Love letter to Filipinos
By David H. Harwell, PhD, Philippine Daily Inquirer

February 17, 2013—I am writing to thank Filipinos for the way you have treated me here, and to pass on a lesson I learned from observing the differences between your culture and mine over the years.

I am an expatriate worker. I refer to myself as an OAW, an overseas American worker, as a bad joke. The work I do involves a lot of traveling and changing locations, and I do it alone, without family. I have been in 21 countries now, not including my own. It was fun at first.  Now, many years later, I am getting tired. The Philippines remains my favorite country of all, though, and I’d like to tell you why before I have to go away again.

I have lived for short periods here, traveled here, and have family and friends here. My own family of origin in the United States is like that of many Americans—not much of a family. Americans do not stay very close to their families, geographically or emotionally, and that is a major mistake. I have long been looking for a home and a family, and the Philippines is the only place I have lived where people honestly seem to understand how important their families are.

I am American and hard-headed. I am a teacher, but it takes me a long time to learn some things. But I’ve been trying, and your culture has been patient in trying to teach me.

In the countries where I’ve lived and worked, all over the Middle East and Asia, it is Filipinos who do all the work and make everything happen. When I am working in a new company abroad, I seek out the Filipino staff when I need help getting something done, and done right.

Your international reputation as employees is that you work hard, don’t complain, and are very capable. If all the Filipinos were to go home from the Middle East, the world would stop…

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English language: Connecting people, improving lives
By Alexandria M. Mordeno, MindaNews.com

MALAYBALAY CITY, March 11, 2013—Look at the world around you right now. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Now look again and try to imagine what it would be like if it is filled with people who don’t understand what the others are saying because they in speak different tongues. Wouldn’t it be dreadful?

It might even be the cause of another world war. Chaos would be everywhere and soon enough the era of man would fall apart. Fortunately, we have an international language: English.

For years, we have lived quite harmoniously with other races because there is English to accommodate our need for communication. We may not share the same nationality, but at least we share a common language.

The English language has helped in so many ways more than we could even imagine. It has made countless nations prosper. It has brought humanity to great peaks of accomplishment. Through this language we have done life-changing things that have surpassed the expectations of our ancestors. English is a golden string that binds us all.

In this modern world that aims for globalization, being able to speak English is as important as the fuel is to a vehicle. Without that “fuel” progress would be hindered.

Many local companies right now only have people who know how to speak English well. It’s very important especially when you’re dealing with foreign clients. It’s important when you’re welcoming and entertaining tourists visiting the country. English language is imperative if we want our country to attain the progress it’s craving for.

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Return to radio
By Butch Dalisay, The Philippine Star

February 25, 2013—I accepted an unusual invitation for an interview a couple of weeks ago—unusual because of the medium involved, which was radio, specifically DZUP, the on-campus station of the University of the Philippines. DZUP station manager Rose Feliciano asked me to guest on her noontime show so I could talk about the UP Institute of Creative Writing and its flagship programs, and I was happy to oblige — not only because, as UPICW director, it’s my job to promote the institute, but also because I’ve always had a warm spot for radio, and remain a fan of the medium.

For Filipinos weaned on the Internet, radio must seem like a blast from the past, and, in a very real sense, it is. We’re told that the first local radio stations came on the air in June 1922, so we’re just nine years away from celebrating radio’s centennial in the Philippines. While there’s some dispute as to who really invented radio, no one disagrees with the fact that Guglielmo Marconi made the first successful radio transmission in 1895 — when our revolucionarios were just plotting their moves against Spain — and received a British patent for it the year after.

Of course a century’s just a drop in the bucket of human history, but in terms of technology, it’s virtually an eternity. The idea of an invention remaining just as useful after a hundred years boggles the mind, in an age when, say, the floppy disk gave way to the CD, which then gave way to the DVD and then the USB drive, all within the span of a few years. And of course radio today is a far cry from the rasp across the ether that it was at its inception (you can hear a pin drop and bounce off the floor on FM), but the basic idea remains the same — a message is electronically transmitted and received, completing the cycle of communication.

I belong to that generation of Pinoys for whom radio, and not even TV, was our main source of information and entertainment while we were growing up. I remember listening to radio soaps such as Eddie, Junior Detective, Erlinda ng Bataan, and Gabi ng Lagim…

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Personal touch missing in Philippine education
By Peter Wallace, Asia News Network – Thu, Dec 27, 2012

MANILA, December 27, 2012—Fifty-three. That’s the average number of secondary school students in a class in the Philippines; some classes go as high as 80. Almost none (in public schools) go below 30. Yet 30 is about the max a teacher can handle; even that is high, 25 would be ideal.

You don’t teach to 53, you lecture. There cannot be, is not, any individual attention. The child’s unique abilities or lack of them can’t be addressed by the teacher. Individual homework can’t be discussed, let alone read with any degree of depth.

In a large class you learn by rote, you learn just what is taught you; you can’t question, you can’t ask for further explanation. It’s hard to develop independent thinking and initiative.

In other news: Philippines among Asian nations worst hit by disasters in 2012

Fortunately, private schools do limit the numbers, and the difference is stark. Initiative, independent thinking flourish and the result shows up in the top level talent that is available. But it’s the minority. Those from the majority take low-paying, menial jobs where with a more personalised education they could have done better.

And until President Benigno Aquino III came to power they weren’t given enough time to think at all. A 10-year school system kicks you out on the streets at 15. Much too young to face the big, bad world.

The 12 years now introduced leaves only Djibouti and Angola on the outskirts. But that 12-year scheme, desirable as it certainly is, gives a worrying transition adjustment: What do colleges do with no freshmen for two years? Former education undersecretary and Star columnist Isagani Cruz wrote that among the K to 12 Committee’s plans is for the Departement of Education “to lease the facilities of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) for Senior High School classes.” He added that it’s “a good solution for HEIs, because they will still have income even if there are no freshmen or sophomore students.”

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Is plagiarism a crime?
By Isagani Cruz, The Philippine Star

MANILA, September 13, 2012—Much has been said recently about plagiarism. Everyone (even serial plagiarists) knows what it is. It is, simply put, stealing somebody’s idea and pretending that it is your own. It is intellectual theft. It breaks the commandment “Thou shalt not steal.”

It is definitely a sin, but is it a crime?

Let me refer to the law that governs intellectual property, namely, Republic Act No. 8293, known as the “Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines.” It was passed by the Tenth Congress, one of whose members was a certain Vicente Castelo Sotto III.

Chapter 10 of the law talks about the Moral Rights of an author. Section 193 talks of the Scope of Moral Rights, which includes the right “to require that the authorship of the works be attributed to him, in particular, the right that his name, as far as practicable, be indicated in a prominent way on the copies, and in connection with the public use of his work.”

The law clearly provides that the name of the author should be prominently mentioned when his or her work is used publicly. In other words, even if I made a blanket statement that everything I said in a particular work was taken from the work of others, that does not satisfy the requirement of the law. I have to mention the name of the author from which I took my words or ideas.

Section 198 further provides that “the rights of an author under this chapter (Chapter 10) shall last during the lifetime of the author and for fifty (50) years after his death and shall not be assignable or subject to license.” If the author is still alive, I have no choice but to mention his or her name when I take words or ideas from him.

Why ideas? Because plagiarism does not involve only words. It also involves ideas. If I added or altered a word here or there, or even if all my words were different from those of the original author, I would still be committing plagiarism if the idea is the same. This is the main difference between copyright and plagiarism. Copyright protects the expression of an idea or the exact words of the original author. The prohibition against plagiarism protects the idea itself, no matter how it is expressed.

Therefore, using different words or even a different language but expressing the same ideas is plagiarism.

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Something awry at the NCCA
By F. Sionil Jose, The Philippine Star

MANILA, September 3, 2012—People who aren’t familiar with the creative process are in command positions at the National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA), people who have no track record as cultural workers.

They may have the best of intentions, but their myopia, alas, hobbles them. Their plan to have some of the works of our writers made into movies — if they had read these stories they should have excluded most in their filmable list — the narratives are simply dull and bereft of conflict or tension which is the most important element in film.

If I had my way, I would help instead our better directors and scriptwriters. The NCCA may also take a cue or two from South Korea whose government is actively supporting the country’s movie industry in producing those epic historical movies and the addictive telenovelas that have gained global currency.

In this regard, although so many hosannas had been written about Dolphy, let me add to them, recount a meeting with him. Dolphy used to frequent Za’s Café behind my bookshop. One of his children lived in an apartment above the coffee shop and he was often there, partaking of the café’s ensaymada which is the best in Manila.

I approached him once, introduced myself; he said he knew my bookshop. I asked if he ever saw Limelight, starring Charlie Chaplin and Claire Bloom — a moving story of a theater janitor who helps a young ballet dancer achieve her dream. It had such pathos and comedy as only Chaplin could make them. I asked Dolphy if he could do something similar, that I would help gratis with the script. He told me that, indeed, he admired Chaplin very much, and Cantinflas, the Mexican comedian. He studied so many of Chaplin’s films. He said he wanted to elevate his own movies from slapstick, but every time he did, the film did not do well. Is the masa hopeless? At least Dolphy tried. I think the majority of our mainline moviemakers never attempted to put quality plus in their work.

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The day my laptop died
By Randy David, Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, August 19, 2012—As soon as I pressed the power button, the Windows logo appeared on the laptop’s screen with the familiar assurance: “Starting Windows.” But nothing else happened after that. For the first time in its brief mechanical life, my barely one-year-old computer failed to say hello. It was as if it found itself in a daze, desperately grappling with the sudden loss of its own memory. Finally, a blue sky with a little white bird and a twig approaching a faint light appeared on the screen. “Oh no,” I muttered in horror, almost certain that my poor machine had been attacked by a virus. The hard disk drive itself had crashed.

Frantic calls to my daughter Nad, who understands the quirky life of computers far better than I do, helped me boot the sleek black laptop on “safe mode.” She then came over to back up all my files on a USB flash disk. Aghast that I had not taken the precaution of creating a “recovery disk” for use in case of system failure, she promptly made one for me. You can always replace the hard disk, she said, but if you lose your files you may not be able to retrieve them.

