recent years and with faster ways of communicating – mobile phones, e-mails, Web sites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and services like Twitter, RSS Feeds, blogs and LinkedIn — all accessible by smart phones almost anywhere, surely communicating with others must be easier than ever before.

Yes, the choice of personal communication media, their ease of use and cheaper prices, all due to amazing technological innovation and market competition, provide opportunities hard to imagine just 20 years ago!

But the trouble is, if delivering the message has become so much easier, composing the message so that it is clear and accurate is as tough as it was many centuries ago. Even words of love, endearment and body language during an evening out can turn out to be disastrous and there will be many couples who can attest to that.

In the work place for instance, the use of accurate and appropriate communication is everyone’s business — from the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to the security guard.

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Giving evidence: Articles of law
By Bhag Singh, TheStar.com.my

December 13, 2011—We all know that Bahasa Malaysia is the national language. However, if a person is called to court as a witness, must he give evidence using Bahasa Malaysia or can he choose to give evidence in any other language?

This issue bothers many people who are called up as witnesses to give evidence in a court of law. Sometimes the fear of having to use an unfamiliar language makes the witness reluctant to testify.

However, it ought to be noted that what the national language of the country is, and the issue of giving evidence in court, are two entirely different matters. So, too, is the issue of the conduct of proceedings in court. Such proceedings do not consist of giving evidence alone. Giving evidence is only part of the proceedings. In civil cases, it starts with cause papers such as a summons or writ of summons being filed.

Then the matter is called up, counsel addresses the court and the judge, having conduct of the matter, gives directions in relation to the proceedings.

The law with regard to the national language is set out in Article 152 of the Federal Constitution. Here it is provided that the national language shall be the Malay language and shall be in such script as Parliament may by law provide.

However, the same provision also stipulates that no person shall be prohibited or prevented from using language other than Bahasa Malaysia for official purposes or from teaching or learning any other language.

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English is global
By Bhavani Veasuvalingam, TheStar.com.my (Letter to the Editor)

December 4, 2011—The recent decision by the Government to allow the Teaching and Learning of Science and Mathematics in English (PPSMI) for students who have started learning the subjects in the language for a few more years, would be the most sensible thing to do.

The Medical and Allied Health industry is a good example of a field where much of the teaching texts and materials are in English. It has been the main language used in the sciences and will produce graduates who will think and act both locally and globally.

The Government has made many positive attempts to produce human capital and to prevent the current brain drain.

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin in his “soft landing” announcement said it was not only a relief for parents and students who prefer the subjects to be taught in English but also to those involved in tertiary education.

I do agree that the universal use of English in Science would facilitate studies in scientific fields. I also support the call to make English a compulsory pass subject in the SPM (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia) examination and making English literature a compulsory subject.

These decisions if implemented in schools will make it easier for our youngsters to acquire a good command of both written and spoken English especially when they enter tertiary institutions.

When we talk about health professional education, we are also referring to the acquiring of knowledge through reading from medical and health journals by authors around the world.

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Helping English to grow
Dr K.H. Sng, TheStar.com.my (Letter to the Editor)

Kuala Lumpur, November 29, 2011—The debate will go on and on, and probably never end. Yet, we must ask this question again and again: “What is the position of the English Language for future Malaysians?”

Is there a role or place for the fluent use and mastery of the language for our future generations?

A quick scan across the globe can help us answer these questions.

Firstly, the command of any language is vital for anyone to communicate and excel.

It does not matter what language we use, provided we have access to good translations and correct interpretation in our reading, writing and communication.

Secondly, every country naturally focuses on the development of its national language or national languages, if more than one. This is necessary to ensure its nationals use and develop it to the fullest.

As far as Malaysia is concerned, Bahasa Malaysia is our national language.

Its place and position should never be doubted by any party.

As a language, Bahasa Malaysia is a very beautiful language. I am particularly amazed by its suffixes and prefixes, making it such a flexible and versatile language.

My concern for the national language is whether we have enough capable lexicographers to create and invent good and great words progressively.

One example of a shocking word that came and disappeared from normal usage was the word: “ketidakabnormalan,” which is meant to mean a situation of normality!

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Language of the sciences
By Datuk S. S. Subramaniam, TheStar.com.my (Letter to the Editor)

November 20, 2011—I have been a proponent of the use of both English and Bahasa Malaysia and have been closely following the PPSMI (the Teaching and Learning of Science and Maths in English) policy over the years.

I now observe with renewed interest the comments made by Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, as well as the view of others on the policy.

Most of the comments miss a very important aspect of PPSMI, in that there is a considerable difference between a graduate who qualifies as a Science, Engineering, Medical or Mathematics graduate compared to one who graduates with an Arts degree.

Starting out from an estate primary school and attaining both an engineering and accounting degree, I must say that I had to invest more time and effort especially for my engineering degree.

The success of the many advanced countries in science and technology is due to the importance given to produce graduates in the field compared to those seeking a degree in the arts.

Malaysia has been producing more arts graduates than those majoring in science courses.

A good number of our science graduates have migrated overseas for better job prospects, rewards and recognition.

With regards to the PPSMI, there is the view that urbanites are more inclined to support it compared to rural folk who would prefer their children learn Science and Maths in their respective mother tongues.

This is because of the mistaken belief that rural children are not capable of mastering two languages, as well as the bias of the policy-makers against English, which they consider as a colonial and foreign language.

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Whither English? Wither English?
By Lucille Dass, TheStar.com.my (Letter to the Editor)

November 13, 2011—Your articles under the headings “Revive the days when we mastered English”; “Key to better English”; and, more recently, “View English as a vital second language” and the “Importance of being earnest” are only a handful of distress signals filtered from the multitude of comments and views voiced on the subject for so long now.

Popular talk on the ground — at conferences and seminars, the workplace, the home, places of worship (with prayers being offered for the cause), in coffee-shops and shopping malls — has been, is, and will continue to be, on the subject of English.

Like many concerned educators and one who has experienced a sense of the rise and fall of English in the country, I voiced my anguish over the steady decline of English in the last three decades at an ELT (English Language Teaching) conference where I was invited as a keynote speaker.

Washing dirty linen in public? Hardly. Our soiled (English) linen has been hanging out to dry in full view of all and sundry for so long now. A stark reality. We have fallen out of grace and it’s a wonder that we didn’t feel seek redemption sooner.

Instead, we wandered and squandered precious recovery time, getting lost, like Alice in Wonderland, not knowing or really caring where we and our young were headed for, until rescued through concerted public assertiveness and aid.

The young today, teachers included, are simply products of an education system gone awry…

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Our education system does not serve the needs of the 21st century
By Feizrul Nor Nurbi, FreeMalaysiaToday.com (Letter to the Editor)

November 14, 2011—I refer to the FMT article, “Scrap PPSMI, future generations will suffer,” by Aziff Azuddin. I was born in the early 80s to a middle class family from a small town in Perak – not exactly a city kid. My parents didn’t speak in English at home, but in my early years I managed to pick up English in bits and pieces through the idiot box. Then came kindergarten when I was exposed more to the language.

