China expert comes home to the Philippines
By Junne Grajales, Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, October 30, 2011—Emmy Award-winning journalist Chito Sta. Romana led the first live telecast from Llasa, Tibet, for ABC’s “Good Morning America” in 2006. The famed Potala Palace, one of the “new seven wonders of the world,” is atop the hill behind him.

“I understand China more than the Philippines.”

That was the confession of Chito Sta. Romana, a 63-year-old Filipino Emmy-award winning journalist who returned home after 39 years in China.

“I’ve been giving talks about China,” Sta. Romana shared when we met up for an interview at in Fort Bonifacio recently. Earlier, he had addressed a forum organized by the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) about “the most important Asian country now.”

“That is why I am considering teaching and consulting on the side,” added Sta. Romana, who holds a master’s degree in International Relations from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston, Massachusetts. “But right now, I would just like to get to know the country [the Philippines] more.”

When asked to recount his China experience, Sta. Romana, the former Beijing bureau chief for ABC News, paused a while.

“It wasn’t meant to be,” Sta. Romana began. “It was supposed to be a three-week visit to China. I led the Philippine youth delegation of student leaders—15 of them—invited by the Chinese People’s Friendship Association in 1971.”

But history would extend Sta. Romana’s three week tour to over three decades. While touring China, then president Ferdinand Marcos suspended the writ of habeas corpus following the Plaza Miranda bombing. Student leaders and dissident leaders were arrested. A year later martial law was declared throughout the Philippines.

“I was 23 years old,” he recalled.

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Philippines sees outsourcing industry boom

MANILA, October 15, 2011 (AFP)—The Philippines outsourcing industry will grow strongly over the next five years despite global economic concerns and threats to its call centre sector, industry officials said Tuesday.

The industry is expecting to continue its rise from nothing 10 years ago to currently the world's number-two player behind India with 600,000 workers, said Business Processing Association of the Philippines chief Alfredo Ayala.

“It may slow down, but it’s still going to be double-digit growth,” Ayala told reporters at an outsourcing conference in Manila.

Blessed with an English-speaking work force, the industry expects outsourcing revenues to rise at least 15 percent each year to $20 billion by 2016, when it would employ 900,000 workers, Ayala said.

He said the Philippines now accounted for 6-7 percent of the global market for all outsourced business services, second only to India's 51 percent share.

Business outsourcing covers a wide range of services, from call centres to accounting, legal work, health care and information technology.

In the call sector centre alone, the Philippines last year overtook India to have the world's biggest industry in terms of revenues and workers, largely on the back of catering to the United States and other English-speaking countries.

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Filipinos’ English proficiency is a competitive edge, says top PEZA official

QUEZON CITY, October 4, (PIA)—Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) Dir. Gen. Lilia De Lima said Filipino workers have a competitive edge in the global industry because of their English proficiency and work ethic.

She said that being proficient in English is a great advantage and gives Filipinos a better chance to be employed. Without the language barrier, it only takes two months to train Filipinos workers instead of the usual six months.

Aside from good command of the English Language, Filipinos are also very cheerful, De Lima added. Foreigners appreciate the happy disposition of Filipino workers and their work ethics.

“Filipinos have the right attitude. There are employees in other countries who don’t go to work today and you need to erase them [on the list of employees] because surely they have already gone to other companies. But, not our workers. When they are leaving, they will ask permission 30 days before,” she said in Filipino.

De Lima said that the problem is our lack of belief in the capabilities and skills of the Filipino workers…

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Education Department to improve students’ reading and writing skills

September 20, 2011—The Department of Education is implementing various intervention programs to provide support to Filipino children falling behind in reading and writing.

The Every Child A Reader Program (ECARP) will first measure the reading proficiency level in both English and Filipino of public elementary students.

The results of the assessment tool will serve as a basis for designing appropriate interventions at the school, division, regional and national levels to enable every child to read and write at his grade level.

According to DepEd, ECARP aims to equip elementary pupils in public schools with strategic reading and writing skills to make them independent young readers and writers.