In the next few hours, I coaxed my poor ailing laptop into performing a diagnosis of its own state of health. It offered to “defragment” bits of memory belonging to the same files or programs that appear to have been dispersed across different sectors. It checked the condition of the application programs, and, finally, it cued me to check the hard disk. With an air of certainty, it then announced that it had detected errors in its hard disk drive, and offered to repair them.

I was thoroughly impressed by this machine’s capacity for self-analysis and self-healing, and I quietly wished there was a way for the human brain to detect and repair its own occasional malfunctions. But, my hopes were quickly dashed. There is a limit to what even the most sophisticated computer can do once its hard disk is damaged. My computer appears to have reached that limit—it was unable to heal itself. The blue sky and the white bird reappeared, an image I took to mean as signifying that my laptop had passed on to the next world.

The operating system of a computer has been likened to a human being’s nervous system. It is lodged in the computer’s vast circuitry and hard disk, just as the nervous system is controlled from the brain…

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The three most dangerous words in the English language
By Rhodri Marsden, Independent.co.uk

February 5, 2013—When embroiled in emotional situations, people can have a tendency to repeat dialogue they’ve heard in bad films. As a friend bawls on your shoulder after making some embarrassingly bad life choices, you might find yourself saying, “Look, you have to stop running away from yourself”, despite a clanging bullshit alarm thwacking against the inner wall of your cranium.

During a relationship break-up, it only takes some moody lighting to make repulsive phrases roll off the tongue with bewildering ease. “Which makes what I’m about to say all the more difficult,” is particularly awful.

And then, of course, there’s: “I love you.” We rush like panic-stricken bus-missers to blurt this out to people we like, because when it happens on telly there’s a huge swell of violins, the other person says, “I love you too”, they kiss tenderly and then there’s an advertisement for DulcoEase Stool Softener. We want a piece of this action. But risk is involved. Yes, the other person might say “I love you too” – either because they love you, or because it’s just tidier and less traumatic not to. But not everyone is predisposed to reciting the approved dialogue. As a result, dropping the “I love you” bombshell can leave you dangerously exposed, like wandering on to a battlefield dressed as a fluorescent tank.

Unwelcome responses to “I love you” are many and various, ranging from the patronising (“Oh, that’s sweet”) to heartless acceptance (“Thanks”) to denial (“No you don’t”) to desperate attempts at deflection (“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that”) to flustered responses generated by a misfiring central nervous system (laughing hysterically, then saying “me no speaka Eeengleesh”.) But these kinds of responses rarely crop up in screenplays…

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The Brit List: Five ways Americans ruined the English language
By Fraser McAlpine, BBCAmerica

January 29, 2013—There’s a phrase used in robotics—the uncanny valley—that describes the problem of building a robot and making it look human. Broadly speaking, the closer to reality you get, the ickier your robot becomes. There’s only so far you can go towards making it a lifelike representation of a real human before the tiny imperfections start to give everyone the creeps, whereas robots that look like, say, C-3PO can be positively cute.

A similar relationship occurs between Britain and America on the topic of communication. As far as the UK is concerned, you’ve got to a point where you can very nearly speak English properly, just like we do, except you keep getting it just wrong enough to give us the willies.

Here are five examples:

1: Pass-Agg Nonsense
For a nation that prides itself on being populated by good-hearted, scrappy people of strong character that are never afraid to speak their minds, there’s an awful lot of passive-aggressive terminology around confrontation in American idiomatic speech. By which I mean, how much protection can there be from the cruel thing you’re about to say, if you preface it with not for nothing, but… or end it with just sayin’? And is just sayin’ supposed to be short for “I’m just saying what everyone is thinking” or “this is just my opinion, deal with it,” because neither one will prevent a fist to the nose. Hope you’re enjoying that freedom of speech.

I can’t even work out what not for nothing, but… is supposed to mean. The sentence “It’s not for nothing that British theatre is considered among the best in the world” makes sense. The sentence “Not for nothing, but you look like a pig in that coat” does not.

2: Curious Sentence Structure And Missing Words
American: I love you. Will you write me?
Brit: Will I write you what, a prescription?
American: No, I mean will you write me?
Brit: A postcard? A poem?
American: I want you to write me.
Brit: You want me to write the word me?
American: No, will you WRITE me?
Brit: WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO WRITE?
American: I just want you to write me!
Brit: GAAAAH! Et cetera.

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Why learn another language when you already speak English?
By Phoebe Dodds, HuffingtonPost.com

LONDON, November 30, 2012—For many, being able to speak the world’s most widely spoken language means that they don’t see any point in learning another. It’s true that people in most countries in the world know how to speak and can understand English, but there are SO many reasons to learn how to speak a foreign language.

First, it’s actually way easier than you would think! Learning a language doesn’t have to be difficult, even if you’re not a natural linguist. The Internet has some great sites that can help, with “user-friendly” games for learning new vocab, and clearly explained grammar rules. YouTube also has some simple videos with step-by-step examples to help you learn a new language.

Second, if you travel to a foreign country and speak to people in their own language, you get RESPECT. Locals always love when tourists make an effort with getting to know their culture, and even something as simple as knowing/asking how to say thank you can make their day. Some simple vocab knowledge is also helpful should you find yourself lost in a foreign city, surrounded by locals who don't speak any English...

This might be nerdy, but whatever: Knowing a bit about another language can make you understand more about your own. Here's something I find super cool: The ancient Greeks gave what we now know as the giraffe the name “camel-leopard,” because to them, giraffes look like a cross between the two.

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Britishisms in American English? Brilliant!
By DD Guttenplan, Guardian.co.uk

September 28, 2012—The British are coming! The British are coming! For decades, you British have been kvetching (or as you might say, “whingeing”) about the way we Yanks have been spritzing our two cents plain (“sparkling water” to you) American argot into the limpid, lambent loveliness of the Queen’s English.

And though I generally try not to be “chippy” about the widely held view that my countrymen and women are bunch of rubes and yahoos – on display most recently in Downton Abbey, where Shirley MacLaine’s caricature of a rich American finally drove me out of the room with annoyance – whenever I am asked to assent to the proposition that American influence is driving the English language to hell in a handbasket, my response is: get over it!

Well, that’s the polite version. I mean first of all, when did the British need any help from anyone else with being vulgar? Ever heard of Geoffrey Chaucer? And second of all, just as I hope we are properly grateful for the immense linguistic riches bequeathed to us by Shakespeare and the committeemen who wrote the King James Bible (and no, I’m not being ironic. Americans don’t do irony – or so my children tell me), so you ought to thank us for the swell examples of colloquial communication found in Hollywood films like His Girl Friday or Bringing Up Baby. I mean what’s not to like?

But are you grateful? No way, Jose! There are exceptions, of course. James Joyce had Molly Bloom schlep around Dublin in 1922 – but Joyce was an Irishman, and without the Irish (and the Jews and African-Americans) the American slanguage would still be stuck on first base.

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English is dead, long live “glocalisation”
By Nathalie Nahai, BBC.co.uk

October 4, 2012—When the internet was first conceived, it was to English-speaking parents.

Its nascent language, HTML, was programmed by an Englishman, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and the first computers to be shipped across the world used the Roman alphabet.

It was a colonialism of sorts, albeit a predominantly benign one—an online reality to which we have since become unusually accustomed.

However, as is often the case, this kind of blanket adoption can lead to complacency. Until now it's been all too easy simply to launch a platform or website according to Western standards and hope for the best.

The fact that Google Translate is used hundreds of millions of times a week, in more than 52 different languages, is a great justification for the hordes of us hoping to reach global audiences by creating one-size-fits-all solutions.

It's become the get-out clause for those of us too lazy or cash-strapped to consider the end users' needs, whether they're accessing our site from the co-working space round the corner or from a start-up business on the other side of the world.

In recent years we’ve witnessed a loosening of this anglicised grip, with Mandarin and Spanish thrashing it out as linguistic heavyweights, fiercely contending for the top spot.

Although the picture is not entirely representative (many online users claim English as their second language), this shift from an English-speaking, Western monopoly hints at a future in which personalised online experiences will become increasingly tailored to cultural sensitivities.

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Don’t talk garbage! ...or why American words are mangling our English
By Christopher Stevens, DailyMail.co.uk
 
May 30, 2012—The most delicate tool ever invented is the English language. It is endlessly rich, subtle, mellifluous and diverse — a vast mechanism built from 220,000 words, perfectly formed components that work together like jewelled cogs.

To wreck that mechanism deliberately — and to teach our children to do the same — would be worse than obscene. But that is what is happening.

A survey of 74,000 short stories written by British children has revealed that Americanisms are destroying traditional British words.

Like the grey squirrels that were introduced into the UK from the U.S. 130 years ago — and have almost wiped out our indigenous (and much lovelier) red squirrels — American words are infectious, destructive and virulent. And they are taking over.

A recent survey into children’s literacy found that American phrases have made their way into the English language American words are designed to be easy to use. They are simple to say and spell. They combine nouns and verbs, labels and instructions, so that they are convenient to pick up and apply. A country of immigrants, speaking a dissonant babel of Yiddish, Italian, Gaelic, Dutch, Norwegian, German, Polish and Russian, needed a common tongue.

Take sidewalk, for instance: it refers to that part of a road (the side) reserved for pedestrians (who walk). Two simple words are compounded to replace a third, pavement.

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Native English, alas, is degenerating into a global dialect
By Mary Dejevsky, Independent.co.uk

May 30, 2012—It is easy to believe that, as native English speakers, we have a stupendous advantage over those who have to learn the lingua franca of our age. But there’s a price to be paid for speaking the world’s most widely spoken language from birth, and it is that you are vastly outnumbered by those who speak it as a second (third, fourth or fifth) language. And while they bawl out their Eurovision songs, present their learned papers, or chatter away in their multi-national groups, you – the native speaker – are the odd one out. You can – mostly – understand them, but unless you adopt a measure of English bilingualism, they can find it nigh impossible to understand you.

