Language and identity
By Jenny Ortuoste, ManilaStandardToday.com

In a multi-lingual country that has been colonized by foreigners such as ours, language and its use are inextricably linked to issues of national identity and geography.

Tagalog, or “Filipino,” is used as the country’s primary language, and is taught in schools along with English, embedded in the culture during the 40 years of the American Occupation. Spanish, spoken by families of the elite during 400 years of Madre España en Filipinas, has sunk into obscurity.

At different times over the years, either Tagalog or English has been the main medium of instruction, a matter that has always heavily been debated, even fought over. 

Cebuanos have contended in the past that there are more Cebuano, or Visayan, speakers, and that it should be the primary language. Tagalog is said to have been designated the national language only for purposes of convenience, being the language spoken in “the center” of the country, where the seat of the national government is located. It’s a case of a language being in the right place at the right time.

We are in a period where Tagalog is the medium of instruction, but many schools are placing an emphasis on the practice of English conversation, giving gold stars and other incentives to class sections that use it. Colegio de Santa Rosa in Makati, which my two daughters attend, is one such example.

Full story...

The lowdown on writing in English
By Samantha King, The Philippine Star

April 29, 2011—It’s hard to overlook the fact of our longstanding, love-hate relationship with the English language.

On the one hand you have staunch nationalists, advocates of nativism, some fiction writers and students of literature, nobly (or naively) clamoring for a return to our language roots, despite the fact that more often than not, they speak English better than the rest of us.

Meanwhile, you have housewives code-switching to English when wanting to inflict the full force of their superiority over helpless household help or unwitting street vendors  even when their use of the language barely reaches the thresholds of comprehension. Go figure.

To be sure, in a country where almost everyone can speak and understand the tiniest fragments of English, and where almost everyone actually uses said language, it’s hard to imagine ever drawing the line on our continued usage of it in the near future. In fact, as we go further along the path of globalization, modernization, and all those other words usually equated with progress; English, as our country’s second language, can only be pushed to the fore.

Supposedly, one glaring issue that arises is the matter of national identity being crushed in the wake of our mass adoption of English (if it hasn’t already been crushed by the weight of our decidedly Western-oriented consumer culture, that is). After all, when a language dies, so does its civilization. I’ve come to realize, however, that while this issue is completely valid, it’s also completely paranoid.

Full story...

So you want to be a writer
By Justine Uy, Philippine Daily Inquirer

April 30, 2011—Get yourself a pen and a sheet of paper. Write something--what that may be doesn’t really matter.

Keep going. Are your thoughts coherent yet?

Stop.

So, you’ve written something--a short piece of poetry or prose, a description of something you love or hate.

So you’ve written something. What does that make you? A writer?

Not yet, but perhaps, you could be.

Everybody’s got to start somewhere; Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Here’s what you can do to get started:

Grab a book, and then another. A great writer knows his literature. Read a book. You’ve heard your parents tell you a hundred times that reading improves your vocabulary--it does, but it doesn’t stop there. Reading allows you to discover what you want to write, and how you want to write it.

Full story...

A mansion of many languages
By Danton Remoto, The Philippine Star 

April 25, 2011—In 1977, my mentor, the National Artist for Literature and Theater Rolando S. Tinio, said:

“It is too simple-minded to suppose that enthusiasm for Filipino as lingua franca and national language of the country necessarily involves the elimination of English usage or training for it in schools. Proficiency in English provides us with all the advantages that champions of English say it does — access to the vast fund of culture expressed in it, mobility in various spheres of the international scene, especially those dominated by the English-speaking Americans, participation in a quality of modern life of which some features may be assimilated by us with great advantage. Linguistic nationalism does not imply cultural chauvinism. Nobody wants to go back to the mountains. The essential Filipino is not the center of an onion one gets at by peeling off layer after layer of vegetable skin. One’s experience with onions is quite telling: Peel off everything and you end up with a pinch of air.”

Written 31 years ago, these words still echo especially now, when some misguided congressmen are pushing for English as the sole medium of instruction in schools. Afraid that we might lose our competitive edge in English, they themselves are proof positive that we might have lost it. Their bills, and their illogical defense of these bills, show that the problem is not lack of language skills, but of brain cells.

Decades of teaching English to students (together with four years of teaching Filipino) have shown me that the best students in English are also the best students in Filipino. And how did they master the two languages?