Entering my school life in late 80s meant I had gone through my schooling years learning all subjects sans English in Bahasa Melayu. In school, from Standard One until Form Five, I was fortunate to be able to learn from English teachers who were passionate and made the lessons interactive and fun. I was certainly lucky in this sense when all around me the quality of English teaching were crumbling and getting worse day after day.

Bear in mind, I studied Math and Science in BM.

So, university life came a-calling, and immediately the medium of instruction was changed to English. I can almost hear your thought, “A-ha! This guy must have struggle!” but evidently, I did not. University life in English was really a breeze for me. Looking back, it was my strong grounding in the English language as taught by my English teachers that gave me the edge. For that I am ever so grateful to them.

So, what am I now? – a software architect working with a US-based MNC, travelling  all over Asia Pacific and handling customers the world over from a multitude of cultures and languages…

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Exploring the foreignness of the English language
By Dr. Lim Chin Lam, TheStar.com.my

November 11, 2011—Ever since I learnt to read, I have been fascinated by the written (and printed) word. It is awesome that a sequence of symbols can tell a story, describe the stuff of dreams and imagination, and lead one into a world of knowledge. The said symbols represent the script of a language.

English is classified as a West Germanic language, but it is written not in the Gothic alphabet of German but in the Roman alphabet developed from Latin.

English is deemed to have undergone three stages in its development. Old English (ca 450 to ca 1100 ), also referred to as Anglo-Saxon, was the language spoken in England before the Norman Conquest of 1066. Words native to the English plus those that came with the Anglo-Saxon invaders and colonists are largely of one syllable, most of which have evolved with change of spelling to their modern form, e.g. a, after, bed, boon, child, day, dog, eye, far, fern, give, head, knife, land, man, night, off.

Middle English (ca 1100 to ca 1500) was the English which underwent a profound change (in linguistics among other things) after the Norman Conquest (1066). There was an infusion of Norman French (Old French) into English. Latin and the Roman script were introduced during this period. While French itself is a Latin-derived language, there is a difference in the way words from Latin and French came into English. For example, the words exceed and succeed came from the Latin root-word cedere “to go, to yield” through French and entered Modern English as such. On the other hand, words such as intercede and precede, which were derived from the same Latin root, entered Modern English directly from Latin.

Modern English (after ca 1500) is the English of Shakespeare and those that came thereafter. Modern English expanded with words consequent upon the age of exploration and colonization.

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Forum: Here’s the crux of the matter—our schools have failed us
MalaysiaKini.com            

November 6, 2011—FREE YOURSAY: “I hope for once we should all be honest with our answer—an answer not based on political correctness, parochialism, expediency and personal interests.”

Loo Soon Fatt: Prof Abdul Aziz Bari, let’s be clear on this: nobody is against the national language. It had been made a compulsory subject and all students must obtain at least a pass to get a full certificate in all national school examinations.

Our students must be proficient in English if we want our new generation to compete in the globalised world where the universal language is English. What’s the big fuss if our students are good in both languages?

In fact, the more languages they know, the better. Our leaders must be pragmatic and far sighted if our country want to prosper. We must produce world champions instead of “jaguh kampong” (village champion).

David Dass: What we are advocating is bilingualism. We must recognise the importance of English as the language that gives us immediate and global access to knowledge and information as it develops.

We should avoid elitism that allows those with means to enjoy the advantages that English language proficiency gives and condemns the poor to all the limitations that a monolingual culture inflicts.

We must accept that without an environment for the use of English, there will be no motivation to learn the language. Bilingualism with English being one of the languages and Malay the other, will ensure that our children and grandchildren will be able to face the future with confidence. Malay will still be the national language.

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Voices of our young generation lost in tangle over PPSMI
Editorial, The Star

November 2, 2011—The raging debate over the Teaching of Science and Mathematics in English (PPSMI) is unlikely to simmer down despite the Government’s unequivocal stand that there will be no policy reversal.

The protagonists have fought long and hard in a battle where, sadly, the real victims are our young generation, whose voices are not heard.

Those who speak on their behalf, from either side, must understand that there are long-term consequences when policy changes are made at this level, more so in the field of education.

The voices we hear in this newspaper, and in cyberspace, understandably, favour the English language proponents. To their opponents, their outreach is limited to urban, middle-class families where English is almost like their mother tongue, whatever their ethnicity.

Those who speak on behalf of the rest of the country, therefore, claim that simply in terms of numbers, reverting to teaching Science and Mathematics in Bahasa Malaysia is the obvious solution.

There are merits to both sides of the arguments but the battle continues not so much in terms of what is good for our children and our country in the long term, but what is politically expedient in the short term.

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No shame in learning English
By Hussaini Abdul Karim, TheSunDaily.my

SHAH ALAM, November 1, 2011—Last Friday, I heard on TV, the deputy prime minister saying knowledge must be obtained using the national language to ensure continuity. If in any other language like English, for example, he said, it would mean that only those who master that language would benefit, and if there were no more people in this country who could speak English, the knowledge will be lost. That was the essence of his speech. That was why a decision was made to abolish the teaching of maths and science in English (PPSMI) and have them taught in Malay.

During World War II, there were many languages used since countries involved each had their own languages. The main languages used, however, were English/American, French, German and Russian. In order to be able to communicate effectively, the American and British forces, as part of the Allied Forces, trained many of their people to use German, French and Russian.

The Germans and Russians did likewise, the main reason being to obtain information, and the best way to obtain information about the countries you are fighting is to know their language and perhaps also, their customs and culture. In the east, the all-conquering Japanese army recruited Chinese and Taiwanese soldiers who could speak Mandarin and a few other Chinese dialects as these were some of the languages the countries they invaded used. They also had soldiers, either Japanese or locals, who could speak other Asian languages such as Thai, Cambodian, Laotian, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Indonesian/Malay, English, etc.

Malaysians used to talk to leaders of English-speaking countries and address international leaders at international forums and seminars directly and without the help of interpreters; so it was puzzling to note that on a recent visit to a neighbouring country, whose official language is English, a senior official required the services of an interpreter.

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Scrapping the teaching of English: How “soft” will the landing be?
By Liong Kam Chong, TheStar.com.my

SEREMBAN, November 4, 2011—In scrapping PPSMI (the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English), the Education Ministry has given the assurance of a “soft landing.”

By that it means students “caught” in the transition will continue to be taught and examined in the English language (BI) and Bahasa Melayu (BM) or in the case of vernacular primary schools, in Chinese or Tamil.

According to the ministry’s Schedule of Transition, by 2012, primary Year 1 and Year 2 pupils will study the two subjects in BM only.

Years Three, Four, Five and Six pupils will be taught in BI and BM/Chinese/Tamil.

This bilingual approach will progressively be phased out with the last bilingual Year 6 pupils being the batch in 2015.