Now I should start by apologising to all those who find that my efforts to communicate in a foreign tongue grate on their ear – at least I try. But I’m starting to find the ubiquity of a lowest-common denominator English a bit tiresome. A few years ago, one strain of it was branded Globish (English in 1,500 words), and – of course – it’s the possibility of reducing English to such basics that has made it so adept a means of communication. Increasingly, though, I find myself hankering for the sort of English which, say, makes the sequence of events clear by recognising a pluperfect tense, expresses diffidence or conditionality with the subjunctive, and inserts the correct tense after “since”.

Many professional linguists would doubtless say that there is no such thing as correct usage, only custom and practice, and they would add – with a gentle rap on my knuckles – that language changes, as all living things are wont to do. But it would just be so, well, relaxing to be able to include the occasional subordinate clause and use idiom and irony in public discourse from time to time without the risk of being misunderstood.

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Technology can sometimes be wasted on English language teaching
By Nik Peachey, Guardian Weekly

May 15, 2012—We are now 12 years into the new millennium and technology has become a prime element of almost all English language teaching (ELT) conferences and journals around the world. Yet, when we look for real improvements in student performance and effective use of technology by teachers, I think that the results are pretty disappointing.

I have spent the past 10 years doing technology-focused training work, materials writing and conference presentations and it still saddens me to see how much resistance and cynicism exists among teachers to the introduction of technology. But is it their fault? I don’t think so. Even as an enthusiastic and experienced trainer, I can see that once technology gets into schools, things start to go wrong.

Investment in technology has often been equated with investment in hardware. In many ways this is the easy fix: throw money at the challenges that technology integration poses. For example, education ministries around the world have been willing to invest in expensive interactive whiteboard (IWB) technology without really considering the benefits inside classrooms. Having made the investment, teachers are often left to sort out how to use IWBs in a pedagogically effective way, often with very little training or support. Meanwhile managers can wash their hands of the problem and report back that they have done their part in integrating technology.

The willingness of many schools to invest heavily in this hardware is rarely matched by a similar, and comparably smaller, financial commitment to provide adequate broadband connectivity to classrooms…

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Huh? US and British English to collide at Olympics
By Stephen Wilson, Sports Illustrated

LONDON, April 6, 2012 (AP)—The lorry driver taking kit to the football pitch was so knackered he pulled into the lay-by near the petrol station for a quick kip.

Huh?

For American readers, that translates as: The truck driver delivering uniforms to the soccer field was so tired he pulled into the rest area near the gas station for a nap.

As George Bernard Shaw once observed, England and America are two countries divided by a common language. That trans-Atlantic linguistic divide will be magnified by Olympic proportions this summer when an estimated 250,000 Americans come to town for the London Games.

Yes, the Internet, television, movies, global travel and business have blurred language differences, and many people in the U.S. and U.K. are familiar with those bizarre figures of speech from both sides of the pond.

Yet important differences remain, prompting this rough guide to just a few of the potential colloquial conundrums that await baffled American visitors to the old country. (A caveat: This is not a definitive, all-inclusive list and doesn't take into account different spelling, accents, Cockney rhyming slang or expletives!)

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The history of 7 bizarre English words
By David Crystal, HuffingtonPost.com

March 27, 2012—If you can tell the history of the world in 100 objects, as the British Museum’s Neil MacGregor did in 2010, then it ought to be possible to tell the history of a language in a similar number. But, as with objects, it isn’t enough for each word to be interesting in its own right. It has to tell a story. And each of these individual stories should add up to the history of the English language as a whole.

I needed principles on which to base my selection. The obvious one is chronological. The history of English is traditionally divided into periods: Old English, from the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in 449 AD until the 11th century; Middle English from then until the 15th century; Early Modern English from then until the 18th century; and Modern English thereafter. It’s important to choose words that show the passage of time in this way, and give us a real insight into social history.

But, at any one time, English is a kaleidoscope of styles, genres, and dialects. In particular, the words we use when we speak aren’t the same as those we use when we write. Far more people speak a nonstandard variety of English than speak standard English, and their story must be told too. Nor must we neglect the commonest everyday words, such as slang, cant, and taboo words. There can’t be any pussy-footing, if you’re a serious linguist. The rude words are just as much a part of our linguistic history.

Professional words, such as those associated with the law, medicine, religion, and academia, provide another historical strand. Of the million+ words in English, three-quarters belong to the various domains of science and technology. And the global spread of English has to be represented. Around a third of the world’s population use English now, and one of the consequences has been the emergence of international dialects, each with its own local vocabulary. The process started when British and American English diverged, but it has continued since with many “new Englishes” in Australasia, the Caribbean, and Africa.

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Let creativity into the language class
By Chaz Pugliese, Guardian Weekly

March 13, 2012—Creativity is not an optional extra for a language teacher, something off the wall to do on a Friday afternoon perhaps. Rather, creativity should be the teacher's best friend.

For too long English language teachers have worried about finding the best method, the quickest, most efficient way to teach languages. But this quest for a pedagogic holy grail, however noble, is destined to fail, and for many reasons, not least because there are far too many variables flying around.

There’s simply no best method. There can't be any top-down, one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach that does justice to the complexity of learning a language. I would like to suggest that far from being panacea, principled, creative methodology can go a long way towards making the practice of teaching a second language more effective, and certainly much more enjoyable for both learners and teachers.

So what do we mean by “creativity”? It is best defined as a cluster of skills to fashion a product or idea that is original and is culturally valued. In other words, according to researchers, for an idea or product to be considered "creative" it should be new and useful.

But say the word “creativity” and inevitably a few imposing figures come to mind: Leonardo da Vinci, Beethoven, Einstein, to name but three. These extraordinary individuals would certainly encompass the notion of creativity. However, the creativity I am referring to is the so-called c-type creativity, also known as the everyday type, as opposed to the C-type creativity of the geniuses mentioned above. The bad news is that this latter type cannot be learned. The good news is that the everyday type can be.

So why is creativity a necessity in the classroom? First off, because creativity is valued and appreciated by our students…

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Why is “literally” such a troublesome word?
By Vanessa Barford, BBC News Magazine

March 12, 2012—Nick Clegg says people who pay incredibly low rates of tax are “literally in a different galaxy,” highlighting what is arguably one of the most commonly misused words in the English language. But why is the word so troublesome?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in its strictest sense, literally means in a literal, exact, or actual sense.

Yet nowadays the idea of an album “literally flying off the shelves” and recipes “literally taking no time at all” barely raises an eyebrow in some quarters.

So is using “literally” in this manner wrong—or can one word be used in contradictory ways?

English language specialist Prof Clive Upton, from the University of Leeds, says the most “strait-laced” take on the word is its original sense, which is first recorded in 1429 in the Oxford English Dictionary.

But he says the colloquial use of word—which is used to indicate that some metaphorical or hyperbolical expression is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense—is well established.

“If you look at the Oxford English Dictionary, literally was first used in this sense in 1769. There are lots of examples since then, for instance Mark Twain used it in the Adventures Tom Sawyer in 1876 when he wrote ‘Tom was literally rolling in wealth’.”

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Why don’t the French speak English?
By David Sessions, TheDailyBeast.com
  
March 9, 2013—On March 2, Régis Roinsard took the stage at Greenwich Village’s IFC Center to talk about his directorial debut, Populaire, which had just delighted a group of French tourists and New York Francophiles. Roinsard fielded questions in a heavy French accent, frequently mixing up his tenses and appealing to a translator for a lifeline. The adoring audience didn’t mind, and Roinsard’s courageous attempts certainly got the point across. But like another presenter the previous night, Roinsard spoke English through the prism of French phonetics, making him occasionally incomprehensible to English speakers.

Roinsard’s difficulties with English were nothing compared to the faux pas of French politicians. After President Obama’s victory in November, the new French president François Hollande drew mockery from his countrymen on Twitter when he signed a note to Obama with “friendly,” a translation of the French word amicalement that isn’t used as a form of politeness in English.

Even more embarrassing was former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin’s famous flub at the 2005 European Union constitutional convention: “Oui, the yes needs the no to win against the no.” Previous French president Nicolas Sarkozy famously failed to graduate from SciencesPo, the elite French politics school, because he had insufficient command of English.

That some of France’s biggest representatives to the world have so much trouble with English is often taken, both in France and out, as a symbol of what has become a sore spot for politicians worried about France’s global competitiveness. “The linguistic incompetence of the French is a recurring joke at European summits and in international businesses,” Noosphere founder Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry wrote on the French website Atlantico after Hollande’s “friendly” note.

Rankings have consistently shown France trailing its European neighbors in mastery of foreign language, and not just the highly-educated paradises in the northern part of the continent like Denmark and Sweden…

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What are the happiest words in the English language?
 By Ian Hill, KQED.org

February 21, 2013—Quick: What are the three happiest words in the English language?

If you’re a late-night partier, you may have thought “happy hour prices.” If you’re a working stiff, your answer may have been “today is payday.”

If you’re a mathematician like The University of Vermont’s Peter Dodds, however, your answer may have been “laughter, happiness, love.” In 2011 Dodd authored a study that in part ranked more than 10,000 words for “happiness;” and the top three were “laughter, happiness, love.” Dodds and other researchers then measured the frequency of those words in 10 million Tweets that were posted in 2011 and tagged to 373 U.S. urban areas.

The results of their work has been making news this week – they determined that based on the Tweets, Napa is the happiest city in the U.S.

The words that Dodds and his colleagues ranked were those that most frequently appeared on Twitter and in Google Books as well as in music lyrics from 1960 to 2007 and the New York Times from 1987 to 2007. In his paper, Dodds describes how the researchers determined the mood of a word:

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The five most commonly misused phrases in the English language
By The Stickler, Business2Community.com

February 5, 2013—The English language is endlessly evolving and changing. Words like “conversating,” once considered a “non-word,” have just recently been added to the American Lexicon—and we can all now also thank Beyonce for adding the word “Bootylicious” to the dictionary. And yet, “irregardless” continues to be deemed as improper language, despite its constant usage.