One, they had very good teachers in both languages. Two, they inhabited the worlds of both languages. Three, they have gone beyond the false either-or mentality that hobbled their parents.

Full story...

What you should know about the IELTS test for overseas job applicants
By Tony Santiago, Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, April 24, 2011—Dreaming of migrating to an English-speaking country? Then you will have to take the IELTS Test.

The International English Language Testing System, more popularly known as IELTS, is a language examination designed to assess English proficiency in the areas of listening, reading, writing and speaking. IELTS is used for immigration, studies and employment purposes, especially in countries like the United States (U.S), Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom (U.K).

In the Philippines it is represented by the Australian IDP and the British Council which administer the test on an average of three times per month for each organization or a total of six test dates for Metro Manila and provincial candidates.

The actual taking of the exam is generally divided into two parts. The listening, reading and writing modules (written exam) are taken in one half-day, morning session. The speaking session is scheduled during the week before a written exam.

The IELTS listening module starts at 9 a.m. You will be asked to listen to a 30-minute recording of several conversations divided into four sections. You will be given a test booklet where you will find questions that you need to answer by listening to the conversation.

Full story...

Back in Baguio for the annual UP National Writers Workshop
By Butch Dalisay, The Philippine Star  

April 18, 2011—It’s always a pleasure to be back up in Baguio for our annual UP National Writers Workshop, and that’s where we are and what we’re up to again as I peck away at this piece on my laptop. We’ve traditionally gone up on Easter Sunday, but with Holy Week falling late in April this year, we decided to move up the workshop a couple of weeks earlier…

The workshop itself got off to a rousing start with a discussion of  among others  two pieces by two young women writers in English, both of whom happened to be students of mine in UP many years ago. I should add here that we’ve reoriented the UP workshop for some time now to focus on what we call mid-career writers who’ve already published at least one book, given that many other workshops now address the needs of absolute beginners. It’s in mid-career that the writer  long out of the university and working by his or her lonesome  needs reaffirmation, some form of assurance that one’s travails have been and will be worth it, despite the absence or the shortage of recognition and remuneration for one’s creative labors.

The first writer whose work we took up was Jennifer Ortuoste, a mother of two who came with a very interesting background in journalism (she’s now doing a PhD in Journalism in UP) and horseracing. Yes, horseracing  she used to ride horses as an apprentice jockey and was married to a professional jockey, and has had a long and distinguished career as a horseracing announcer, columnist, and historian…

Full story...

Old journalism rules still apply even in the age of Facebook and Twitter

MANILA, April 21, 2011—This year’s graduates may have cut their teeth on new media where stories are sourced and shared in new ways but the old fundamentals of journalism—accuracy, balance, ethics, attribution—hold true as ever.

Reuters Philippine Bureau Chief John Mair told students this at the Thomson Reuters forum “Journalism: Challenges and Opportunities," part of UP College of Mass Communication’s 46th foundation week talk-series. “Anyone can blog, tweet or post video but both the challenge and opportunity is sifting for what’s relevant and true from streaming information, putting that in context, and explaining its meaning.”

Mair cited how the recent anniversary-celebration of the peaceful EDSA people-power revolt of February 1986 presents a counterpoint on how covering media has changed—compared to say, real-time reports of violence as the Libya uprising unfolded. “Control of communications reaches people on the ground, courts sympathy everywhere else, and helps win revolutions. Radio Veritas did that for the Philippines then. Now, in the Middle East, smart phones enable anyone to feed video, photos and messages globally. People are being organized through Facebook and Twitter!”

Mair added however that the other camp can also use the same channels to reach their supporters or misinform, reporters can still get hurt in the crossfire, and copyright and libel laws apply to the internet too.

Full story...

What is your most awkward language moment?
By Leslie Berestein Rojas, MultiAmerican.scpr.org

April 5, 2011—It’s been well documented by now that growing up bilingual can be good for you. But getting there? Survivors of an English-learner upbringing can attest that it’s not always an easy road, and that the bumps along it – some amusing, some awkward – continue well into adulthood.

I began learning English in kindergarten, learning it at the same time my immigrant parents did. Because I was so young, I quickly mastered the American accent, as did my immigrant peers. But one of the pitfalls of growing up in a household where everyone is learning English is that along the way, you pick up many of the mispronunciations common to English learners.

These mispronunciations vary depending on who is learning the language. For Spanish and Tagalog speakers, for example, the double “ee” of “sheep” is often pronounced like the “i” in “ship,” and so forth. I got over the obvious mistakes fairly quickly.