The intervention program includes Reading Recovery (RR) which will give students who are lagging behind in reading and writing a chance to catch up through specialized one-to-one reading assistance from a teacher trained in RR procedures, DepEd said in a statement.

The program will also generate a Philippine World List in English, an inventory of frequently used words in English textbooks, for vocabulary development.

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Senators worry over backlash on use of Filipino in debates
By Cathy C. Yamsuan, Philippine Daily Inquirer

September 23, 2011—Senators are worried about another conservative kerfuffle if the debates on the reproductive health bill shift to Filipino to accommodate the English language-challenged Senator Manuelito “Lito” Lapid.

They said vernacular references to the sex act, various sexual activities and the genitals during the televised debates may offend conservative sensibilities.

Senator Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada said there could be some awkwardness when these terms are translated into Filipino.

“The word ‘sperm,’ for example, I cannot mention it in Tagalog.  It might be unacceptable  (to some sectors) if we utter the Tagalog words on the floor,” he said.

Senator Panfilo Lacson said Lapid himself shared this concern with him and Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III.

Lapid earlier complained that while he longed to join the RH debates, his limited English vocabulary and the daunting technical terms in English prevented him from doing so.

But Senator Joker Arroyo said his colleagues may be fretting over nothing, noting that nobody has flinched in plenary debates where English terms are used.

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Language issues to be tackled in Sept. 15-17 Manila conference

MANILA, September 8, 2011—The Conference on Language Teaching: Issues and Concerns, set on Sept. 15 -17, at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City, will answer many questions and issues that pertain to the English language.

The three-day event, convened by Primetrade Asia, Inc. and the UP-Department of English and Comparative Literature (UP-DECL), will touch various topics about language, English language proficiency, and Philippine English.

More than 30 distinguished speakers will share their knowledge about language, led by National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose, to talk about Language in Literature on Sept. 15. Other speakers on Sept 15 include: Dr. Jonathan Malicsi on “English Language Proficiency”; Prof. Frances Jane P. Abao on “Teaching Gothic and Fantasy Literature”; Dr. Ricardo Nolasco on “MTB-MLE Issues”; Dr. Ruth Pison on “Scholarship gone Haywire”; Dr. Danilo Dayag on “Philippine English”; Dr. Maria Rhodora Ancheta on “Make ‘Em Laugh: Teaching American Comic Texts in the Filipino Classroom” ; Dr. Ma. Milagros C. Laurel on “Stylistics”; Dr. Naida Rivera on “Irony in Selected English Poems”; Prof. Rosella Torrecampo on “Blended Learning in Language, Literature and Literacy Content Areas: Experiences and Insights from the Field” and Dr. Emil Flores on “Appreciating the Graphic Novel”.

On Sept. 16, speakers are Julian Warden on “Graded Readers”; Dr. Lourdes Tayao on “Testing and Measurement”; Dr. Araceli C. Hidalgo on “Global Skills in Learning and Acts of Conversation in the Teaching of English”; Dr. Cesar Hidalgo on “The Exciting World of Idioms and Metaphors in Learning English”; Dr. Felipe Jocano Jr. on “Varieties of English”; Dr. Ma. Antoinette C. Montealegre on “Differentiated Instruction”; Dr. Aileen Salonga on “Varieties of English”; Prof. Portia Padilla on “To Speak Or Not To Speak: Listening To The Ground, Where Schools And Teachers Wobbly Stand” ; Dr. Carmencita Abayan on ‘’Prepping For Theme Writing; Dr. Adelaida F. Lucero on “Beyond the 17 Morae of the Haiku”; Dr. Rosalina B. Cruz on “Sentence Sense in Language and Song” and Prof. Alexander C. Maximo on “English for the Professions”.

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2 Philippine universities vow higher academic standards

MANILA, September 7, 2011—Two Philippine universities on Wednesday vowed to push for higher academic standards while maintaining good practices already in place in their schools as world university rankings showed a slump in Philippine standings this year.