Since “content is king” in the online world, there has been an absolute explosion of articles and blogs as businesses attempt to persuade potential customers to visit their websites. And still, words and phrases like these continue to be misused, abused, or just misunderstood in our day-to-day lives, much to the chagrin of sticklers for grammar like ourselves at SticklerEditing.com. Here is our list of top five misued words and phrases that a lot of people are inappropriately using in their content today:

I Could Care Less

If you could care less, then who cares? Everyone’s heard this one time and time again, which is why perhaps the inappropriate use of the phrase continues to be heard. The proper term, which is “I couldn’t care less,” sends the proper message: you care so little about something that you couldn’t possibly care less, because you have no care left to give for something so small. Saying that you could care less, however, simply means that you could care more for the topic, which is more likely than not exactly the opposite of what you were intending to convey.

Fit as a Fiddle

In our perhaps health-centric society, we now commonly believe that the word “fit” always means “healthy” or “in shape.” This, however, was not how the word “fit” in this phrase was intended to be taken. This term started back in the 16th century and evolved from the phrase “as right as a fiddle.” The word “fit” in this term is meant to mean “appropriate” or “suitable.” So before you call that health-conscious friend of yours “as fit as a fiddle,” remind yourself that it doesn’t mean that he or she is in excellent health but that they are, in fact, as “appropriate” as they can be.

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Tongue-wagging over immigration reform’s English language requirement just empty talk
By Frank Cerabino, Palm Beach Post

February 3, 2013—Why are we making such a big deal of the English language?

If the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in this country get offered a chance to become citizens, it must include a provision that they learn English, lawmakers from both parties pointed out this past week.

But English is already a requirement.

Federal immigration law mandates “an understanding of the English language, including an ability to read, write and speak words in ordinary usage in the English language.”
The existing requirement says that immigrants seeking citizenship must be able to “read or write simple words and phrases.”

So aspiring Americans already know they have to surpass Honey Boo Boo’s family when it comes to language proficiency. So why stress an English-language requirement in this new pathway to citizenship, as if it’s another get-tough measure?

“Because it’s the key that unlocks wide public support for immigration reform,” wrote Paul Waldman in The American Prospect.

And that says more about us than them.

Consider this. There were 21 German-language newspapers in America in 1811, according to the Library of Congress. As German immigration to America swelled all through that century, German-language newspapers grew to 565 publications in 1911. And now, a century later, German-language newspapers in America fell back to 42 publications.

What happened?

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Rising to the challenges of English instruction
By: Deborah Mitchell, District 518, Worthington Daily Globe

WORTHINGTON, February 9, 2013—Immigrants have often sought work in rural America, but sometimes they struggle because they lack English language skills. Things are different in Worthington.

In 2010, Minnesota joined World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment’s consortium (WIDA). Title III “Language Instruction for Limited English Proficient and Immigrant Students” federal mandates set forth in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, specifically Section 3102, states the purposes of the mandate are, “To help ensure the children who are limited English proficient, including immigrant children and youth, attain English proficiency, develop high levels of academic attainment in English, and meet the same challenging State academic content and student academic achievement standards as all children are expected to meet…” How to best accomplish this difficult task was a struggle for many states prior to the establishment of WIDA.

WIDA came about after an Enhanced Assessment Grant was awarded to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. WIDA’s first home was indeed in Wisconsin and named The Center for Applied Linguistics as its test development partner. In 2004 WIDA’s English Language Proficiency Standards were completed, which lead to the development of the Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State to State for English Language Learners (ACCESS) test. The WIDA ACCESS placement test (W-APT) was developed in 2005.

The W-APT is used to determine a student’s English language proficiency level which, in turn, guides instruction and also provides a starting point to measure students’ linguistic growth. In 2006 WIDA moved to the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, where it is presently housed. As of January of 2013, 31 U.S. states and territories belong to the WIDA Consortium. Many other schools nationally and internationally have adopted WIDA resources for use in their English language development programs.

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The three worst words in the English language: Can’t we just?
By Gunnar Peterson, DarkReading.com

SAN FRANCISCO, January 25, 2013—When learning something new, especially a technical something, it’s great to hear the words “for example” because you’re about to see something more concrete that helps the abstract make more sense.

Conversely, when doing design and development work, it’s awful to hear the words “can’t we just” because you’re about to hear a defense of kicking the can down the road—more status quo.

“Can’t we just” is used to justify all manner of things:

“Can’t we just replicate the passwords?”

“Can’t we just leave passwords cleartext?”

“Can’t we just use one way SSL to solve everything?”

“Can’t we just use the same system we have for the last 15 years for our new Cloud?”

“Can’t we just use the same system we have for the last 15 years for our new Mobile apps?”

“Can’t we just hardcode XYZ?”

What people are really saying when they say “can’t we just” is, “Can’t we assume tomorrow will look like today?” This may work in some areas of IT (although I am doubtful), but it’s flat-out hazardous in security.

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Room for Debate: Which language rules to flout. or flaunt?
The New York Times

September 27, 2012—Here’s a chilling thought: What if our English teachers were wrong? Maybe not about everything, but about a few memorable lessons. So many millions of writers have needlessly contorted their prose to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition. So many well-intentioned editors have fought to change “a historic” to “an historic.” If it turns out that the guidelines we cling to (“to which we cling”?) are nonsense, maybe the texters have the right idea when they throw out the old rules and start fresh.

But if you aren’t ready to give up — if the “flaunt” in that headline raised your blood pressure — then how can you tell the difference between a sound rule of English and a made-up shibboleth? Where do good rules come from, and how do bad ones catch on?

Room for Debate invited two authors to answer and argue: the journalist Robert Lane Greene and the usage expert Bryan A. Garner. (Their responses, conforming to “The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage,” may not represent their positions on style issues like hyphenation and serial commas.)

DEBATERS

BRYAN A. GARNER
Bryan A. Garner, the founder of LawProse, is the author of “Garner’s Modern American Usage” and the editor in chief of Black’s Law Dictionary.

ROBERT LANE GREENE
Robert Lane Greene, an international correspondent for The Economist, is the author of “You Are What You Speak.”

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Room for Debate: Which language rules to flout. or flaunt?
The New York Times

September 27, 2012—Here’s a chilling thought: What if our English teachers were wrong? Maybe not about everything, but about a few memorable lessons. So many millions of writers have needlessly contorted their prose to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition. So many well-intentioned editors have fought to change “a historic” to “an historic.” If it turns out that the guidelines we cling to (“to which we cling”?) are nonsense, maybe the texters have the right idea when they throw out the old rules and start fresh.

But if you aren’t ready to give up — if the “flaunt” in that headline raised your blood pressure — then how can you tell the difference between a sound rule of English and a made-up shibboleth? Where do good rules come from, and how do bad ones catch on?

Room for Debate invited two authors to answer and argue: the journalist Robert Lane Greene and the usage expert Bryan A. Garner. (Their responses, conforming to “The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage,” may not represent their positions on style issues like hyphenation and serial commas.)

DEBATERS

BRYAN A. GARNER
Bryan A. Garner, the founder of LawProse, is the author of “Garner’s Modern American Usage” and the editor in chief of Black’s Law Dictionary.

ROBERT LANE GREENE
Robert Lane Greene, an international correspondent for The Economist, is the author of “You Are What You Speak.”

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Are Some Languages “Faster” Than Others?
By Mike Vuolo, Lexicon Valley

WASHINGTON D.C., October 2, 2012—We’ve all known people who are deliberate, even plodding, talkers, taking their time with seemingly every word. And then there are those who spit out their sentences with barely a breath in between. Such variation among individuals is understandable (and at times even cultural), but what about among languages themselves? In other words, is Spanish in general spoken faster than English? Is English faster than Chinese? And how do we measure the speed of speech anyway? Listen as Bob Garfield and I talk about the common perception that foreign languages are spoken more rapidly than one’s own.

BOB: From Washington D.C. this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language. I'm Bob Garfield with Mike Vuolo and today: Episode No. 18, titled The Rate of Exchange, wherein we discuss the difficulty of measuring the speed at which we speak. Hey Mike.

MIKE: Hey Bob. How you doin'?

BOB: Splendid, thank you. Yourself?

MIKE: I'm good. I'm good. It's a beautiful day and I'm in a windowless studio, so what could be better?

BOB: Can't think of a thing.

MIKE: I wanna read first a recent review on iTunes from DrewInTN. He wrote, “I've enjoyed this podcast since it started, but only now am I leaving an iTunes review. Does that make me an asshole? Perhaps, but prior to 1970 or so I would have been a phony.” So I want to urge listeners of this podcast to heed Drew's advice. Don't be an asshole. Subscribe to our feed in iTunes and while there leave a rating and a review.

BOB: I think Mike you really need to add, so this doesn't seem like a complete non sequitur and an insulting one, that that's a reference to our last show about Geoff Nunberg's book Ascent of the A-word, which is about the word asshole.

MIKE: Right, and I wanna say one more thing about that show. If you remember, Nunberg pointed out that “asshole” is used far more commonly in judging the behavior of a man than that of a woman. And he suggested that there's an inherent sexism responsible for the discrepancy, that when a woman is acting entitled and obtuse we attribute her behavior to some particularly feminine quality. Right, does that sound familiar?

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The idea that diversity strengthens America “never been backed up by logic”

WASHINGTON, August 2, 2012—Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said Thursday that diversity has never been America’s strong suit, so lawmakers should pass his bill to make English the official U.S. language in the name of unifying the nation.

“One of the great things about America is we’ve been unified by a common language. That common language, of course, is English,” King said during a press conference on his bill. “Our language is getting subdivided by some forces of the federal government. It is time to speak with a common voice.”

King talked to reporters just after the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution held a hearing on his measure, which would require all federal government communications, including voter and ballot materials, to be conducted in English. His proposal would also nullify a Clinton-era requirement that federal agencies provide interpreters for non-English speakers for certain activities.

The bill has no chance of becoming law, but it has come under fire from immigration activists who say it would isolate immigrant populations. Others have charged that groups pushing for the bill are racist.

King pushed back on both charges and said his bill is aimed at bringing the country together. After all, he said, diversity has never been America’s strong point.