Similarly, for secondary students, by 2012, Form I will study in BM only whilst the Forms Two, Three, Four and Five will continue in BI and BM.

The last bilingual BI/BM Form 5 students will also be the batch in 2015.

But, what is actually happening on the ground? How soft is the landing indeed?

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Exploring English: Issues to address
By Keith W. Wright, TheStar.com.my

October 16, 2011—When teaching oracy and literacy skills to students for whom English is an additional language (EAL), teachers must know exactly what is required to be taught. The primary focus should be on their learners’ comprehension and the instruction must be logical and directional.

The teacher’s physical movement, gesture and expression are important as is the need for engagement, motivation and variation. Learning remains a partnership between the teacher and student.

However, the task for most EAL learners, unlike primary English speakers, is different. As they have not been repeatedly exposed to English outside the classroom or learnt the language unconsciously, deliberate and directed study is a necessity.

The features of natural language acquisition can be extremely difficult to replicate in a classroom. Unlike children in an English-speaking home, many EAL learners lack support and encouragement from a peer group or English-speaking parents.

Even the language of an EAL teacher requires attention to accommodate the language proficiency of learners.

Unlike learning situations where a commonality in primary language exists, adapting language to suit the learner is imperative.

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English... too easy?
By Mary Murphy, Budapest Times    

October 1, 2011—If you can speak three languages you’re trilingual. If you can speak two languages you’re bilingual. If you can speak only one language you’re an American. – Author Unknown

As I continue to struggle on and off with learning Hungarian (I am now on my fifth teacher, all the others having given up fighting with my recalcitrant tongue), I was highly bemused to learn that minds within the Ministry of Education think that English shouldn’t be positioned as the first foreign language Hungarian students learn, as it is... wait for it... too easy!

Apparently, these great minds think that learning English as a first foreign language creates the misguided notion that all foreign languages are easy to learn, and when they find out otherwise, they’re discouraged. By their logic, if students were to study “languages with a fixed, structured grammatical system, the learning of which presents a balanced workload, such as neo-Latin languages”, which represent a lot more work, then they could learn the much easier to learn English almost as a by-the-way. Ergo, by learning more difficult languages first, Hungarians would become more multilingual. I beg to differ.

In Hungarian, the stress is always on the first syllable. That’s an easy rule to follow. In English, however, the stress often determines the meaning of the word. For instance, “permit” and “permit” are different; the former is a verb, “to allow,” the latter a noun, “a licence to do.” Same letters, same combination, different meanings. Or what about determining what the first syllable is?

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Native Hungarian talks about the differences between her native tongue and English
By Esther Kiss, WestSideToday.com

June 28, 2011—“Hello, my name is Esther” or “Szia, a nevem Eszter” in my native Hungarian.

They say that the English language is the hardest language to master; between verbs, adverbs, pronouns, nouns, conjunctions, punctuations, blah, blah, blah, there is definitely a lot to learn and very little of it is consistent, as is with the case with other languages. For starters: Hungarian uses a forty-four letter alphabet and English limits its vocabulary to twenty-six tools from which to make words.

The confusion between the two languages in which I function starts even farther back than that; in Hungarian, my native tongue is called “Magyar.” Whatever you call it, my first language is defined as a Uralic language and is spoken in many of the Baltic regions in Eastern Europe of which Hungary is a part.

While English is the most popular language in the world it has some idiomatic rules that drive non-native speakers… to study harder. For example prepositions do not exist in Hungarian/Magyar…

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A parliament of owls
By S Iftikhar Murshed, SanaNews.net

December 11, 2011 (SANA)—One of the quirks of the English language is that a group of owls is called a parliament. The bird is a symbol of wisdom but in Urdu an owl, or ullu, represents stupidity and a parliament of owls would translate as an assembly of imbeciles (ulluon ki majlis). This demonstrates how absurd literal translations of foreign phrases can be. The Urdu idiom has certainly been unfair to the hooting avian of the night so universally acclaimed for its sagacity.

The national legislatures in most countries, whether democracies, quasi-democracies or even dictatorships, are normally referred to as parliaments, though the formal nomenclatures may be as varied as National Assembly, House of Commons, Lok Sabha, Shura, Duma and Diet. That is where the similarity with an assemblage of owls ends. Parliamentarians worldwide are not distinguished by exceptional sapience, nor are they congenital idiots.

They are mostly men and women of average intelligence but with hugely inflated egos. This is where the Pakistani variety of lawmakers takes the lead. For instance, several members of the national and provincial assemblies insist on adorning the rear and front fenders of their cars with metallic plates bearing the inscription “MNA” or “MPA” in order to advertise their status.

Pakistani parliamentarians are unique in many respects and defy some of the established theories of political science. Their addiction to the phrase “supremacy of parliament,” which they articulate with the zeal of proselytising missionaries, is just one example. Yet in a constitutional democracy it is not the parliament but the constitution that is supreme.

Since 2007 Pakistan has had more than its share of crises and this year has been spectacularly eventful. The fury of these storms have scattered the attention of the nation hither and thither, as a consequence of which the several acts of commission and omission of members of parliament has faded from memory. These need to be revisited, especially as election year 2013 draws near.

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The death of English news in Pakistan
By Ovais Jafar, Tribune.com.pk (Blog)

LAHORE, December 1, 2011—During a job interview in Lahore, at the purpose built headquarters of a soon-to-launch news channel, I was asked how I felt about hosting an English language program to cater to the expats responsible for many important decisions.

My response back in 2008: the ones who matter already have the means to get the information they need. The idea of an English language news program was great, but not to satisfy the appetites of expats. It was important, first, to satisfy the needs of our own people.

The most common response to my idealism – as it was usually considered – was the fact that Geo English had not launched and Dawn News was a failing product from the get-go.

I still maintain, had Geo English launched, Dawn News would have understood the difference and gone Urdu a lot sooner and Express 24/7 would have never seen the light of day.

To understand why, it must be noted that from the team that was trained for Geo English, many became the faces of Dawn News. Many more worked behind the scenes as producers, reporters and copy writers.

When the time came for Express 24/7, it was launched – again – by most of the core team that was trained for Geo English (some of the ones who were part of the core team from NewsDay – Geo’s first English bulletin – till GE’s death)

The people who went to Dawn were mostly foreign educated, western influenced individuals. The ones that fell in 24/7’s lap were the thoroughbred Pakistani brains.

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English a “deterritorialised” language today, says linguist
By Anil Datta, TheNews.com.pk

KARACHI, October 18, 2011—English today is a language of global access, a language of self-representation. Its role as a key to the study of literature and English (or British) culture is receding. This is because today literature as a subject doesn’t carry the lure that it did till about 27 years ago. It is on the wane, given the corporate and technological spheres of activity the world is marked by today.

These views were expressed by Dr Peter Grundy, honorary fellow at the Language Centre, University of Durham, UK, and a visiting professor of linguistics at the University of Vienna, Austria, while talking to The News at a local hotel on Monday. Dr Grundy is in town as one of the trainers at the just concluded Society for the Promotion of English Language Teaching (SPELT) conference.