There are other mistakes, however, that I’ve learned about as an adult, when I’ve said something to a friend, a co-worker (or worse, an editor) and am met with a perplexed look. These blunders are more baffling to people because, unlike others who learned English later in life, I have no discernible accent. But as native as my spoken English may sound, the ESL ghost haunts me.

Full story...

Language fails me
By John Kanelis, Amarillo.com

April 27, 2011—I have concluded that the English language does not have words that describe adequately the outrage I am feeling over the "birther" debate (such as it is) that has swirled around the president of the United States.

President Obama released his long-form birth certificate today. That should signal the end of the discussion -- yes? -- over whether he was born in the United States of America in August 1961. Well, it should. But it won't. There will be certifiably crazy individuals out there who will insist that even the written proof of the president's birth is insufficient.

I cannot locate the words that describe the outrage I am feeling over all this. So, take your pick. I'll leave it to others.

Suffice to say that this so-called discourse will not stop. The fruitcakes will find a conspiracy somewhere, just as they did with the blowing up of the U.S.S. Maine, which started the Spanish-American War in 1898, and the idea that President McKinley had the ship blown up; or with Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and the notion that FDR provoked the attack; or with the JFK assassination, and the idea that Lee H. Oswald was part of a grand conspiracy and cover-up; or with 9/11, and the goofy notion that President Bush ordered the demolition of the Twin Towers; or that the moon landings were a hoax.

Full story...

How to speak royal wedding
By Sarah Ogilvie, BayCitizen.org

April 28, 2011—Royal wedding detractors have deployed some colorful language.

American fascination with the mythic motherland ebbs and flows, but irresistible spectacles like today's royal wedding tend to drag even the staunchest anti-colonialists into the fantasy of Forever England.

Most non-Brits are stuck in bad period movies when it comes to understanding what's actually being said in England about the happy event.

As an Australian, I was confused myself , until I went to live in Britain to work on the Oxford English Dictionary, and spent some time decoding contemporary English English. I found it a high-low, mutt of a transnational language: it has been on florid display, from tabloids to Westminster, as the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton looms closer.

The wedding is, of course, a peculiar event-- appropriately taking place in a "royal peculiar," or an Anglican church which is under the sole jurisdiction of the Queen, not the diocese or Bishop. Westminster Abbey, site of the festivities, is such a location-- though it's also known, universally and chummily, as "the Abbey."

The English tabloids––newspapers whose vulgarities make most U.S.-based reality television seem restrained and prim–– have added their own unforgettable linguistic descriptions of the event.  

Full story...

Our wonderful, wacky English language
By Irwin Kraus, The Sun Chronicle

April 21, 2011—English has become the common language of international commerce and discourse. That is so because it is wonderfully expressive and wonderfully compact in that expression. How did that come to be?

Several years ago I traveled frequently to Europe for work (poor me). One of the things I noticed in my travels was multilingual signs. On a store security sign photographed in the Netherlands, the same message in English takes 17 percent, 34 percent, and 46 percent more characters to represent in German, French, and Dutch respectively. The same is true when English is compared to Spanish and Italian. That is not uncommon, and it is not an accident.

While German and French and Dutch are relatively pure, English is promiscuous and highly mongrelized. English has freely borrowed words from many different languages (balcony, Italian balcone; absurdity, French absurdite; alligator, Spanish el lagarto). We borrow words enthusiastically and unabashedly. As a result, the English vocabulary contains about twice as many words as Spanish, for example. From this large vocabulary, we can most often express an idea in fewer words than any other language.

This is a mixed blessing. While English expression is more compact, Spanish is much more consistent and easier to learn. But for non-native adult speakers, English can be a nightmare to master.

Full story...

Nothing regional or foreign about a language
The Times of India

May 4, 2011—Poor Goan parents have finally realized the bitter truth: They are being emotionally and economically blackmailed by the government who is playing the maim bhas card and denying them grants, thereby preventing their children from being educated in English during their formative years.

It is not a communal issue, but surely an issue of caste and class divide, that we need to face aggressively.

"Give me English and I shall give our society prosperity and eliminate disparity and discrimination which has been bogging down the downtrodden masses of India" should be the battle cry of every Parents Teachers Association (PTA).

The caste and class divide in India is over 3,000 years old. Even after the British and Portuguese abolished the ritual of sati, brought in gender equality and practical women empowerment, the casteist forces, even up to this day, after decades of self rule, have not been able to weed out untouchability and propagate inter-caste marriages.