The Ateneo de Manila University and the De La Salle University, both private institutions, also noted the importance of international rankings in giving schools indicators on which to improve.
London-based research and ratings firm Quacquarelli (QS) on Monday released its 2011/2012 index of top-rank universities, with four Philippine universities rated outside the 300 world’s best and faring worse than they did last year: the University of the Philippines (332), Ateneo de Manila University (360), De La Salle University (551-600 bracket) and the University of Santo Tomas (601+ bracket).

“As we have mentioned in past years, rankings are important because they provide an external perspective,” said John Paul Vergara, Loyola Schools vice president.

In a statement sent to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Vergara said the Ateneo would boost its research out and internationalization (student exchange), which make up QS criteria in assessing the world’s universities.

He noted that Philippine universities, in general, rate poorly in terms of research citations as the total papers and citations number “in the hundreds” while top-rated foreign universities have an annual research and citation output “in the several thousands.”

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US-based Filipino nurse bags 3 prizes in Palanca Awards
 
September 3, 2011—A California-based Filipino orthopedic nurse emerged as the big winner at this year’s Palanca Awards, garnering three prizes in different categories in rites held at the Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati City (Metro Manila) on Thursday night.

The thrice-blessed winner, 42-year-old Peter Solis Nery—who came to the ceremony wearing a fedora and all-white suit—clinched first prize for his Hiligaynon short story “Donato Bugtot.”

He also earned second prize in two other categories: poetry for children for his collection “The Shape of Happiness” and English full-length play for “If the Shoe Fits” (or, “The Five Men Imelda Marcos Meets in Heaven”).

The Iloilo province-born Nery, who first won in the prestigious literary competition in 1998, is poised for induction into the Palanca Hall of Fame, an honor that a creative writer can earn once he or she scores five first-place wins.

Before winning for “Donato Bugtot,” the nurse previously garnered first prize for his Hiligaynon short stories “Lirio” (1998) and “Candido” (2007), as well as his English full-length play “The Passion of Jovita Fuentes” (2008).

Twenty-two writers have been elevated to the Hall of Fame, including The Manila Times College president Dr. Isagani R. Cruz.

Other major winners on Thursday were playwright Joshua Lim So, who earned first prize for his English full-length play “A Return Home” and third prize for his Filipino full-length play “Panahon ng Sampung Libong Ilong” (A Season of Ten Thousand Noses); Ateneo de Manila University professor Allan Derain for his Filipino novel Ang Banal na Aklat ng mga Kumag (The Holy Book of Lazy Idiots) and US-based Marivi Soliven for her English novel In the Service of Secrets.

Highlights of the awarding ceremony include a staging of Remi Velasco’s winning one-act play Ondoy, a comedy about a married couple bickering on a rooftop at the height of the devastating September 26, 2009 tropical storm; and the presence of National Artist for Literature F. Sionil José, who graced the event as guest of honor.

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Bishop favors use of ‘jejemon’ language in fight vs RH bill
   
MANILA, August 31, 2011 (GMA News)—The incoming vice president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) is open to the use of the “jejemon” language in order to get the support of the Filipino youth in their fight against the Reproductive Health bill now pending in Congress.

“The real battle is in the minds and hearts of our youth," said Archbishop Socrates Villegas, who, along with other officials of the CBCP, will assume their positions on December 1, in a statement released on Wednesday.

He said the youth, which are “like parched dry sponge[s]," are “being misled by wrong teachings.”

“In their thirst, they absorb all and retain them regardless of the purity of source. I pity our youth,” he said as he rallied the Catholic Church to “join the arena of public opinion” by using “new methods and approaches and even jejemon vocabulary to make the message of God convincing.”

Jejemon is a language used by many young Filipinos, usually used in texting and on the Internet, where they subvert the English language to the point of incomprehensibility.

The Church opposes the passage of the RH bill, which is among the priority legislation of the Aquino administration, as it supposedly espouses artificial family planning methods. The Church only favors natural methods.

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Angara pushes for upgrades in standards for teacher education

MANILA, August 30, 2011 (PNA)—Senator Edgardo Angara pushes for the review and reevaluation of the standards for teacher education in the country following a dismal results of Licensure Examination for Teacher this year.