“The argument that diversity is our strength has really never been backed up by logic,” King told The Huffington Post. “It’s unity is where our strength is. Our Founding Fathers understood that. Modern-day multiculturalists are defying that.”

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Woes of modern-day language
By James Granleese, HuffingtonPost.com

August 29, 2012—We use language a lot. It’s something that we’ve had since the Stone Age and will probably have for a good while longer. But we humans didn’t just accept the spoken word when it was given to us by our ancestors, Oh no! We added to it and made it this never-ending thing that will probably continue to grow and evolve for as long as we humans do.

Some people even took this form of communication and changed it completely, resulting in 600 different languages the world over. In my mind, this always happened like a game of “Chinese Whispers” played by schoolchildren the world over. For those of you who didn’t attend primary school education, the rules are simple. One child would whisper a sentence to another, who would then repeat whatever he or she heard to another person and so on until the whole class had heard it. Then the final person would announce what they heard, which would traditionally be nothing close to what the original sentence was. I feel that’s what happened to language. A simple message would travel over thousands of miles and even more ears until the original structure had been lost and there was nothing left but meaningless gibberish. I believe that this is how French was invented.

But what has our generation given to it so far?

Now, we haven’t been around for that long. But even in this short time, we’ve seemed to given our own unique twist to language. Or at least to the English language, anyway. But is our contribution the best thing to happen to the English language? For that we have to look back and see what all other generations have had to offer.

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Making fun of English
By Rrishi Raote, Business-Standard.com

NEW DELHI, July 28, 2012—Will you believe me if I say that I watch Nigella Lawson’s TV cookery programmes for the language content rather than the hostess’s admirable chest and habit of licking her fingers? Or that I watch BBC’s Top Gear for its hosts’ English rather than the expensive cars and tire smoke?

No? I didn’t think so. Well, both statements are at least partly true. Because I have also paid attention to the important things, I can tell you the ingredients of most of Nigella’s dishes. They are: butter, flour, cheese, chocolate, sugar, cream, biscuit crumbs, chorizo sausage, sherry and... things like that. I have also paid attention to the cars on Top Gear: for instance, the Bentley with an engine taken from a Second World War Spitfire fighter plane, and any number of Aston Martins, Bugattis, Lamborghinis, Ferraris and other powerful creations.

But I’d venture a guess and say that nobody would have paid either of these shows as much attention if they didn’t also offer some entertainment to the language centres of the human brain. Sure, both shows are good to look at, and neither is apologetic about its appreciation for things fattening or bad for the environment. Along with these lowbrow reasons, however, is the fact that hearing language used in new ways in otherwise familiar settings (kitchens, cars) produces a good feeling, a feeling that here is something that I didn’t know, that I can use. Perhaps you are in the habit of inventing apparently silly new phrases to express your state of mind, like “I feel coffee-esque, let’s go have a cup” — well, thanks to these Englishmen and women on TV you will learn that this can be a legitimate and even respectable use of language. Then you can set off to explore this new aesthetic…

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Miscommunication will end when English and other languages coalesce
India Times.com

July 27, 2012—Circa 2512 will there still be as many major languages and countless smaller ones or will everyone communicate and converse—not always synonymous activities—in a blended, universal lingua franca?

If the latter is what we are headed for, Indians should not be disheartened by this week’s revelation that over half of 55,000 engineers tested for proficiency in English, currently regarded as the language of science and commerce, are not conversant with common words used in the workplace and 25% did not even have school-level fluency.

Our engineers, after all, should not be the only ones named and shamed for their inarticulation; there is plenty of evidence that scarcely a category or profession in India does not fall short of its presumed fluency in English.

In their defence, however, it could be said that as long as they continue to understand each other in English dialects such as Officialish, Bizlish, Techlish, Legalish, Medlish, Socialish and Journolish, not to mention Hinglish, Benglish, Punjlish, Tamlish and more, it does not really matter what the purists think.

It does take a while for speakers of one dialect to talk to those using others, but they manage to do so eventually. At least they are better off talking in variants of English than if they had to parley in, say, Mandarin.

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Language exodus reshapes India’s schools
By Maseeh Rahman, Guardian Weekly

NEW DELHI, May 15, 2012—Dinesh Mandal, an illiterate villager from Bihar, came to India's capital city nearly three decades ago with a dream – to make sure that, unlike him, his son Umesh would get a proper education.

To make that possible, Mandal took up work in a home in the heart of Delhi, in an area built by the colonial British and popularly known after its chief planner and architect Edwin Lutyens. Lutyens’s Delhi not only has extensive quarters for household staff attached to its sprawling government bungalows; it also provides schools where the families of the poor working for top politicians and officials can get their children educated.

But Mandal’s dream has remained unfulfilled. His son Umesh failed to graduate from his local school, where he was taught in Hindi, one of India’s official languages. Though he finds work intermittently, he is at present unemployed. As a result, he has moved to a satellite settlement 50km away.

Mandal, though, hasn’t given up on wanting to educate his progeny – only the language has changed. He has kept back his three grandchildren – a boy and two girls – with him in his one-room tenement, and is now convinced that educating them in a school with English as the medium of instruction will emancipate his family.

“If my son Umesh had studied in an English-medium school, our life would’ve been different today,” said Mandal. “Now my grandson is doing that, and I’m doing all I can to ensure my two granddaughters also get admitted to an English-medium school.”

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Vietnamese would certainly be more at ease learning English from Indians
IndiaTimes.com

April 3, 2012—India’s handling of the language bequeathed by its former colonial master has been remarkably carefree. Far from being in awe of its supposed superiority and international appeal, we Indians have moulded it to our own needs, and often our grammar and pronunciation too. It has served us well.

Indeed, it could be why Vietnam has asked us to help teach them English instead of, say, people from a certain western nation that also has its own distinct version of the language.

While English is given an exalted status reluctantly by our political class no matter how much the average Indian covets fluency in it, the former French colony’s admiration for English is apparent, often amusingly so.

The latest child celebrity in Vietnam is not a singing star or mathematical genius or even the inventor of a circular chessboard for six players like Jaipur’s nine-year-old Hridayeshwar Bhati but Do Nhat Nam, who at 11 is basking in the glory of his bilingual autobiographical bestseller, How Did I Learn English?

Judging from average usage and articulation, very few Indians of similar age or at least of recent vintage would be able to assert a similar degree of absolute proficiency in English, particularly after just three years of instruction in the language like the Vietnamese boy.

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Learning language through nonsense– Japanese author of “Unusable English” speaks
By Philip Kendall, RocketNews24.com

January 20, 2013—Fantastic octopus wiring!

My brother has been observing the slugs since he got divorced.

Let’s start from where we left off yesterday. Get down on all fours.

No, these aren’t the ramblings of a man with concussion; these are genuine excerpts from Twitter feed and study guide “Non-essential English Vocabulary: Words that will never come up in tests,” a language resource for Japanese students of English that presents entirely useless but infinitely memorable phrases.

With more than 40,000 Twitter followers so far, Twitter feed curator and author Nakayama-san (otherwise known as @NISE_TOEIC)’s cheeky tweets are clearly resonating with English learners here in Japan, but why, when the rest of the nation is busy with earnest study, would someone take the time to create a Twitter account dedicated entirely to unusable English? Japanese website Excite Bit sat down with the Nakayama-san to pick up a few study tips and learn little more about the thinking behind the bizarre project.

Since I began my own personal foray into the Japanese language and bumped my head countless times on grammar, kanji readings and pronunciation, all sticking out in front of me like tree branches in a pitch-black forest, I’ve come to realize that – for me at least – learning whole phrases is infinitely easier than memorizing a list of words that you’ve never met before in your life…

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English learners punching under their weight
By Mike Guest, The Daily Yomiuri

I don’t pretend to know much about judo, but I am certainly aware of the importance of the sport to the Japanese psyche and why it is always front and center for Japanese sports fans at the Olympics. That also explains why I understand the national hand-wringing that went on when Japanese male judoka failed to take home any gold medals for the first time ever and several of the female judoka also performed below expectations.

Reasons for this were analyzed in an Aug. 5 (Page 3) article in The Daily Yomiuri entitled, “Sun sets on Japanese dominance in judo.” Traditional Japanese reliance on an “ippon” or “beautiful throw” for victory and a resultant inability to deal with an allegedly international tactic of grappling in such a way that one’s opponent is penalized, and thereby loses on points, were mentioned. But what stood out for me in the article was the commentators’ references to power: “Japanese athletes overcome by the physical power of opponents” and “...judoka of other countries with stronger muscle power than Japanese.”

Here, it seems to me, lies the root of the problem. Forget about “beautiful” tactics. If the Japanese judoka were assumed to be physically weaker than their foreign opponents, then surely the major cause of the Japanese performance was simply a lack of power. Their opponents must have trained harder or better in order to be stronger. After all, judo is not American football--where we might well expect a group of 150-kilogram U.S. linemen to physically outmatch Japanese opponents from the outset. Judo is categorized by weight. So, why should a 52-kilogram judoka from Cuba, China or the Netherlands automatically be more powerful than a 52-kilogram Japanese fighter? If a sport is weight-categorized, being weaker is due to poorer training or effort. Period.

So what is the relationship between this analysis of judo and English learning? Well, I can’t help but wonder if the same “foreigners have a natural advantage” motif is in effect when it comes to Japanese performance in English. Of course, no one expects a Japanese to have the same idiomatic sense for the language as a native English speaker…

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Rakuten’s English drive
Editorial, Japan Times

July 8, 2012—E-commerce giant Rakuten kicked its English policy into high gear last week, as English became the official language for the Japan-based company. Founder, chairman and CEO Hiroshi Mikitani has promoted, or rather “forced,” English to become the company’s official language.

Though Rakuten is already the largest e-commerce site in Japan and among the world’s top 10 Internet companies, Mr. Mikitani knows that English is an essential component of the company’s future. To expand overseas with acquisitions, joint ventures and multilingual sales, Mr. Mikitani has pushed what the company calls “Englishnization,” a policy designed not only to make the company more smoothly operational in the global marketplace, but also to encourage employees to think within an international framework.