He said that when he was a student at the university, there were a large number of students studying literature but today at the same university, the number had greatly dwindled.

Today, he said, the role of English was more to facilitate international interaction and tackling international economic issues, like the international job market and emigration. The global perspective of the language was undergoing a radical change, he said. As such, he said, the role of English today was less confined as compared to what it was when it was the key to just the study of literature.

“Today English is a ‘deterritorialised’ language. In the present-day digital world, it is a tool for communicating internationally,” Dr Grundy said and cited the Internet and other modern tools of information technology like the iPod and the mobile phone.

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Ten-year national action plan for a trilingual Sri Lanka
By Sajitha Prematunge, DailyNews.lk

June 23, 2011—Nearly 90 percent of Sinhala speaking people cannot communicate in Tamil and cannot communicate effectively in English. Whereas 70 percent of Tamil speaking people in Sri Lanka cannot communicate in Sinhala. But the new Presidential initiative on a trilingual Sri Lanka plans to change this.

A salient feature of the Presidential initiative for a trilingual Sri Lanka is the redefinition of language. “The initiative will not promote Sinhala and Tamil as mere instruments of communication, but as a holistic cultural package,” said Presidential Advisor and Coordinator of the programme ‘English as a life skill’ and the initiative for a trilingual Sri Lanka, Sunimal Fernando. “Language is an expression of culture. Knowledge of Tamil culture will facilitate empathy and affection for its culture in the Sinhala people and thereby encourage people to learn the Tamil language. The same goes for Sinhala.”

Under the trilingual initiative Sinhala and Tamil will be promoted as vehicles through which modern ideas, views, technologies and modern sciences among a host of other subjects could be discussed, discoursed and debated. English will be promoted as a life skill for occupation, employment, accessing knowledge and technology and for communicating with the rest of the world. English is basically a tool for communication.

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Lexicon as major system of English
By William Roger Jones, The Korea Times

September 29, 2011—Recently, I presented one strategy and addressed one classroom application of using The Korea Times in getting to know a word in that major system of English language named lexicon.

Also, I mentioned that the major systems overlap. Especially, you can see this extended commonness in grammar, another major system having auxiliaries (morphology, orthography, and syntax). Grammar in its broadest sense refers to the rules of speech and writing of Standard English.

It is complex and includes using words in specific ways according to their parts of speech, and verb tenses and their agreement in sentence construction, as well as correct use of punctuation and mechanics, etc. This is the prescriptive grammar that we are taught in school to use if we wish to sound educated and painstakingly learn if we wish to receive a good grade from the English instructor. The Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language contains 1,800 pages and some 3,500 points requiring grammatical exposition, largely points to do with syntax.

The descriptive grammar such as what we really speak (nobody speaks textbook English), Ebonics and Chicano English, and the creative hybrid “new Englishes” such as Chinglish, Japlish, Konglish, Singlish, and Taglish, etc., although interesting and amusingly having communicative purposes we must suppress, for if displayed could very well hinder one's chances to obtain particular employment or to achieve a position of social status.

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Our sensitive relationship with the English language 
By Freddy Macha, TheCitizen.co.tz

LONDON, October 13, 2011—Last week we saw how various Africans with no single national language like us claim to manage European languages better than us. Let’s carry on with the contention.

I met this Zambian female, a Bemba who frequents the same gym. She had the best teeth I have ever seen.

“How come your teeth are so white? Are they real?”

She smiled even brighter than before.

“Ever since I set foot in London I have heard that question over and over again,” she said.

“So do you use some special Zambian toothpaste?”

She laughed: “Nooooh!  I have a beautiful heart and it shows in my mouth. I never lie.”

We kept on till we touched nationalities.

Was I Jamaican? She wondered. Ethiopian?

“I am your neighbour,” I hinted.

She stepped back.

“You are Congolese? I love Ndombolo.”

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The lost decade: learning Asian languages
By Greg Jericho, ABC.net.au

November 30, 2011—On the weekend, Julie Bishop appeared on Sky News and among other things talked about education policy.

As someone who has not always been Julie Bishop’s biggest supporter, it was rather intriguing to find myself nodding as she put forward the idea that the teaching of Asian languages be made mandatory in schools.

This desire for Asian language education is a rather interesting position for a member of the Liberal Party to take – especially a former education minister under John Howard – as it was the Howard government in 2002 (when Brendan Nelson was education minister) that cancelled the funding for the National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools Strategy (known in the language most favoured by bureaucrats in the public service – Acronymese – as NALSAS).

Kevin Rudd at the time was a newish foreign affairs shadow minister, but he was a long-time proponent of Asian language education. He also had a pretty close interest in NALSAS as the strategy was developed in 1994 on the back of the Council of Australian Governments Working Group on Asian Languages and Cultures report, “Asian Languages and Australia's Economic Future.” Rudd, then working for the Goss government in Queensland, was the author of that report.

When Nelson scrapped NALSAS, Rudd’s response was not exactly to take a Bex and have a lie down. He wrote Nelson a letter, the contents of which, rather nicely for us, found their way into the hands of Alan Ramsey at the Sydney Morning Herald…

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New approaches to English language learning
By Navitas English, AsianCorrespondent.com

November 15, 2011—English has increasingly become the language of the global knowledge economy, with millions of students moving overseas to study English as a second language. Students’ reasons are often varied, ranging from the desire to explore another country or culture, gaining a competitive edge in the job market or starting on a pathway to academic study. With these diverse backgrounds comes a huge range of motivations and learning styles, which then have an impact on each student’s learning experience and their approach to studying.

This is a familiar challenge to English language schools in Australia.  Teachers often respond to the different needs of students with interactive learning activities, small group work and individual feedback. Also important is what the student does outside the classroom – and this is one area  where Navitas English really helps students to explore their individual needs.

As Lucy Blakemore, e-Learning Market Research Analyst from Navitas English explains, “during a number of qualitative research projects we’ve conducted over the last few years, we have found that whilst some students are very capable of directing their own learning outside the classroom, many others express uncertainty about how to achieve their goals through independent study. Students are always keen for guidance and advice about how to extend their learning – and teachers can point them towards resources they are unlikely to discover themselves.”

Working with research findings, student feedback and in consultation with experienced teaching staff, Navitas English is developing MyStudy, which focuses on three main components to assist students to understand their goals, motivations and how they learn best…

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Minding our languages
By Hugh White, Sydney Morning Herald

November 8, 2011—As Julia Gillard has said, this is the Asian century, and no country has more at stake in it than Australia. The countries of Asia are becoming more and more central to our future - economically, politically, socially, strategically, culturally. But as Asia becomes increasingly important to us, fewer Australians are learning about it. Nothing governments have tried in recent years seems to make any difference. It is time for some fresh thinking.

This is not a new problem. The number of Australians learning Asian languages and about Asian societies has been shrinking for years. The teaching of key languages such as Japanese and Indonesian is in danger of disappearing from secondary schools—the combined result of too few students and too few teachers. And with only a tiny handful of exceptions, the only students who learn Chinese at school are those of Chinese background.