“Every year, we produce tens of thousands of teachers in schools all over the country. However, the education and training they get are not up to standard,” said Angara in a recent forum held at the Philippine Normal University.

In the April 2011 Licensure Examination for Teachers, only around 13,000 out of the 62,000 examinees passed, or about one in five. “This is dismal average—a pitiful waste of human capital,” said Angara.

He then underscored the importance of educators in nation development.

“The task of overhauling the Philippine educational system falls on you — educators who mold the minds and hearts of the youth. In order to improve the performance of our students and graduates, we must first focus on upgrading the training of our teachers,” he said.

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Filipino-Americans in US, fired for speaking Tagalog at work, win lawsuit
By Nimfa U. Rueda, Philippine Daily Inquirer

LOS ANGELES, August 21, 2011—Four Filipino-American health workers, who were fired for speaking Tagalog in the workplace, have won the discrimination lawsuit they filed against the Bon Secours Health System, a hospital based in Baltimore, Maryland.

The ruling was “a big win for diversity and an important victory for Filipinos in America,” said the health workers lawyer, Arnedo Valera, coexecutive director of the Washington DC-based Migrant Heritage Commission (MHC).

This is because aside from the fact that the ruling benefits all bilingual and multilingual immigrants, it is also the first time the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) came up with a ruling specific to the Filipino language, he said.

“I feel relieved, happy and thankful,” said Jazziel Granada, a 30-year-old health unit coordinator who was two months pregnant when she and nurses Corina Yap, Ana Rosales and Hachelle Natano were dismissed for violating the hospital’s “English-only” policy in its emergency department last year.

In a ruling dated August 16, EEOC Director Gerald Kiel said he found reasonable cause that the health workers were subjected to “unequal terms and conditions of employment, a hostile work environment, disciplinary action and discharge because of their national origin in violation of Title VII (of the Civil Rights Act of 1964).”

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Romance rules Philippine literary charts

MANILA, August 23, 2011 (AFP)—In the fantasy world created by Philippine publishing giant Precious Hearts Romances, the men are rich, sexual promiscuity and homosexuals are taboo, and the story always ends happily after 128 pages.

The ultra-cheap local versions of Mills and Boon novels are the country’s most popular books, making their authors champions of conservative Christian values and unlikely heroes in the battle to improve literacy among the poor.

“Some people say it’s trash, but at least they (the poor) read,” said Segundo Matias, the boss of Precious Hearts, which churns out 50 titles monthly to dominate a genre that has a readership estimated in the millions.

Priced at P37 and written in street-level Tagalog, the books emerged in the early 1980s when an economic crisis forced the importers of western “chick literature” paperbacks to seek out alternatives.

Matias told Agence France-Presse from his Manila print shop that the local versions turned out to be far more popular, partly because they were faster-paced.

“Filipinos don’t like boring stuff. They want stories that move very fast,” the 48-year-old former film script writer said.

Matias said another important factor was that the novels’ morality codes reflected values embraced by many in the Philippines, Asia’s Roman Catholic outpost where divorce, abortion, and same-sex marriages remain illegal.

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Partylist representative wants probe of schools penalizing use of Tagalog

QUEZON CITY, August 19, 2011—Kabataan Partylist Representative Raymond Palatino has filed a resolution seeking an investigation of schools allegedly penalizing students who speak in Tagalog and other local dialects.

Palatino recently filed House Resolution no. 1567 and stated: “We understand the importance of English in today’s world. But our country’s attempt to integrate in this globalized community of English tongues should not be done at the expense of our vernaculars.”

“Penalizing students for speaking their native language in schools is a crime to our culture and it should be stopped,” he said.

Palatino expressed dismay on the “misdirected valorization” of the English language that has repressed the use of some 150 native dialects in the country.

He cited the prevalent practice in schools wherein students who are caught speaking in Tagalog or another local dialect are penalized in the form of monetary fines and demerits.

“This colonial attitude towards English language affects the learning process and self-appreciation of students, most of whom begin their early development with the use of their mother tongue,” said Palatino.