No matter that “Englishnization” is not a real word; the idea is a good one. Whatever changes a company doing business internationally will go through in the future, employees will need to work in more than one language.

Rakuten has invested in English lessons, time off to study and a system of both rewards and demotions to push its English policy. That tough approach to learning will be helpful in the real world of international business, where, to be competitive, employees need to be able to work directly in English — not rely on translators, dictionaries or a few English-speaking specialists.

A proactive English policy is a clearsighted and practical step toward a better workforce. Forcing employees to be competent in English means that employees can communicate comfortably and fulfill all their work requirements in English. Japan needs more employees who can engage in productive activity without hesitation or nervousness because of weak English-communication skills.

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English fluency and alligator pits
By AMY CHAVEZ, Japan Times

May 5, 2012—When I used to teach English at university, I was sure to leave an impression on my students on their first day of class. I’d tell them that as Japanese speakers, they could only speak with a mere 130 million people. But if they could learn English, they would be able to communicate with 500 million to 1 billion people. This is why you need to learn English, I told them. Heads invariably nodded, and students turned to each other and exclaimed “naruhodo!” (Indeed!). I had caught their attention.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The average person could never communicate with 130 million people, let alone 1 billion. Most people have meaningful interaction with only a few hundred. Perhaps thousands in an entire lifetime. You may reach millions via media such as TV or Twitter, but if one-way communication is all you’re after, you could get a translator to do that for you. Even Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Che Guevara had people translating their message throughout the world via the media.

But one thing I learned as a teacher was that students were only as good as I expected them to be. If I expected them to do nothing, they would do nothing. Expect them to scale Mount Everest, however, and they would try, even with no specialized climbing skills. And they would get frostbite trying.

So it’s no surprise that I wake up sweating some nights. The nightmare is always the same: an irate student, forcing her twisted frostbitten fingers into a fist, and holding it to my face while screaming, “You promised me a bright future if I learned English! You said learning English would help my employability and that I'd gain an international perspective! You and your haughty institution lured me to your school with glossy brochures showing Japanese students sharing conversations with beautiful blue-eyed foreigners, suggesting that their beauty and worldliness would rub off on me, or that at least I'd get a date with one of them…”

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Speaking English: What’s to be afraid of?
By Mike Guest, The Daily Yomiuri

March 26, 2012—It’s the mid-1990s. I am relatively new to Japan, sitting next to Yukari on the train. Yukari is a colleague and friend but we fall silent, tired at the end of the work day. Other passengers don’t know that we are acquaintances. The seat on the other side of me remains conspicuously empty, even as the carriage begins to fill up elsewhere.

I decide to pop the question when we alight. “So why doesn’t anyone want to sit next to me?” I ask her. I can understand that passengers might be hesitant to sit next to someone who looks threatening, unstable or slovenly, but I am well-groomed and wearing my teacher clothes. I hardly look menacing, nor am I prone to big, bold, extroverted gestures. I look as mild as any passenger on the train. I’m not sweaty nor do I have gyoza breath.

“They’re probably afraid that you’re going to ask them something in English,” comes Yukari’s response. “And they don’t have confidence in their English.” This really baffles me. Why assume that I will ask them something? If I was staring at a map and looking around inquisitively that assumption might be warranted but I was being as self-absorbed as any local.

Anyway, why assume that if I did ask something, I would do so in English? This was the outskirts of Kansai, not Roppongi or Ginza. And even if I did ask in English, so what? If the local couldn’t help me all that would be needed would be to say, “Sorry, I can’t speak English,” even if rendered in Japanese. Not sitting next to me to avoid improbable scenarios of no real consequence seemed like an overreaction.

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Why those French vs. English gang fights faded away
By Robert Schryer, Montreal Gazette

MONTREAL, August 2, 2012—Of all the anecdotes my father recounted to me about his upbringing in Hull, one lingers most in my memory. It had to do with the gangs that clustered in parts of his hometown, where neighbourhoods defined allegiances. This was in the ’50s, when groups of kids armed with baseball bats and bicycle chains, or just their knuckles, would confront each other to prove their mettle and assert their turf.

Criminal enterprise wasn’t the impetus for such groupings; language was. Gangs were built on the linguistic rift between cultures, the clash between the French and the English.

Of course, linguistic hostilities weren’t confined to Hull; they spanned the province, festering mostly in Montreal, where English was more prevalent than in other regions, creating more opportunities for friction.

As a francophone teenage Quebecer, my father naturally belonged to the French camp, fists at the ready to stand up to the English when duty called for it. Confrontations ended mostly at stare-downs and tough talk, but occasionally devolved into physical altercations serious enough to warrant medical attention.

The thought of my father trading punches with anglophones struck me as unnervingly ironic considering that he and my English-speaking mother raised me as a bilingual anglophone. It meant that, in his day, he and I might have been enemies, hatefully eyeballing each other for no other reason than that we spoke different languages.

My father said it was different then — that the vast majority of people spoke only their mother tongue. For most, knowing both official languages wasn’t seen — as it is now — as particularly advantageous, or even desirable. Language was a distinguishing birthright, a matter of being true to one’s identity and culture. Learning the other language was akin to sleeping with the enemy.

But things began to change as people’s values evolved. Bilingualism grew, and as it did physical warfare between linguistic factions declined. People learned to speak the other’s language and see things from their perspective. A certain respect, tentative though it might have been, encouraged mingling. Instead of warring gangs, relationships formed — in business, friendship, even love.

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Why the Japanese Are Bad at Foreign Languages (Part 2)

Aug 28, 2012—Many Japanese people lament their inability to carry out a proper conversation in English despite studying it for 10 years in junior high, high school and university.

Some people blame the education system, some people blame the lack of transparency between Japanese and other languages; but there just seems to be something about Japanese people that makes them terrible with foreign languages.

Continuing from yesterday’s post, we’d like to share the last part of Japanese columnist Ryuuji Haneishi’s discussion of why he believes they are.

2. Japanese people are scared of making mistakes

The Japanese are probably the most reserved and modest people in the world. They hate offending and troubling others and do whatever they can to avoid doing so.

The same goes for when speaking in a foreign language: Japanese people worry that making a mistake may offend the other party and so, unless they are confident they can express themselves perfectly, they refrain from speaking at all. And thus begins a vicious cycle: if you never practice speaking, your spoken English never improves – but if your spoken English never improves, you’re never able to build up enough confidence to speak…

This is exactly why Japanese tourists abroad are seen as “easy targets” by local businesses: you can rip them off and they’ll never complain…

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There are deeper issues beneath Canada’s language flare-ups
By Celine Cooper, The Montreal Gazette

MONTREAL, July 24, 2012—Language has always played a central role in the organization of Canadian society. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Montreal, a city where historical battles for territory and resources between two competing colonial powers – English and French – continue to dominate our public debate on a daily basis. This is why the ongoing conversation about language and the Société de transport de Montréal is such an interesting one.

As we go about our everyday lives in the city, we do all kinds of mundane things. Ordering a cup of coffee, making a doctor’s appointment, sending an email at work, speaking to a salesperson at a retail store or buying a subway ticket probably don’t seem all that consequential at the moment we do them. But daily life is made up of small moments like these, and knitting them together helps us to understand how language helps construct the social relations that shape how lives are lived in Montreal.

Two recent events have sparked debate in the pages of The Gazette. Vaudreuil-Dorion resident Michael Dunning was alleged to have been mocked as a “maudit anglais” and told by two STM ticket agents at the Atwater station that “we don’t serve English people.” A few weeks earlier, Montreal Impact soccer player Miguel Montano claimed that he had been refused service at an STM ticket counter for not speaking French. He sent out a tweet in Spanish that translated to “They are so racist in Montreal.” (Perhaps not insignificantly, the Impact has lent Montano to a Colombian club until the end of 2012, as The Gazette’s Max Harrold reported last week. I have no idea if there is any link between Montano’s run-in with the STM and the Impact’s decision to send him out of Montreal, but these things are always worth asking questions about.)

Why does it matter so much, and to whom, whether the exchange in which one buys a subway ticket in Montreal is carried out in French or English?

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Montreal English: Borrowings, but not a dialect
By Peggy Curran, The Gazette

MONTREAL, July 20, 2012—A funny thing happened when Shana Poplack decided to count the number of French words native English-speakers in Montreal and Quebec City used in ordinary conversations about their lives in la belle province.

Even among the 10 per cent of young people most likely to toss French words into the mix, non-standard English accounted for 0.23 per cent of the words in their interviews.

It was, ironically, a story on language published in The Gazette that got Poplack, a sociolinguist at the University of Ottawa, wondering whether Montreal anglophones really did speak “an English like no other.”

In 1999, Alex Norris, a Gazette reporter who would grow up to become a city councillor with Project Montreal, wrote an award-winning series looking at the new Quebec anglo, those children of Bill 101. In one of his pieces, Norris suggested that contact between the city’s majority and minority languages was transforming Montreal English into a new dialect.

Poplack, who had spent time analyzing the impact of English on the French spoken on the Ottawa-Hull region, decided to see whether those claims stood up to scientific scrutiny. “It is much easier to say something based on perceptions than it is to do the hard, scientific legwork to prove or disprove it,” she said. “The only way to do it is by analyzing all the foreign words and all the other words that were used.”

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Furor over ‘hi’ describes another low point in Quebec’s language wars
By Don Macpherson, Postmedia News

June 4, 2012—The language critic of the Parti Quebecois is “very worried” about the latest sign that Montreal is being overrun by English.

The head of the government’s language watchdog agency, the Office Quebecois de la langue française, sees it as at least a possible “irritant.”

And the minister of culture in the Liberal government is “concerned.”

So what is the problem against which these people have united?

“Hi.”

That’s it. That’s the problem — that informal little English word “Hi,” when it’s used to greet customers in downtown Montreal businesses.

And not even when it’s used instead of “Bonjour.”

No, the people who are in charge of Quebec’s language policy, or might soon be, are concerned even when it’s used in addition to “Bonjour,” as in “Bonjour/hi.”