Honour killings and caste differentiation are in our blood. Those who have arrogated to themselves the power to perform rituals, pujas and perennial control of religious institutions, have deprived the masses from becoming priests or pundits.

Full story...

A journey through English-language publishing in India
By Urvashi Butalia, Himal South Asian
.
May 2011—A little over three decades ago I made my first, accidental, entry into the world of publishing in India. I was just finishing my Masters degree, and wanted to make a decisive move away from English literature to something more “relevant” to my life in the thriving, bustling, politically alive city of Delhi. The university was a hotbed of furious political debate, the women’s movement was just taking off—surely, I thought, there has to be more to life than Spenser and Milton (much though I loved them). At the time, a friend worked as a secretary in the Oxford University Press office in Delhi. Perhaps, she suggested, I should do some freelance work there and see how I liked it. I thought it was a brilliant idea.

At the time, a great deal of publishing activity in Delhi was concentrated along two roads. The longer one, Asaf Ali Road, lay just outside the wall of the old city, while a shorter strip, Ansari Road, lay just beyond. Ansari Road housed large and small publishers alike, and during the lunch hour many of them (almost all male) could be seen at the samosa and paan stalls, exchanging gossip and news, while small lorries and hand-drawn carts loaded with packets of books made their way to publishers’ warehouses.

I remember walking into my first job in the Indian branch of the Oxford University Press (OUP), on Ansari Road, feeling a great sense of trepidation…

Full story...

The mother tongue and the English language
By Anis Haffar, MyJoyOnline.com

April 26, 2011—Mahatma Gandhi, though a practising Hindi, was acclaimed much more Christ-like in his thoughts for justice and peace, and selfless commitment to humanity than his fervent Christian friends.

The irony was that they tried to convert him into Christianity by first cautioning him to remove a necklace of “Tulsi-beads” that his mother had placed around his neck as a youngster.

He was told, “This superstition does not become you. Come, let me break the necklace.” Gandhi was defiant, “No, you will not. It is a sacred gift from my mother.” He ignored the holier-than-thou pranks; he knew in his gut that left to those friends India would continue to fester under colonial rule. Also, his commitment to his mother went beyond religion.

These days, educational psychologists admit that the umbilical connection between a mother and child provide a medium to the heart, soul and confidence of children as they grow up. They go on to say that the emotions that mothers feel in pregnancy –such as happiness, apprehensions, etc - are amazingly relayed to the unborn baby. Also, destructive habits like alcoholisms, cigarette smoking or drug addiction are physically transmitted to the foetus and may cause birth defects including brain damage. In short, a steady healthy mother bears a happy sturdy baby.

Psychologists go further to recommend that mothers may even speak and read to the unborn child for lasting effect. And when the baby is born finally, the mother’s fondling, lullabies, songs, and intimations provide for the child’s emotional and cognitive well-being…

Full story...

South Africa still divided by language barriers
By Herbert Vilakazi, TimesLive.co.za

April 30, 2011—The fact that the African population can communicate in English or Afrikaans with whites, Indians and coloureds, but that whites, Indians and coloureds, in general, cannot communicate with Africans in any of the indigenous languages is a serious barrier to true national reconciliation.

Societies can be divided by, among other things, economics, culture, law and language.

Even when the law is removed as an instrument for dividing a society, as happened in SA in 1994, no true reconciliation can take place unless the problem of language has been solved, as well as the problem of economic inequality.

We have, so far, failed to solve the problems of language, poverty and under-development.

The unity and reconciliation we boast of is superficial - embracing a thin layer of educated, economically well-off Africans with the upper sections of the white, Indian and coloured communities.

The bulk of the African community, the shaky working class, the vast numbers of the poor, do not boast of reconciliation.

Full story...

The future will be spoken in all tongues
By John Sharp and Sandra Kloppper, Mail Guardian

April 21, 2011—We support the view, expressed by Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande, that as many South African university students as possible should learn a local African language. But we do not agree with his ostensible justification for this position. He is reported to have said: "We can't be expected to learn English and Afrikaans while they don't learn our languages."

This argument highlights the purported significance of race, implying that the initiative is aimed principally at white students who should learn an African language to redress the injustices of the past. But how will repeating the injustices of the past be a way to overcome them? The 1976 uprising against the ­imposition of Afrikaans in black schools has, for more than three ­decades, made it utterly impossible for Afrikaans-speakers to expect -- let alone oblige -- any outsider to speak their language and has left them in a language laager of their own making.