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BPO summit to review Philippine expansion into non-voice services
By Anna Valmero, Ph.News.Yahoo.com

QUEZON CITY, August 11, 2011—The third International Outsourcing Summit will review the industry focus on strengthening non-voice business process outsourcing (BPO) services, which is expected to outgrow voice-based services.

While traditional voice-based BPO will contribute substantially to that growth, non-voice and more complex services will drive growth for the industry, said Raymond Lacdao, industry affairs executive director of Business Processing Association of the Philippines (B/PAP), the event's organizer.

“We anticipate growth in non-voice, complex BPO services of 20 to 25 percent over the next five years,” Lacdao said.

Voice-based services, on the other hand, will grow at a rate of 15 to 20 percent, given that it is already a mature sector of the outsourcing market.

“Last year, the Philippines became the global leader in voice BPO. But we are rapidly transitioning to non-voice, complex services delivery. The Philippines has a very high capability in this area, including emerging complex services,” said Lacdao.

B/PAP forecast in the IT-BPO Roadmap 2016 an annual growth of up to 20 percent over the next five years for the market, generating 1.3 million direct jobs, 3.2 million indirect jobs, and $25 billion in revenues.

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House probe sought on penalties vs native-speaking students
   
MANILA, August 9, 2011—As the country celebrates “Buwan ng Wika” this month, a youth solon has filed a resolution seeking an inquiry into the penalties imposed by some school on students who speak in Filipino and other native languages.

Kabataan Party-list Rep. Raymond “Mong" Palatino on Tuesday filed House Resolution no. 1567 seeking an investigation into the modes employed by schools to promote the use of English by penalizing students for speaking in Filipino and Philippine dialects.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Palatino noted the practice in many schools where students are fined or given demerits for using their mother tongue even during extra-curricular conversations.

He said this “colonial attitude" towards English language affects the learning process and self-appreciation of students.

“Language is not just a means for communication; it is likewise a double-edged weapon used for repression and emancipation. I am afraid that with the current English teaching practices in our schools, we are unwittingly reinforcing the colonial setup that treats our local cultures as inferior to that of the West," Palatino said.

“There is no doubt that we should teach English in our schools, just like we should other foreign languages. But we should do so in a manner that does not trample on our native languages and the learning development of our students. The high functional illiteracy among our people, where language plays a crucial role, is enough for us to rethink our teaching methods with regard to English," he added.

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Filipino seamen’s hero is a girl

MANILA, August 7, 2011—Filipino seafarers are the most in demand in the world, accounting for 30 percent of about 1.2 million seamen abroad—from cruise liners to oil rigs. Dubbed “crewing capital of the world,” the Philippines has emerged as the world’s biggest supplier of international ship crew.

International manning principals have called Filipino seamen their “preferred choice” because of their outstanding qualities: Technical knowledge, flexibility, reliability, trustworthiness, hard work, and their command of the English language.

During the first quarter of 2011 seafarers have contributed $627.3 million to Philippine coffers. Last year, they brought $3.8 billion in remittances.

With a growing global requirement projected to grow at 50 percent in the next 10 years, and an aging international pool to boot, career prospects for Filipino maritime professionals are certainly bright.

With a lucrative seafaring industry it has then become imperative for maritime professionals to unite to protect their social, legal, moral rights both on the domestic and international fronts.

For 50 years, the late master mariner Gregorio S. Oca fought for seafarers’ protection through the Associated Marine Officers’ Union of the Philippines (AMOSUP), which he established in 1960.

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Foreign language driving tests to be banned
By Robert Winnett, Telegraph.co.uk

October 15, 2011—There are growing fears that tens of thousands of people may have been granted British driving licences despite not being able to read road signs in English.
The rules currently allow the theory test to be sat in 19 foreign languages. People are also permitted to attend the practical test with a translator.

In total, 93,407 car driving theory tests were sat in a foreign language last year. There were 18,927 Urdu tests last year, 12,905 in Polish and 298 in Albanian.

Last night, Mike Penning, a transport minister, said that the Government was studying how to change the rules to ban the “politically correct” foreign language tests.