The same thing is happening at universities. Asian languages are attracting fewer and fewer students, and those they do attract have not studied an Asian language at school, so their university courses start from scratch. That means the standard most can reach in a three or four-year degree program is pretty basic. In turn, that means the number of well-qualified teachers going into the secondary system is falling, which drives down the numbers who will start to learn Asian languages at school. A classic vicious circle.

Quite a lot of money has been spent trying to fix this problem. Back in his days as a Queensland state official, Kevin Rudd played a big role in trying to help the Keating government formulate a major national Asian language policy, and when he became prime minister he launched a scheme to make Australia the world’s most “Asia-literate”' society.

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What’s that you say?: Understanding in any language
By Julia Proctor, TheAge.com.au

October 31, 2011—I language is your love...

Then this might just be the degree for you. Linguistics is the study of communicative behaviour, both verbal and non-verbal, explains Randy LaPolla, La Trobe’s chair of linguistics. Students study the structure and design of language — including phonetics (that's the study of sounds) and syntax (the study of sentence formation). They look at how language relates to thinking and how it functions in society, as well as how language develops and changes, and how it is acquired and learnt.

Hang on, are we talking about the English language?

Linguistics is concerned with human language in general, as well as individual languages. During the course, examples are taken from English, but also from other languages. “Linguistics looks at the similarities and the differences in communicative behaviour in different societies,” says Professor LaPolla, who adds that understanding communicative behaviour helps in the understanding of other areas of human behaviour and shines light on different cultures and views.

Do I need to be multilingual to study linguistics?

There’s no requirement to study a second language alongside linguistics. Sometimes, students pair linguistics with subjects such as anthropology, English, education or law. However, many linguistics students also learn, or already speak, a second language. “Usually people who do linguistics are interested in languages generally,” says Professor LaPolla...

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I am an English speaker, too (2)
By Ahn Hye-jeong, The Korea Times

July 12, 2011—In this article, I will further elaborate on the article published in The Korea Times on June 9. Particular attention will be paid to the development of English as an international language coupled with the skills required to become a proficient English speaker in today’s world.

English is a foreign language in South Korea. It does not perform any official function as a language. However, the cultural and social importance of English is notably more significant than that of any other foreign language. A high level of English proficiency is often associated with a more prestigious social status and professional and academic success.

The Lee Myung-bak administration also re-emphasized the importance of learning the English language by setting up a dichotomy of ``English- fluent” and ``English-poor” nations. The government simultaneously claimed that the English proficiency of any nation or individual is a central factor in promoting both the individual’s and nation’s status and success.

South Korea is well known for its dedication to learning English. The term, ``English fever” indicates how much emphasis Koreans put on English learning. South Korea is one of the largest consumers in the English education market spending over $10 billion a year on this alone. In 2007, more than half of the total number of applicants enrolling for TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) were Koreans and approximately 124,000 Korean applicants enrolled in TOEFL (Test of English for Foreign Language) making this group the clear majority of applicants.

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English worship
By Deauwand Myers, The Korea Times

July 13, 2011—The English language owes its ubiquity to British power. Advancements in war technology and naval exploration created, for several hundred years, the largest empire ever known. Britain’s ex-colony, the United States, became a new kind of empire, and even in its current economic hardship, is the richest and most powerful nation in all of human history.

With this power came all the attendant privileges and problems. One of its privileges, that of English being the lingua franca of our time, makes it easier for American and British citizens (and her commonwealth nations) to globally interact.

But English is not the only language a student must know to be successful in the world. Asia’s fetishizing and romanticizing English, even ascribing magical powers to those who can master it, is wrong. There are racial, ethno-centric implications in this English worship. The more you can speak English, the more Western (white), sophisticated, and erudite you are.

Chinese and Spanish are widely used languages as well, and I wish Korean education would broaden its scope and enrich students’ academic lives with a menu of options in language learning.

Pedagogical studies have shown that students who learn several languages do better in understanding these languages (especially at an early age).

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Revisit myth of English as official language
By Charles Dhewa, Newsday.co.zw

HARARE, August 3, 2011—Zimbabwe’s Medium-Term Plan (MTP), launched on July 7 2011 by the Ministry of Economic Planning and Investment Promotion, highlighted Human–Centred Development as a key pillar.

One of the most important ingredients of human –centred development is language. To achieve human development, we have to revisit the myth of English as an official language.

The MTP should be repackaged into languages spoken by ordinary people such as Shona, Ndebele, Tonga and many others.

This will empower people to conduct business in their own languages through which they dream, aspire and make sense of the world. English should only be used to engage with the outside world.

To the extent that economic planning in Zimbabwe is currently the preserve of economists, some of the educated people who attended the MTP launch could not understand the arcane language in which the document was couched.

Most Zimbabwean indigenous languages have rich metaphors which can inspire business and economic development.

If English was the only language of success as is assumed in Zimbabwe, the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans whom we are trying to emulate, would not have become economic giants.

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Talayero Tales: The simple truth of the English-speaking Chamorro
By Ed S.N. San Gil, Pacific Sunday News

August 7, 2011—I am often asked "Why don't the younger generation of Chamorros speak their language?" I thought about this question for weeks trying to come up with an honest answer.

It is easy to blame someone or an event in our history for the cause of this problem. For years, Chamorros have pointed the finger at the Americans. After all, they were the ones who punished the young Chamorro generation for speaking our language in school back in the 1950s.

For every issue there are two opposing sides. The popular side is where blame can be directed. In this case, the Americans or statesiders are the ones we are pointing to. As I said earlier, the Americans required the young Chamorro generation to speak English in school. Most would argue this was "the" main reason for the decline of the Chamorro language.

If you are content with this reasoning, you need not read further.

For the sake of keeping the course of history straight, let us go back to the 1940s and the Japanese occupation of Guahan. During the war, my mother was but 8 years old. She told me how the Japanese soldiers would reprimand those who spoke any language other than Japanese. You have to take into account the occupation lasted about three years. Even with the threat of death, the Chamorro language thrived.

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Rules of English grammar
By Alhaji A. M. Marzuq, MyJoyOnline.com

August 18, 2011—To those of no language inclination, the phrase “Rules of Grammar” is a monster. Indeed, the term sends them to a state of fear and confusion, as it sounds to them endless memorization of dry rules with no apparent use.

In reality, however, grammar is an interesting subject when presented comprehensibly. In any case, English grammatical rules must be embraced by all users of the language because they are vital for oral and written communications. For instance, the rules of grammar teach users how to form words, phrases, and sentences in universally acceptable ways.

The scope of English Grammar varies from linguist to linguist. Some linguists include orthography (spelling, capitalization, and punctuation), semantics (word meaning) and pragmatics (language use in context) under a wider definition of grammar, while others treat the areas mentioned as separate linguistic disciplines.