Moreover, the reason black students are so keen to learn English has nothing to do with the demands or expectations of white South Africans. They want to learn English because it is the language of global communication and they know it will be for a long time, despite the ongoing shift in economic power from West to East.

We feel that race needs to be removed entirely from the argument for learning a local African language…

Full story...

Balderdash: English and its Idiosyncrasies
By Honky Tonk Woman, TheSundayLeader.lk

Much has been said about the idiosyncratic use of the English language. This is true I suppose to some folk who try to master it for the first time.

Some of us have grown up using this language from the time we could speak our first words, so I suppose it comes as second nature to us. But for others, it is really confusing, and you can’t find fault with them because there is no proper explanation or rule followed when certain words or phrases are used. I remember one such person was one of my brother’s German wives (he had them one at a time!) who kept exclaiming, “I am boring!” Well, it certainly was true, but why was she proclaiming it so frequently to the world at large? We looked at each other in puzzlement. Finally my brother enlightened us saying, “Ha ha! She means she’s bored!” Ah, right, we thought.

But that didn’t detract from the fact that her statement was true. We privately called her “The Disco Duck” since all she seemed to be interested in doing was togging up to the nines and going to nightclubs. So, we wickedly never corrected her. She would wear various flashy outfits accompanied by glittering accessories, and she would triumphantly say, “He buyed all this for me!” Ah, very nice, we would say out loud like hypocrites and privately think, how utterly ghastly. Bad girls!

Full story...

A book that has O/Level English syllabus in mind
By Shalomi Daniel, SundayTimes.lk

How early should we start developing our English language skills? It is never too soon. In today’s global village a basic knowledge of the English language is indispensable. However, many do not realize the importance of it until it is too late. Instead of waiting to learn English at university or at the point of entering the job market, obtaining a firm grasp of the language much earlier would be beneficial. Thus, excelling in the Ordinary Level English examination would certainly be a stepping stone towards fluency in the language.

With the view of improving the pass rates of the Ordinary Level English examination and facilitating the teaching and learning process, Stanley Wickramasinghe, former Senior Lecturer in English at the English Teachers’ College, Maharagama recently published a book for O’Level students titled “GCE Ordinary Level English Language – 12 Model Question Papers with Answers”. Based on the G.C.E local Ordinary Level syllabus, this book promises to be a useful tool for students. It is well structured and each unit comprehensively covers vocabulary, reading, writing and language functions.

“The book is designed closely with the syllabus and the themes addressed are the same themes dealt with at the exams too, such as environment, water, sports etc” assures Stanley Wickramasinghe…

Full story...

The King James Bible and the English language
By David Crystal, The Free Lance-Star

HOLYHEAD, Wales, April 22, 2011—When people talk about the influence of the King James Bible on the English language, they are usually thinking of the many idioms that have come into the language with a biblical origin — such as out of the mouths of babes, fly in the ointment and thorn in the flesh. But ask yourself the question: "How many such items are there?" The mind goes blank! You might think 50, or a hundred, or a thousand or more.

I had no idea either, so when the 400th anniversary loomed, I used it as the motivation to do a proper count. I read the whole work through, looking out for any phrase that I felt had come to be a part of modern English, whether people were aware of the biblical connection or not. My book Begat: the King James Bible and the English Language (2010), reported the result.

I made two discoveries. First, there are not as many as some people think: I found only 257. And second, most of the idioms don't originate in the King James translation at all. Rather they are to be found in one of the translations that appeared in the preceding 130 years - by Wycliffe (1388), Tyndale (1526-30), the Bishops' Bible (1568), the Geneva Bible (1560), or the DouaiRheims (1582, 1609-10). By my count, only 18 expressions are stylistically unique to the King James version…

Every other idiomatic expression is shared with at least one earlier translation. In many cases, an idiom is found in all of them — such as "milk and honey" or "salt of the earth."

Full story...

The sublime chorus
By John Cornwell, FT.com

April 29, 2011—Not so long ago the Reverend Mary Garbutt, Anglican pastor of a village in Northamptonshire, performed a gruelling sponsored marathon. She read out loud the entire 823,156-word text of the 1611 King James Bible over three and a half days. She read for 14 hours at a stretch, with only occasional 10-minute breaks, while parishioners stood by with orange juice, cakes and throat lozenges. Croaking through the final pages, she burst into tears, she said, from a sense of “spiritual joy”.