That’s the greeting that, in Montreal’s unique linguistic etiquette, is intended to let the customer know that he or she can be served in either French or English.

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Furor over ‘hi’ describes another low point in Quebec’s language wars
By Don Macpherson, Postmedia News

June 4, 2012—The language critic of the Parti Quebecois is “very worried” about the latest sign that Montreal is being overrun by English.

The head of the government’s language watchdog agency, the Office Quebecois de la langue française, sees it as at least a possible “irritant.”

And the minister of culture in the Liberal government is “concerned.”

So what is the problem against which these people have united?

“Hi.”

That’s it. That’s the problem — that informal little English word “Hi,” when it’s used to greet customers in downtown Montreal businesses.

And not even when it’s used instead of “Bonjour.”

No, the people who are in charge of Quebec’s language policy, or might soon be, are concerned even when it’s used in addition to “Bonjour,” as in “Bonjour/hi.”

That’s the greeting that, in Montreal’s unique linguistic etiquette, is intended to let the customer know that he or she can be served in either French or English.

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Let’s make better use of the English language
By David Bly, Times Colonist
 
MARCH 25, 2012—In his recent exhortation to University of Victoria students, suppose Justin Trudeau had shouted, “For Mohammed’s sake, vote!”

Or, “For Ganesh’s sake—” or “For Buddha’s sake—”

That would likely have created an uproar in multicultural Canada, and rightly so, for we believe in tolerance and respect for all cultures and beliefs, and such remarks would be considered bigoted and insensitive.

Trudeau himself would likely condemn such behaviour.

Yet his remark, “For Christ’s sake, vote,” is offensive to many people for whom Jesus Christ is the centre of their faith. He meant no offence, and that it wasn’t offensive to his audience is quite clear - his remark was greeted with applause and laughter, but some who read about it were offended.

Profanity creates a dilemma for newspapers - do you include cuss words in a quote or do you leave them out? Newspapers in this country generally follow Canadian Press style in that regard, and it suggests a careful approach, advising the printing of potentially offensive words only if they are deemed an essential part of the story. Sometimes, a questionable word is replaced with its first letter and dashes.

In coverage of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing in Duncan, one participant’s presentation was reported this way:

“This is my statement to Canada. Saying they didn’t know is a bunch of bull—.”

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A survey that sets up Quebec anglos to fail the integration test
By Jack Jedwab, The Montreal Gazzette
 
QUEBEC, March 23, 2012—One might have hoped that the considerable rise in knowledge and use of the French language among a generation of Quebec anglophones would have reduced insecurities about the French language.

Not so. In effect, the language laws failed to make anglophones sufficiently sympathetic to the plight of French and to get them to help make it the province’s common public language – or at least that appears to be the verdict of L’Actualité columnist Jean-François Lisée in his cover story for the current edition of the magazine (April 15, 2012), entitled “Ici, on parle English: Quel avenir pour le français a Montréal?”

Lisée implies that to be integrated into Quebec society it is not enough to respect the Charter of the French Language; one also has to promote its objectives.

To do so, he argues, anglophones must acknowledge the purportedly dire situation of the French language on the island of Montreal – to which, by the way, their use of English contributes.

A survey in January of 750 Quebec anglophones by the polling firm CROP for L’Actualité provides support for the notion of anglophones’ lack of concern about the health of French.

The survey found that 54 per cent of anglophones agreed with the statement that “given the power of globalization and of the English language, it is only a question of time before most work in Montreal will be done in English.” But the answer appears to have been built into the question.

Paradoxically, in another survey question, 65 per cent of anglophones disagreed with the statement “I hope that French remains the primary language in Quebec, but I think it’s a losing battle.”

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English proficiency needed in the globalizing world
By Kim Seong-kon, The Korea Herald

July 10, 2012—In Korea many people tend to mistake English professors for language and grammar instructors. That is why whenever people discover I am an English professor, they begin to ask many questions about what they can do to study and learn English. It never occurs to them that I am a scholar of English literature, not an English teacher. Even if they knew however, they would think, “English literature is written in the English language, so what difference does it make?”

One of the questions people ask me most frequently is, “How can I master English?” or “What’s the shortcut to learning English?” But as an English literature scholar, I am unsure of what to tell them. Though I am inclined to respond, “To be honest, I don’t know,” I do not want to disappoint them, especially after seeing their faces full of expectation. So I always try to conjure up something to satisfy their curiosity.

Most of the time, I tell those people, “There’s no shortcut to mastering English. I can only give you a piece of advice out of my own experience.” Then I provide them with three answers, which I believe are the most effective ways to learn a foreign language: enjoyment, motivation and immersion.

The importance of enjoyment in language acquisition cannot be stressed enough. You should learn English with pleasure, not pain. If you are a movie buff, for example, watching movies and television dramas is an excellent way to learn English. If you like music, listening to pop songs is another effective way to improve your English. If computer games are your thing, you can also learn English by playing games. I learned English by watching movies and listening to pop songs, both of which were my personal favorite pastimes.

Since then, 50 years have passed and now my own daughter speaks fluent Japanese thanks to her indulgence in Japanese games, animations and comics. Although no one forced her to study Japanese, she naturally acquired the foreign language while joyfully playing games, watching animations and reading comic books.

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Advice to foreign tourists: Don’t expect English-language service
By Olena Goncharova, Kyiv Post

Foreigners coming for the Euro 2012 football championships had better make room in their suitcases for a Ukrainian or Russian language guidebook. They’re going to need it, judging from this Ukrainian’s attempt to get around the city with a friend, both of us pretending to know only English. We visited theaters and cinemas, bookstores and cafes in order to find out who could communicate with us, and ranked the experience. In general, it was a disappointing one.

Although English is widely taught in schools from early childhood, the world’s most widely spoken language still hasn’t sunk in enough for many Ukrainians to be able to have even an elementary conversation.

So if you can read this, thank a teacher.

First we went to Taras Shevchenko National Opera House, a logical stop for a foreign tourist, and bought a ticket. After 10 minutes of queuing, one man tried to cut in front of us. He made the booking clerk nervous. The man’s mood brightened considerably after he heard us speaking English, and he began to smile.

“Hello! Do you speak English? We would like to buy two tickets for Iolanta on April 11,” I asked the clerk.

“On the 11th?” he asked in response.

Then he turned to the woman standing behind him. They started to point at the poster and asked us whether we want a ticket for April 11. We assured him that was the case and asked about the prices in the third row.

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Lessons in a common language
By Alicia Clegg, Financial Times
 
April 18, 2012—It is hard to imagine Gina Qiao, Lenovo’s talkative head of human resources, at a loss for words. But when her employer announced, following its acquisition of IBM’s personal computer division in 2005, that it was adopting English as the company language in place of Mandarin, she was speechless.

“It was the toughest time of my whole life,” she recalls in rapid accented English, punctuated by the occasional malapropism and mixed-up tense. “I couldn’t communicate. I couldn’t express my ideas. Because I couldn’t say anything, I just felt maybe I am not so smart.”

The feelings of frustration and loss of confidence that threw Ms Qiao off her stride are an increasingly unfortunate feature of a global marketplace that has elected English as the de facto language of international exchange. As managers create teams that straddle national borders, knit together companies that are merging and look for ways to speed up the sharing of knowhow, their attempts to impose a common language on a multilingual workforce can create winners and losers.

During a language transition, bilinguals are often called on to act as intermediaries linking headquarters and local operations, which puts them in a privileged position and can lead to job offers. But for those forced to master a whole new vocabulary and grammar just to hold down the job that they were already doing, a language change can feel like a professional step backwards from which it is hard to imagine ever recovering.

“(Companies) very much underestimate the psychological stress that a language change can cause,” says Rebecca Piekkari, professor of international business at Finland’s Aalto University.
In some cases this may be because the cosmopolitan elites that run them speak several languages already and mistakenly assume that their subordinates do too…

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Learning English language in Thailand: Hype or necessity?
By Kuldeep Nagi, NationMultimedia.com

April 2, 2012—Lately there has been increasing debate about the status of English language in Thai society. Many arguments are made for and against the relevance of English language and its usefulness. Arguments made by Thai politicians take us back and forth about the role of English language and distracts us away from the realities of this new century. This nationalistic faction believes that imposing English language on Thai people is against their culture, heritage and their unique identity. The same group also argues that Thailand was never colonized so why bother to learn English. For them English is the language of the British colonies. It has no place in Thai society. Some others with a myopic vision believe that Thai peoples hould not be made to feel insecure and inferior because of all the hype about importance of learning English.

It is an historical fact that in the 17th century the British did not go around the world to impose their language; they went places with an intention to do trade. Later, they forcibly occupied many countries in Africa and Asia. And of course they occupied North America and USA as well. In their more than 300 years of history in Africa and Asia they conquered many countries. It was followed by the creation of their own system of education, transport, communication and governance…

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English: the linguistic equivalent of rock’n’roll
By Toby Manhire, The Internaut

February 13, 2013—More often than not, the domination of the English language in international discourse is put down to an accident of history. But for leading German commentator Alan Posener, that’s only part of it.

“There are many reasons for its dominance,” writes Posener, who was born and in part bred in Britain, in Die Welt (and translated at the terrific WorldCrunch site), “the heritage of the British Empire, and the post-world-war economic hegemony and cultural influence – ranging from Mickey Mouse and Marilyn Monroe to Elvis Presley and Snoop Dogg – of the United States.”

But it’s more than that.

The main reason is the elasticity of the language and the broad-mindedness it communicates. If English grammar is rudimentary, the linguistic equivalent of rock’ n’ roll, the English vocabulary is huge. There are very few things that can’t be expressed in English, and if it can’t be said in English then a word is lifted from another language – like “kindergarten,” for example. If it doesn’t exist in English and a word isn’t lifted from another language, it’s because what it represents doesn’t make sense to thinking shaped by the English language: a case in point, Schicksalsgemeinschaft (companions in fate).

Posener points to a new German novel which imagines a world in which the first world war had never happened, and German had become the universal tongue of science, academia, politics and so on.
It’s not an altogether implausible scenario, he says, but in respect of the language, at least, the world could count itself fortunate.