Communication, in most situations, usually follows action, and grammatical rules help us to accomplish many communicative tasks. For example, to talk about our past job experience at a job interview, we apply the rules for the present perfect tense. Besides, the rules for forming conditional sentences help us to express contrary to fact wishes, assumptions or regrets about missed opportunities, while the present simple tense is used to talk about hard facts and regular habits.

In English writing, adjectival and adverbial phrases and clauses help us add more information and enrich our sentences, while the rules governing conjunctions and transitional adverbs are vital when we want our text to appear coherent with logically related parts.

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How about German as the new lingua franca?
By Todd Buell, Wall Street Journal (blog)

September 1, 2011—Is learning German the key to success for European youth? The language of Goethe and Schiller arguably lacks the global reach of English, Spanish and French, but, these days educated people are expected to speak English proficiently.

Where students distinguish themselves is by what other languages they learn, and here is where German mightn’t be a bad idea due to the relative strength of the German labor market.

Combine that with Germany’s shortage of skilled labor and a young person with both English and German is in the driver’s seat when it comes to future employment (an Asian language wouldn’t hurt either, but first things first).

Data from Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, show that 94.6% of students roughly between 15 and 20 years old were studying English in 2009, the last year for which complete data are available.

On average, a student at that educational level has learned 1.4 foreign languages. Since for most European students, the native language isn’t English, it suggests that a student knows his or her native language as well as English and then maybe one other language.

Among the other languages, 25.7% of EU students at this level are learning French and 26.5% German. For comparison’s sake, the figure for Spanish is 19.3%.

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Who’s the smart aleck that invented the English language?
By Valerie Close, Vinton Today

IOWA, August 31, 2011—I’ve had fun catching up with a neighbor “kid” I used to play baseball with, and well, I practically lived at their house during my childhood.

We talked briefly about spelling.

I notice all the time, I can write an article, proofread Dean’s articles, scan the e-mail that is sent in and THINK I caught all the typos.

I click the button to send it out for all of you to read and THEN I see a ton of spelling mistakes.

When I was in school, I prided myself on my spelling skills, and even entered a state contest, so sure of myself. I can't remember now where I placed, but I was good.

When we got married, Dean was a great speller too.

Even my friend agreed, that for some reason the ability to spell sometimes flees her grasp.

I think I’ve used Google more in the last year and a half to figure out how to spell a word.

For the longest time, in my teen years, for some reason the word, “Of” stumped me. It should be spelled “Ov.”

It used to be fun to teach the kids how to read, until I found now I just get frustrated trying to explain that even though a word SOUNDS like it should be spelled a different way, well, it’s not. NO, I don’t know why. NO, I don’t know WHO said it should be spelled that way, and NO you can’t spell it the way it sounds. Why? Because it’s wrong!

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The language paradox: Speak English, can
By Ansel Ashby, Policymic.com

English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world; the most when native and non-native speakers are combined. It is the official language of the European Union, The United States, India, and many other countries throughout the world, in various slightly different forms. Recently the former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, said that American English would prevail over other forms.

Speaking English is a good skill to have, American or otherwise.

But what about all the non-native English speakers? Some linguists now estimate that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio as high as 3:1. For every native born English speaker, three more people are taught English as a second language. Lucky for us, the native English speakers, I mean; we can travel nearly anywhere in the world and get along just fine. Undoubtedly, that’s one of the main causes of the U.S.’s deeply entrenched monolinguism.

So if everyone speaks English, why learn another language? Please, translate: “Dis Guy Singrish Sib Eh Powerful Sia.”

Any guesses? It means: This person’s Singlish is very good.

Okay, how about this: “Order That The Objects Continuen Infecting Your mystery, Please Not To Touch.” Or: “Coffee Give Birth to a Child Condition”

The first example is Singlish. The commonly used pidgin English found widely in Singapore. Singlish loosely combines an English vocabulary with Mandarin sentence structures and syntax, not to mention a handful of words and phrases from Chinese, Malay, and Tamil.

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Singapore’s language battle: American versus “the Queen’s English”
By reddotrevolver, AsianCorrespondent.com

September 7, 2011—Known as a country in Southeast Asia with a highly educated workforce, Singapore is also one of the only countries in the region that uses English as a working language, and as a medium of instruction in schools. The ease of communication has established the country as the headquarters in Asia for many multinational companies.

A report by the Educational Testing Services (ETS) based on data from Jan-Dec 2010 shows that Singapore came in third in TOEFL (The Test of English as a Foreign Language) scores out of 163 countries. It is the only Asian country in the top three.

However, students in Singapore are taught in British English, or “the Queen’s English,” since elementary school. To Singapore’s former Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, this poses a serious and imminent challenge.

According to Channel NewsAsia, Lee said:

“There is an intense worldwide competition for talent, especially for English-speaking skilled professionals, managers and executives. Our English-speaking environment is one reason why Singapore has managed to attract a number of these talented individuals to complement our own talent pool…”

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“Good English starts at home”
By Murali Sharma (letter), TodayOnline.com

September 5, 2011—Soon, Speak Good English campaign will be upon us. The fact that we have this campaign yearly speaks volumes for the determination, vision and hope that its organisers hold for future generations.

It is astounding that in Singapore, where we are surrounded with materials in English, many are still struggling with the language. From accent to pronunciation and grammar to vocabulary, the basics seem to have eluded a large number.

In a country where the English language envelopes our very existence in administration, street signs, television, radio, magazines, newspapers, etc, it is amazing how many have fallen by the wayside. So how can we improve?

Like all good things, good English should start at a young age, in the home. However, we are a polyglot society, with each race having its own ancestral language constructions. All these influences shape the English that we speak, and no two languages can coexist perfectly.

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Technology overkill absolutely killing the English language
By Loran Smith, Athens Banner-Herald

September 11, 2011—Any English teacher will tell you good grammar comes from practicing good grammar. When I have ever written anything I would later like to recall, it is because I was in too much of a hurry and failed to take a few minutes to proof what was written.

With a poor hand when it comes to writing, I realized years ago that a typewriter would be a treasured friend. Then along came the computer, and efficiency was heightened considerably.
I often have concluded that for technology to be best utilized, discipline is required. There was a time when a competent copy editor was a newspaper operation’s most valued asset.

In bygone days, the Athens Banner-Herald had one of the best, the late Dan Kitchens, who also taught at the Henry Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia. At one time, he was the faculty adviser to The Red & Black, the student newspaper. He read every word in the paper and marked errors with a red grease pencil. When he met with the staff to offer his cynical critique, no one was spared. I have to believe it made the paper better and produced highly regarded reporters—who, later, as seasoned newsmen, paid tribute to Dan and his admonition that writers should make a determined effort to get it right before their work made it into print.

He once heard a network announcer on the “Today” show make a grammatical faux pas. He called NBC, got her on the phone and gave her unshirted hell for being so irresponsible.