Rector Garbutt’s project was just one of many readings, conferences, broadcasts and exhibitions in recent months to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible (KJB), which falls putatively on May 2. For centuries the dominance of the KJB was unchallenged among English-speaking Protestants, and still is among many American Christian faith communities. At his inauguration, President Barack Obama took the oath of office from Lincoln’s copy of the KJB.

Reputedly the most read book in English, it now competes with scores of subsequent translations that have strived to reduce obsolete expressions; yet it still sells some 250,000 copies each year. Despite the stumbling block of its archaic language and spelling, the KJB retains for many an impression of peerless sublimity. All those “begats”, “knoweths” and “spakes”, and occasional sheer gobbledegook – “Moab is my wash-pot ouer Eom wil I cast out my shooe” (in the spelling of the 1611 edition) – interpenetrate with cadences of pure poetry. No translation in English outshines the elegant simplicity, for example, of the KJB’s first verse of John’s gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

The anniversary has prompted publication of a stack of celebratory books, not least Oxford’s fine facsimile presentation edition in imitation leather and gold leaf…

Full story...

Teaching English as foreign language can lead to lifetime gap-year experience
By Jessica Moore, TheIndependent.co.uk

April 28, 2011—Forget about speed dating. Those looking for love could do worse than sign up for a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) course. "We're calling it the China love affair," jokes Vicky Cunningham, senior marketing officer for Bunac, a gap-year provider offering work, teaching and volunteering experiences abroad. "A guy and a girl have just come back from our six-month China programme, doing teaching internships. They met out there and fell head over heels. The girl has now decided to pursue a career in teaching, too, so she's found love and a career off the back of it."

While romance is not guaranteed, TEFL boasts a reputable qualification with excellent rates of employment and exciting opportunities to work all over the world. "Teaching English as a foreign language is really popular," says Cunningham. So Bunac ships those with TEFL qualifications to Cambodia, China, India, Ghana, Peru and South Africa. "All of the projects we offer are constructive, but TEFL is something you have on your CV and, if you've put it into practice, a skill you can use again in the future. It's not just helping out, it's a hard-and-fast qualification, and you can earn with it."

What's more, it's open to anyone over the age of 18 who speaks fluent English. Honor Baldry, a spokesperson for i-to-i, a UK provider of TEFL courses, says: "There are very few barriers. We say if you can speak English, you can teach English."

You don't need previous experience and there isn't a selection process – just choose a programme and cough up the fees…

Full story...

Private schools must join up with the new state system
By Anthony Seldon, Telegraph.co.uk

British independent schools might be the jewel in the crown of education worldwide, but they are having a challenging time back at home. Old Etonian David Cameron has announced his children will remain in the state sector, and not attend their schools. Universities are under heavy pressure from Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats, as well as from Cameron and David Willetts, to do more to boost social mobility, meaning fewer places for independent school pupils.

Academies are now becoming a real threat to those independent schools on narrow margins: the Coalition has made academy status open to high-performing comprehensives, and up to half of state secondary schools are expected to become academies by 2014-15. The Coalition's ''free schools'' provide a further challenge. If academies and free schools can provide similar results to independent schools, why would parents want to pay?

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, made placatory noises to independent schools before the general election, sympathising over the threat to their charitable status; but once in power he has cooled. ''The Coalition is worse than Labour,'' one independent school apparatchik complained to me last week. Many on the Right are also angry that the Coalition is not letting new state schools be run for profit. ''Private sector capital is essential if the supply-side reform of schooling is to work," says Patrick Watson, of Montrose blog.

Full story...

Posh, naff, twits of decent Blighty
By Martin Phillips, TheSun.co.uk

April 16, 2011—There are plenty of words that show we're from dear old Blighty as opposed to another English-speaking country.

Language expert Tony Thorne has listed the best in his new book, The 100 Words That Make The English.

Here are some of our favourites:

Ale: Modern form of the Old English "alu" from a prehistoric Indo-European word for "bitter".

Blighty: First World War slang for Britain, originally from the Hindi word "bilayati" meaning foreign.

Cad: 1940s Oxbridge slang for ungentlemanly scoundrel, from the 18th Century abbreviation of the French word "Cadet" for younger/lower-class person.

Chat: First used in 1530 for conversation like the chitter or chatter of birds.