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Why we need to learn more languages
By Amy Roil, Stuff.co.nz

October 2, 2012—If you’re like me and can speak only English, travelling around Europe makes you feel pretty dumb. I reckon almost every person on that continent is fluent in at least two languages. I suppose it's mandatory when so many different countries, each with its own tongue, have to interact so closely with one another. 

But the level of linguistic ability here still astounds me. A shopkeeper in Venice the other day was talking to me in English, while simultaneously conversing in French and Italian with two other customers. I was awestruck. “How many languages do you speak?” I asked. She thought a bit, “Italian, English, Japanese, French, Spanish and German. But I don't speak English well,” she replied. Yeah right.

That’s why I feel stupid. Because it seems a bit rich to waltz into someone else’s country, offer up a couple of pathetic attempts at the local lingo (and, if you’re like me, butcher the pronunciation while you’re at it) and from then on expect everyone to speak to you in your mother tongue. 

I cringed in Barcelona, when a Portuguese waiter moaned to us about the arrogance of the Spanish (I don’t need to keep reiterating that all my convos are in English, do I?) who, according to him, don’t bother to learn Portuguese before they pop over the border, but expect their western neighbours to be fluent Spanish speakers. Ahem. That doesn’t sound like me at all.

Big ups to Ted, who speaks passable Spanish (through osmosis I feel good about that too). But how annoying is it when you think you're smashing it and the locals cut you off with their impeccable English and a “nice try” grin? Burn.

Ted’s much braver than I am at giving new languages a go (if I internally squirm at my pitiful pronunciation, I hate to think how the locals are reacting). And when all else fails, he rolls with either Spanish (it doesn’t matter which country we're in—Italian, Spanish, they’re practically the same, right?) or English with a different accent…

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China’s heavy investment in English-language media isn’t going too well
By Naomi Rovnick, QZ.com
 
November 29, 2012—Earlier this week, a number of Chinese state-run newspapers mistook satirical website The Onion for a real news outlet and reprinted its spoof story that pint-sized North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un was voted the “sexiest man alive for 2012” as fact. The state run People’s Daily, which has now removed (Chinese) its version of the story, ran a 55-photo slideshow of Kim looking, in its opinion, smolderingly sexy.

This is worrying, because at the same time as its state-run media are failing to realize The Onion is satire, China is pouring money into an English-language media project designed to win hearts and minds in the West. The Beijing government is investing $8.9 billion on “external publicity work,” according to The New York Times. This includes an ever growing stable of state-controlled English language newspapers and television channels.

The project is part of a push to counter what Beijing sees as Western news outlets’ China-bashing tendencies. But to gain a share of voice in America or Europe, the Chinese administration’s media needs to build credibility with a Western audience. Its naive follow up on The Onion’s story this week is proof of how difficult that will be.

Unsurprisingly, Beijing’s state-run English-language media have content challenges. Chinese newspapers tend to involve a lot of tub-thumping propaganda, and the English-language offerings run along the same rails. Take “CNC World,” an English television channel launched in 2010…

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Strong necessity for “affordable” English language education
By Violetta Yau, ChinaDaily.com

HONG KONG, September 29, 2012—Many expatriate and local parents have always believed they could cling to the English Schools Foundation (ESF) for affordable English-language education. The bombshell recently dropped by the city's only-subsidized international school institution, however, brought them back to their senses, when the announcement of a new debenture scheme certainly dashed their illusions.

The bad news is the recent announcement by ESF of a staggering HK$500,000 non-refundable debenture, offering priority admission to the children of donors, at its 10-odd primary and secondary schools. The schools will make available 150 places out of more than 1,000 every year from 2013 onwards, under the new ESF Nomination Rights Scheme. The new program replaces the previous Corporate Surety Scheme that required corporate applicants to pay six months’ school fees in advance.

The foundation has of course a pretty good reason for imposing this blood-sucking scheme - it badly needs cash to upgrade its aging school buildings without further subsidies from the government. The foundation's HK$283-million annual subvention has been frozen for more than a decade, after a damning audit report on its management in 2004, which showed teachers' salaries were the highest of all international schools at that time.

The new scheme certainly has provoked the anger of expatriates as well as local parents who wish to put their children into ESF because of its “affordable” English-language education. The word “affordable” has a significant meaning to those who aspire to English-language education, given the notoriously-high fees that private international schools charge and the acute shortage of international school places.

As a government-funded educational institution, the new debenture scheme has virtually raised ESF to the ranks of profit-oriented private international schools, defeating its purpose of providing affordable English-language education to expatriates' children. There is no doubt that parents would deem this new policy as something skewing towards wealthy families while shunning the poor.

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Language needs gatekeepers but change is inevitable
By Warwick McFadyen, WAToday.com

February 3, 2013—“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.”

(From Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll)

Like, you go Humpty Dumpty. You were one revolutionary egg in the free-ranging field of etymology. Never mind master of the universe, you were master of the lexiconverse. Your exchange with the innocent Alice came to life this week through the letters page of The Age.

Over the past fortnight or more, the page has been pummeled with the voices of the outraged, the despairing and resigned. There’s nothing new in this, and no it’s not about our politicians or public transport. It’s about our language, or rather the pet hates of the writers towards the overused and the overwrought members of English.

Humpty rather forcefully tells Alice he gives a word the meaning he chooses. You can’t avoid the ovoid’s directness, but was he right? Apparently not, perusing the comments. We’re not a happy little bunch of Vegemites at all.

It goes without saying, if you will, that having gotten this far, some persons might want closure on back-to-back impacts on the language. But having said that, at this point in time, the enormity of the currently and constantly dumbing down of how we speak is actually incredible…

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Teach us English but without its cultural values
By Dr. Khalid Al-Seghayer, SaudiGazette.com

January 29, 2013—Recently, some local Arabic newspapers reported that some Saudi families had registered strong complaints about a Saudi university’s including inappropriate pictures and the components of Western culture in selected English textbooks. This, again, revives the controversial issue of teaching the English language along with or without the English culture in which it operates. As a result, educational stakeholders who are responsible for English programs, especially in the higher education sector, mandate that international publishing companies produce what are called Middle Eastern English textbook versions for use in the Kingdom.

The view of those who call for not incorporating cultural elements in the teaching of English is that teaching cultural values is a form of cultural invasion or, more accurately, a form of linguistic globalization that emanates from cultural globalization. These individuals feel that teaching Western values to Saudi students will result in eroding their identity. Those opposed to the teaching of English culture instead call for including only Islamic and local cultural values in textbooks used by English programs in the Kingdom. In examining this highly sensitive linguistic topic, two questions need to be asked: What is so significant about teaching culture, and why is culture such an important element to consider in the foreign language classroom?

Let us first state what most language educators believe and then answer the aforementioned questions. It appears that culture, as an ingrained set of behaviors and modes of perception, is highly important in foreign language learning. Language is a part of culture, and culture is a part of language; the two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture.

The world in which we live requires people who can communicate effectively in at least one other language and who have related cultural insights and understanding. This cannot take place unless the culture of the language being taught is fully integrated in the curriculum in a systematically planned way.

Without cultural insight and skill, even fluent speakers can seriously misinterpret messages they have read, and the messages they intend to communicate can be misunderstood…

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English literary works by Asian authors growing steadily
By Pramod Kanakath, JakartaGlobe.com

February 28, 2013—Literary works written and published in English by Asian authors are growing at a steady rate. Does this speak anything of the collective English language skills of non-native speakers in Asia as we have entered the second decade of the 21st century? Are literature and language complementary?

While literature is growing, English still remains an alien language to an unaccountable multitude across Asia. Literary figures apart, there is a so-called gentry who may pride themselves on being excellent listeners, speakers, readers and writers in the global language. This group is mainly formed of academics, businessmen and employees from private companies.

In some countries like India and in Southeast Asia, English literacy is also a touchstone to determine one’s cosmopolitan identity. But the man on the street is yet to wear the international identity uniform. 

At the same time, there are some countries where English only rises to the occasion, purely demanded by situations. A bank official I talked to in a southeast Asian country struggled every moment during our conversation over a transaction. A street vendor in a touristy area in the same country did not just talk but even spoke to me about local cultures in clear though grammatically inaccurate English. The latter deals with foreign tourists and needs to twist his jaw differently to suit the Anglo-Saxon delivery.

The capability of learning English effectively depends a lot on the structure of the vernacular tongue of every community in Asia. Speakers of Indo-European family of languages tend to pick up English words and sentences easily as its structure is identical with that of their own languages.

However, the absence of different tenses, different word order (e.g. adjective after the noun unlike in English) and other linguistic variations make it difficult for some in southeast Asia to make a smooth conversation…

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English language and higher education
By Francis Robinson, The Express Tribune

March 12, 2013—For over 30 years, I have been engaging with graduate historians from Pakistan.

Some have been students, who have come to work with me for a PhD or DPhil, in the universities of London or Oxford. Some have been scholars already in post in Pakistan’s universities, who have been funded by the excellent Higher Education Commission (HEC) scheme, which enables university staff to develop their research skills.

A few already have PhDs, but many do not; they come for periods of three, six or 12 months. Others, I have encountered as the international external examiner of their PhD dissertation submitted to a Pakistan university.

I regret to say that with a few honourable exceptions, the English of this PhD work is poor, and on occasion, unacceptable.

There will be sentences without main verbs; with poor punctuation; sentences which contradict the meaning of what has gone before; words incorrectly used; a general failure to understand the use of the definite and indefinite article; and a general inability to carry an idea from sentence to sentence through a paragraph.

The outcome is language through which meaning can often only hazily be discerned. Sometimes it cannot be discerned at all.

The object of a PhD dissertation is for the candidate to be able to demonstrate that he/she commands a field or sub-field of knowledge and is able, by doing research in primary sources, to contribute to that field with new ideas and/or new facts.

These contributions will generally be made in the framework of an argument that creates an overall context in which these contributions can be understood. Command of English and its niceties is essential to be able to achieve this end.

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