If Dan were here today, he would be appalled at what seems to get by editors today. Further, he would have the greatest disdain for email sloppiness. Even between friends…

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A little less scripted conversation
By Andrew Biggs, BangkokPost.com 

December 11, 2011—It’s back to school this week for many Bangkok kids following an extended October term break owing to the floods. And when it comes to English class, across the country as each teacher walks into his or her classroom, students stand to attention and the following conversation takes place:

Students (slowly, and in unison): “Good morning, teacher.”

Teacher: “Good morning. How are you?”

Students: “Fine thanks. And you?”

Teacher: “Fine thanks. Sit down.”

Students: “Thank you teacher.”

Innocuous, I know, but if you ever wondered why English proficiency in this country isn’t up to scratch, those five sentences might just be the key to it all.

The above greeting is standard in just about every public school in the country. There is no joy in the delivery. It is as tepid as that buxom, formerly bubbly Robinson sales girl in Men’s Clothing who just realised you weren’t buying anything.

This week I had a friendly altercation with a Thai teacher regarding English language learning while at a seminar held on back-to-school day.

I was taken to task for suggesting that this universal beginning to every English class in Thai high schools was flawed. While it is cute and respectful, it is also artificial and bordering on autistic.

“It sounds to me like you are looking down on Thai people,” the Thai teacher said to me during coffee break. “Not to mention autistic children.”

I quickly explained that wasn’t the case, hiding all traces of indignity at being accused of being anti-Thai and anti-autistic children (though not, it seems, anti-autistic adults).

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Local students and pidgin English assault

By Chidera Michaels, AllAfrica.com

October 3, 2011—At this point I was looking at two irreducible possibilities as sources of my relative’s problems: either he was a fraud who most certainly paid someone else to take his WAEC examinations for him or he was truly smart but was taught a parallel “English Language,” a language that has its own word meanings and rules of grammar distinct from those of regular English Language, a language that has somehow evolved in Nigeria.

But whichever of those possibilities was my relative’s problem, I was sure of one thing: my relative has a colossal problem on his hands that could frustrate his chances of obtaining quality education in this country.

And so I decided to dig a little deep to find out what the genesis of his problems may be by calling up a few people in Nigeria.

What I found out left a repulsively sickening feeling in my stomach.

I found out that corruption, a familiar Nigerian drumbeat which has eaten deep into every facet of her life, has dealt a devastating blow to her educational system as well.

Public education in Nigeria is now a ghost of its former self.

And its private counterpart (at every level), born out of the need to take the place of the collapsed public schools, is now perhaps Nigeria's newest and fastest-growing unregulated fraudulent machine.

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Language of instruction
By Zoë Robert, IcelandReview.com

October 16, 2011—In June I attended a round table discussion at the Nordic House on the significance of English in Iceland. The seminar was part of a series of events to launch the Iceland branch of the English-Speaking Union (ESU) and was co-hosted by the Vigdís Finnbogadóttir Institute of Foreign Languages.

According to a 2005 study of words used by speakers of the Scandinavian languages, the number of English words in use has doubled during the last 30 years and is now 1.2 percent.

With a reputation as a conservative language, Icelandic has fewer English loanwords than other Nordic languages, despite, according to the study, Iceland being the country in the region which uses English the most.

Apparently this is because of the long tradition of native language word formation since the 12th century and a strong puristic language policy.

According to Ari Páll Kristinsson, an expert on language policy and planning studies in Iceland who presented the study, basic Icelandic vocabulary has remained relatively unchanged for over a thousand years and for that reason it is easier to create Icelandic words than to adapt loanwords into the language system.

The study looked at the frequency of borrowed words and found that Icelandic borrowed just 17 words per 10,000 words, while Norwegian used 111 per 10,000.

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Project English
By M. Shamsul Hoque, TheDailyStar.net

October 23, 2011—Bangladeshis, especially the youth, need to acquire and use new knowledge and skills for adapting to an information-based fast-moving world. And it is English that can best help them meet this need. But the English they are now learning (textbook contents through rote learning) mostly for examination requirements is not responsive to this need. They need to learn communicative English for this purpose.

So, our national curriculum at primary and secondary levels has been designed, textbooks have been developed and the majority of the teachers have been trained to facilitate Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). But despite all these initiatives, there has been a continuing decline in the standards of teaching and learning of English.

To reverse the situation, four ELT projects have been set up so far with government initiative, assisted by the Department for International Development (DfID) of the UK government. These projects are: Orientation of Secondary School Teachers for Teaching English in Bangladesh (OSSTTEB), Primary English Resource Centres (PERC), English Language Teaching Improvement Project (ELTIP) Phase 1, and English in Action (EiA). The main goal of all these projects was to strengthen English language education.

The first three projects (1990-2002) helped develop national curriculums, textbooks and training courses based on CLT. They worked closely with the government officials and relevant professionals, but each of them worked separately as a project team. However, the impact of these projects was hugely impressive during the project periods but faded away after they were finished...

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The Indonesian language at 83: Looking back to look forward
By Setiono Sugiharto, The Jakarta Post

JAKARTA, October 29, 2011—The tremendous speed of the modernization of the Indonesian language, especially its lexicon, cannot be separated from the exhaustive work of past Indonesian scholars from two radically different camps: the conservatives and the modernists.

The conservatives’ central figure was the late Anton M. Moeliono, who contributed significantly to the modernization of the Indonesian lexicon. In an attempt to seek Indonesian counterparts to foreign terminology that dominated almost all domains, Moeliono, known as the guardian of the Indonesian language, was consistent in resorting either to the Malay language or indigenous Indonesian languages for reference.

He strongly believed that using Indonesian and its indigenous languages was one of the most effective ways to safeguard it from outside threats, such that Indonesian language users could take pride in their national language.

Moeliono’s legacy is now widely adopted by the Indonesian language users, including such words as rekayasa (engineering), penyelia (supervisor), tenggat (deadline), kudapan (snack), pantau (monitor), suku cadang (spare parts), and penyibak aib (whistle blowers).

However, not all the terminology he unveiled gained acceptance and became part of our daily communication. Words such as jasa boga (catering), warta merta (obituary), sengkuap (canopy), umpan tekak (appetizer), and pranata (institution) are hardly used in either spoken or written communication.

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A little more English please
By Richard Steed, Copenhagen Post

COPENHAGEN, November 6, 2011—Is Copenhagen really an international metropolis or just another provincial Scandinavian city? That is the question I am asking myself right now, as I am beginning to wonder if Copenhagen is deceiving itself, thinking it is something it is not. There seems to be something of a paradox going on here.

I’ll give you an example of what I mean. I recently went for a job contract with a new English-speaking international website being launched here in Copenhagen. Even though it was aimed at an international audience, I didn’t get the contract because of my lack of Danish language skills. The Danish workforce launching the website decided my Danish wasn’t sufficient enough to be able to have meaningful conversations in the office.

In my view it was a strange decision. If I’m visiting my local doctor or dentist, then having a conversation in Danish makes sense, and that is something I try to do. But not working on an English-language project for the international market. This highlights to me the paradox facing this city. The Danes seem to want to have their cake and eat it too.