Clever: Conveys mild appreciation of intelligence, perhaps from archaic Middle English "clivers" for claws, as in quick to grasp.

Cottage: Small, humble home, from pre-historic West European "kuta" for dwelling.

Cuppa: First used for tea by playwright PG Wodehouse.

Full story...

The language of Molière meets the language of Shakespeare
By James Fitz-Morris

April 28, 2011—Covering the Bloc Quebecois for English-speaking Canada has presented some challenging and rewarding experiences.

First and foremost is finding a way each day to make what's happening on the ground here accessible and interesting to everyone, whether they are living in Saskatoon, Kitchener or Yellowknife.

There are 75 seats in Quebec - there's now a four-way race in many ridings, the Bloc's hegemony over the province is being loosened - a political sea-change that has immediate repercussions for the shape of Canada's next Parliament and, I will argue (at a future date...) a profound impact on the future of the sovereignty debate.

But today let's look at one of the lighter challenges faced each day by any journalist covering the Bloc for English-language media: translation.

There's a difference between knowing what a word means and choosing the proper English equivalent that transfers all the context and imagery.

Full story...

Illiterates in our own language
By Dorothy Ejindu, Vanguardngr.com   

April 29, 2011 –A people’s language is part of their identity. If a people lose their language, they have practically lost themselves.

The English language is supposed to be our second language but now, it has become our first language.

Today in most Nigerian homes, it is common to see parents communicating with their children in the English language. Some parents will not be caught dead communicating with their children in their mother tongue.

The sad part is that sometimes, such parents who are barely literate rather than communicate in their mother tongue, would prefer to speak wrong English, mixing up tenses and this has led to a situation where most children cannot converse fluently in their mother tongue.

Permit me to draw your attention to a passage in the Bible: Nehemiah 13:23-25, it states: “In those days I also saw Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod and could not speak the language of Judah, but spoke accordingly to the language of one another. So I contended with them and curse them”.

May Almighty God forgive us this mistake. Are we Englishmen imitators? Or is it an inferiority complex? I don’t know. Various types of societies, cultures and living patterns abound. As cultures differ, so do morals and ethical values. Ambition or imitation of foreign cultures, moral, and ethical values is most welcome when they are positive.

Full story...

Learning English and other foreign languages is political empowerment
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., GhanaWeb.com

At the closing ceremony of a two-week capacity-building course for selected police personnel recently, Deputy Police Commissioner in charge of Human-Resource Development Mahama Hamidu, urged the need for service “personnel to include French as a second spoken and written language in the discharge of their duties” (See “Police Personnel Must Learn French” Chronicle 4/8/11).

Actually while, indeed, the English language is Ghana’s official medium of expression, both orally and literarily, nonetheless, properly speaking, English is our second language, after such primary languages as Akan, Ga, Dagbani and Ewe. Thus picking up French will imply the acquisition of at least a third language for many Ghanaians. Of course, for quite a remarkable percentage of Ghanaians, adding French to their arsenal of spoken, and even written, languages may mean the acquisition of even a third, fourth or even a fifth language.

What must be promptly emphasized here is the fact that the acquisition of a multiplicity of languages can only mean the phenomenal cultural and intellectual enrichment, as well as the rhetorical and even political empowerment, of the citizen so proactively engaged. And so, really, one cannot but unreservedly concur with Alhaji Mahama Hamidu’s call for the members of our law-enforcement agencies to acquire a working knowledge of the French language, particularly in view of the fact that all the three immediate neighbors of our country are officially classified as “Francophone.”

Full story...

Whither English in Malaysia?
By Dr. Lim Chin Lam, TheStar.com.my

Pondering over some pointers on the English language and speculating on the future of the language in Malaysia.

April 22, 2011—This rambling article is a mixed bag of recent gleanings from a conference and the local papers, which provide food for thought.

The Penang English Language Learning & Teaching Association (PELLTA) organised the 5th Biennial International ELT Conference in Penang on April 13 to 15. The conference had an attractive theme, “Going Global: Teaching & Learning English in the 21st Century”. I attended it ... to learn-learn lah!

The conference was truly international, drawing some 120 speakers, presenters, and participants from Britain, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Iran, India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, China, Japan and Malaysia. There were four keynote addresses, 20 papers and 23 workshops spanning the spectrum of the teaching and learning of English, including teacher experiences.