“I find it incredible that Labour thought it was a good idea to let people without a basic grasp of English loose on our roads,” he said. “Road safety should be our priority, not political correctness.

“Instead of spending taxpayers’ money on costly translation services and interpreters we want to explore whether that money would be better spent on actually helping people to learn enough English to be able to drive safely.”

Figures released by the Department for Transport also disclosed that foreigners were regularly arriving for practical driving tests with translators. For example, last year, 230 Russians took the test with a translator, 452 Romanians and 21 Bulgarians.

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States linked in failure to provide trained teachers
By Max de Lotbinière, Guardian Weekly

October 11, 2011—The US state of Massachusetts and New South Wales in Australia may be distant geographically but they find themselves closely linked in opprobrium. Both have admitted to be failing to provide adequate language support for migrant children in their schools.

The US justice department has censured Massachusetts for violating civil rights law by failing to train teachers in the state’s schools to support over 67,000 students with limited English. It found that 45,000 teachers were not adequately trained.

Last month Massachusetts officials promised to correct the situation by the end of the current school year. Education experts estimate that teachers will need a minimum of 70 hours of training to meet minimum requirements.

Meanwhile, state officials in New South Wales have admitted that over 50,000 students are missing out on English language teaching because of a lack of funding.

The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported data revealing that only 20 new specialist English language teaching positions were created in the last decade despite the number of students in need rising from 16,000 to 137,000.

State education minister Adrian Piccoli said an additional 900 teachers would be hired under a $249m literacy and numeracy action plan.

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Language test for foreign doctors to bar those who can’t speak English

October 4, 2011—Foreign doctors will be barred from treating patients unless they have a good grasp of English under tough rules to be announced by Andrew Lansley today.

The Health Secretary will pledge to end the scandal which has seen 23,000 doctors from Europe registered to work in the NHS – despite never having been asked if they can speak the language properly.
A new law will give trusts the statutory duty to check the English language skills of all new overseas doctors before they are employed by the Health Service.

Failure to pass the language test will see them prevented from taking a job in an NHS hospital or a GP surgery – ensuring patients are treated by doctors they can understand, and who can understand them. 

Last year, a report by the Commons Health Select Committee concluded that the failure to ensure GPs on out-of-hours shifts can speak English had cost lives.

Three years ago, pensioner David Gray died after being treated by out-of-hours locum Dr Daniel Ubani, who was exhausted after having flown in from Germany. He was allowed to treat patients despite having a poor grasp of English.

Doctors’ language skills are not yet routinely tested because Britain sticks rigidly to an EU directive which outlaws checks on overseas GPs’ language skills – while France flouts it.

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Department rules out English language test in Ireland

September 23 2011—The introduction of an English language test for all EU-trained doctors who want to work in Ireland has been dismissed by the Department of Health, the Irish Independent has learned.

The request to introduce the test was made by the Medical Council, the regulatory body for doctors, internal correspondence reveals.

Under an EU directive, all EU-trained doctors who want to register here cannot be subjected to an English language test or clinical skills exam. They can register to work here as long as they provide proof of their qualifications and clean record.

The freedom of movement rules are a cause of increasing concern to medical regulatory authorities around Europe who have lobbied for doctors to be singled out for competency and language tests.

The commission said a review of professional qualifications needed under the freedom of movement directive was under way.

In contrast, all doctors from outside the EU, who want to register to work here, have to undergo screening for language and clinical skills.

Meanwhile, around 40 doctors from Pakistan and India, who applied to work as junior doctors here during a recruitment campaign in May, are still not employed, although they have been in Ireland since early July.

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Language teaching in England “deplorable”
 
September 20, 2011 (UKPA)—Language teaching and learning in England is “deplorable” and declining drastically, a senior Church of England bishop has warned.

The Rt. Rev. Nick Baines, Bishop of Bradford, called for the English to learn other languages to help deepen their understanding of the world.

“Language teaching and learning in England is deplorable and is declining drastically,” he said in a podcast recorded for the Church of England website.