You could argue that I could have lied and said in the job interview that I was actively learning Danish, yet I don’t believe that is the right answer. Obviously I will carry on integrating myself and will try to speak as much Danish as possible. Yet I will never be fluent in Danish, and anyway, I make my money from writing in English.

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Putting English language before literature
By Heziwell Mhunduru, Guardian Weekly

November 8, 2011—What keeps you motivated? The realisation that my learners appreciate my efforts, even though, generally, they are not yet where I want them to be in terms of English acquisition and use.

Best teaching moment? When a group of 17- to 18-year-old learners, who had been passive, began to participate in my lessons after some motivational work. The group had joined my class from other schools and they felt they were being overshadowed by longer-term students. It was small talk that really worked wonders and three of them even opted to join our higher-level class.

And worst? After I had given what I thought were clear instructions for a written class activity, I went out for a moment. When I came back, a student just burst into tears and said, “Sir, I don’t know what I am supposed to do.”

What have you learned? If shown trust, students can be trustworthy. They can also measure their own progress in learning English.

Biggest challenge? Teaching William Shakespeare’s King Lear to learners who have no literature background, let alone an insight into the English way of life. My students’ first language is Oshiwambo, so my methodology is to develop their English speaking, reading, writing and listening skills…

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English came on a boat? If only we had the Somali pirates back then...
By Joachim Buwembo, TheEastAfrican.co.ke

DAR ES SALAAM, November 13, 2011—The Iganga Municipal Council in Eastern Uganda has resolved to ditch the English language and now conducts its official business in Lusoga! All council deliberations shall as of this month henceforth be done in the vernacular, apparently to enable councillors who are not competent in English to participate fully.

After the recent general election, these councillors caused embarrassment all around because they could not be sworn in in English. Iganga is the major town after Jinja on the highway to Mombasa, Kenya.

I am writing this comment from Dar es Salaam. When I first came here in 2004, I stepped on a live wire when I wrote a comment in the Monitor newspaper about the problems caused by the killing off of English in Tanzania. It was picked up from the Internet and many Tanzanians in the diaspora wanted to lynch me while many inside Tanzania supported me. Interestingly, the diaspora Tanzanians all posted their arguments in English, and I bet all their kids go to English medium schools.

I have since learnt to refrain from commenting in anti-English debates. Time vindicated me this year when a study conducted around East Africa found that Kenyan school kids do better in Kiswahili than Tanzanians! So when Kenya promoted both English and Kiswahili, the Kenyan kids ended up better in both languages than the Tanzanians who only promoted Kiswahili. Promoting English does not kill African languages.

Tanzanians, of course, speak rather more graceful Kiswahili than Kenyans. Even I, as a Ugandan, do that! Whenever I am in Nairobi, I meet Kenyans who think I know more Kiswahili than they do, which of course is not true…

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“Linguistic famine” in Kenyan households diluting our culture
By Rasna Warah, Nation.co.ke

November 13, 2011—The Nation recently featured the story of a 16-year-old Kenyan girl who last year was the top student internationally in the English Language IGCSE “O” Level examination, a feat that she attributed to her parents who encourage her to speak only English at home.

Unlike many Kenyans who tend to be proficient in at least one, if not more, Kenyan languages, this child has been denied the privilege of learning an African language. (In an interview, she referred to English as her “first language” followed by French.)

The girl loves to read, which is commendable, and highly unusual, especially among her age-group, which tends to read only textbooks.

And because I know that she is probably going to read this column, I am going to ask her to read (and digest) the book, Decolonising the Mind, by Kenya’s most famous author, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who refers to this book as “my farewell to English as a vehicle for any of my writings”.

In a lecture titled “Re-membering Africa” at the University of Nairobi in January 2007, Ngugi told his audience that by adopting foreign languages lock, stock and barrel, Africans are committing “linguicide”, which has killed their memories as a people, as a culture and as a society.

Ngugi derides Kenyan parents for discouraging their children from speaking their mother tongues, a phenomenon that has led to “linguistic famine” in African households.

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You don’t need to be crazy to teach English in Russia, but it helps
By Ilaria Parogni, Russia Beyond the Headlines

December 7, 2011—“Are you crazy?” is invariably the reaction that the English language teachers I met received when they told their family and friends about their plans to go to Russia and teach English. People in the West are not used to thinking of Russia as a country with good job opportunities, let alone a place to settle down. It is probably true that making the decision to become an English language teacher in Russia does require a fair dose of madness. But, as soon as teachers arrive in the country and start their new work experience, they realise that it’s extremely easy to get accustomed to the Russian way of life. In fact, most enjoy it to such an extent that they have no intention of heading back to their old life anytime soon.

English teaching programmes are a relatively new reality for Russia, a by-product of the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, Pelevin’s Generation P was discovering the world of Pepsi Cola, Nokia phones and Marlboro cigarettes. The English language became a commodity, the access key to this new world. As Richard Moore, Managing Director of language service provider Language Link, recalls, “the sudden recognition of the value of the English language led to a situation in which everyone wanted it.” English language schools found fertile ground in Russia’s newly established market economy. This led to the creation of today’s army of native speaking English language teachers.

Teachers come from various countries and have extremely different backgrounds and levels of experience. For example, Tom, a 23-year old Liverpudlian who graduated in Russian and French at University College London, spent a term in Volgograd whilst at university, and is now working for Language Link in a private school in Moscow’s countryside. And John from Chicago, 70, was asked to work at the Liden & Denz Russian Language School in Saint Petersburg after retiring in 2007. He had already lived and worked in Russia for a few years before, and welcomed with enthusiasm this new challenge.

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Ruminations on one language and one speech
By Ashley Perks, Today’s Zaman 

ISTANBUL, December 15, 2011—Most of the expats that I know or have known in İstanbul are, or were, English language teachers. They came from the US, Canada, the UK, Australia or New Zealand for the most part, and while some were just passing through, others like myself, settled down for the long haul and many have Turkish partners.

The global market for teaching English as a second or foreign language is huge and still growing, particularly in rapidly emerging economies like China. Although Chinese may be the first language spoken by the most people on earth merely because of the country’s huge population (1.5 billion and counting), the Global Village increasingly speaks English. Advances in technology, particularly in computer engineering and programming, have contributed to the unassailable hegemony of English as the world’s most commonly used language and the exponential demand for its acquisition. Even the French, so jealously proud and protective of their language that they have their own language police in the form of the Academie Française, have had to bite their collective tongue and get with the English-learning program.

There is no doubt that in Turkey, young people predominantly but also an increasing number of their elders are eager to learn English, and the main motivation seems to be the demand by employers for a significant competence in English either to secure a good position or to obtain promotion or preferment in career choices. This seems an obvious requirement in import/export, for example, and in banking and finance, manufacturing and tourism as well as the increasingly popular international relations sector. Most of the students I have had the privilege of teaching over the years have been eager and motivated and many have actually liked English as a language; some have even come to love its literature as well…

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