What about local participants? About 50% of the total were from Malaysia. Apart from one keynote speaker (our Lucille Dass) and eight speakers and presenters, there were only 21 participants from Penang. On a Penang basis, the figures work out to roughly one speaker/presenter to an audience of two. Hey, where were the other English language teachers from Penang?

Full story...

English spoken is English enhanced
By Hentan, TheStar.com.my
 
April 17, 2011—Many students can read and write well in English but face problems when listening and speaking.

The main reason for this phenomenon is lack of practice and exposure to the language in their daily life.

Some English teachers communicate with their students in languages other than English during English lessons. This greatly reduces the opportunity for students to listen to or speak in English.

Furthermore, most of the students use their own language to converse while in school. When they go on outings or hang out with their friends, they will use their own language or dialect to communicate.

Students tend to watch movies and listen to the radio in a language other than English.

The majority of parents talk to their children in their own language, not English.

Full story...

National interests must stay paramount
Editorial, TheStar.com.my

April 10, 2011—When narrow concerns ride roughshod over national interests, society suffers. Thus the anxieties over last July’s decision to revert the teaching of science and mathematics in schools to Bahasa Malaysia or mother tongues from next year.

Defending the decision in deference to the vernacular languages is beside the point.

By helping students cultivate English language skills, Malaysia can only gain from familiarity with the world’s foremost international language.

For those whose English skills are weak, that may seem like a chore. But they would stand to gain more from organised efforts to develop English language skills. There can be no legitimate complaint against working a little harder when the rewards are plain enough.

The earlier policy of teaching science and mathematics in English had combined vision with realism.

Since mathematics deals mainly in symbols, the minimal English needed would be less demanding on students and teachers. With science, learning the universal English terminology acquaints students directly with those scientific terms without requiring them to learn two sets of terminology.

Full story...

Minding our language
By Hariati Azizan and Lee Yen Mun, TheStar.com.my

Aptil 10, 2011—Proficiency in English is vital in today's world and Malaysia needs to arrest the decline urgently if it wants to remain competitive.

It used to be easy for Malaysian students in Britain to get a part-time job or internship there.

An Engineering lecturer at a local public university who only wants to be known as Mar recalls how it was back then.

“Mention you are Malaysian and you will get one foot in the door. I remember one manager saying, Ah, we like Malaysians. They can speak English well, have no problem understanding instructions, not like other foreign students.'

“In fact, we spoke better English then than most Europeans. But, of course, that was in the 1980s.”

It was a different story when she went back to the UK to do her postgraduate studies in the late 1990s, she says.

“My thesis supervisor kept moaning about how the new batch of Malaysian students could not write or speak English well. He kept asking me what happened.”

Full story...

Fluency in English defines us in many ways
Dr. Megawati Omar, TheStar.com.my
 
April 11, 2011—It is heartwarming to hear that the Education Ministry is going to study having two languages for the teaching of Science and Maths.

This is a win-win move to champion both English and Bahasa Malaysia among Malay-sians.

Language defines a person in many ways. Hence being fluent in the world’s language, English, can define one in academic, science development, job market, international relations, science and travel.

In an academic setting, especially in universities, English is extremely important.

References are always in English, be it books or online sources. Activities in innovating, patenting, and publishing in international journals, the toasts of academic toil, are always conducted in English.

So do presenting at international conferences, applying for research grants, reporting research, and writing academically on the Internet. Writing assignments and publications in universities have to be in English for international recognition.

Full story...

Ready for English?
Editorial, The Japan Times

April 10, 2011—Fifth- and sixth-grade teachers will have one new worry starting this month — teaching English. All elementary schools must introduce compulsory foreign language lessons. Despite the difficulties of implementing this national strategy for English education, it is high time Japan took its English level more seriously. Only North Korea scores lower than Japan on the TOEFL exam in the Asian region.

The biggest hurdle may be the teachers' worries about teaching a new subject. Critics complain that few elementary teachers are specialists in English and that some have not even had training in the recommended curriculum. Yet, the same problem exists in other countries. Students from Taiwan, China, Turkey and Spain, among many other countries, have been learning English from younger ages for over a decade, and for more than the one hour per week now mandated in Japanese elementary schools.

By starting early, a better system for learning English can be gradually implemented over longer years of study. Age-appropriate activities can circumvent social feelings of embarrassment and the tendency toward perfectionism. Doing that in fifth and sixth grade will reduce Japan's notorious English phobia before the panic of entrance exams sets in.

Full story...