“Recently I was talking to some German businessmen and an Englishman said ‘we don’t need to speak German, because you all speak English and we do all the business in English’.One of the Germans said ‘you don't know what is being said behind your back and that is where the work gets done’.”

Bishop Baines has a degree in German and French and worked as a linguist at the Government communication headquarters (GCHQ) before training for ministry in the Church of England.
“We are impoverished by our inability to understand the languages of others,” he added.

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Migrant jobseekers who don’t bother to learn English to be stripped of benefits
By James Chapman, DailyMail.co.uk

September 14, 2011—Benefits claimants who cannot speak and write English will be ordered to take language classes or have their handouts stopped for up to three years.

The measure, announced by the Prime Minister and Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, is expected to apply to about 67,000 people on Jobseeker’s Allowance.  It is designed to target a hardcore of claimants whose language skills are so poor they have little or no chance of ever being offered a job and are doing nothing to improve their skills themselves.

But despite David Cameron’s stance, cynics are likely to suggest the measures will join a raft of tough-talking announcements that lose their teeth in practice.

Under the plans, anyone who refuses to start an English course or fails to turn up to classes will face a sliding scale of sanctions.

Most of the group of 67,000 claimants are immigrants with a right to work in this country, but a significant number are British-born people whose education has been so dire they are barely able to communicate.

However, Government officials themselves admit they expect the sanctions to be little used.

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Take time to ponder the path to English language teacher training
By Max de Lotbinière, Guardian Weekly

September 13, 2011—With many teachers embarking on a new academic year this term, thoughts of further professional development may be eclipsed by the more pressing concerns of new syllabuses, timetables and students.

But for practitioners who have the urge to deepen their understanding of language teaching and learning or have set their sights on the next rung on the career ladder, this could be a very good time to start weighing up the options and to begin the process of planning further training and study.

A good way to start is to have a clear objective of where you want to be in the future – what is the next step in your career and when do you want to achieve it? With a clear target the process of planning and researching training options will become a lot clearer.

If you are looking for promotion or a move into a specialist area of teaching, find out what qualifications employers require or recognise, and research those.

If your motives are more personal – to fill a self-perceived gap in either your practical skills or understanding of current language teaching theory, for example – the questions you need to ask will benefit from more time to reflect and to seek advice from colleagues.

Teachers who already have an initial qualification and at least one year's experience in class have a couple of training routes to consider…

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Students “preparing to flock to cheaper foreign universities”
By Graeme Paton, Telegraph.co.uk

British universities face losing thousands of students to cheaper English language courses at top Europe institutions, researchers warned today.

Higher education in most of Britain is already more expensive than in the continent and universities may witness a huge exodus when fees rocket next year, it was claimed.

Leading Dutch universities currently offer degree courses at less than £2,000, compared with up to £9,000 for students starting degrees in England in 2012, while many of those in Scandinavia offer undergraduate courses in English free of charge.

The disclosure came as international league tables were published today showing that British universities remain among the best in the world.

Cambridge beat hundreds of competitors to top the QS World University Rankings, which rate institutions by the quality of research, teaching, graduate job prospects and international reputation.

Harvard – the elite American university – was named in second place.

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Nurses who can’t speak English put patients in danger, noted doctor warns

September 10, 2011—Patients have told how they are being forced to use sign language because hospitals are employing foreign nurses who struggle to understand English.

One nurse mistakenly handed out a trifle with nutty toppings to a patient with a nut allergy because they did not understand warnings in his medical notes.

Some hospitals have resorted to sticking pictures of syringes, blankets and other medical equipment on the outside of cupboards – rather than having written lists – so all nurses know where to find everything.

The examples have come to light a day after the Daily Mail revealed the grave concerns of Lord Winston, who said the poor communication skills of some Eastern European nurses was putting patients in danger.

The world-renowned fertility doctor expressed particular worries over nurses from Romania and Bulgaria who had been trained in a “completely different way.”

Nearly 3,000 nurses from EU countries registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council last year, a rise of 38 per cent in just 12 months. They made up more than one in eight nurses who registered to work in Britain.

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Schools demand inquiry into GCSE “marking errors”

September 10, 1011—Teachers are demanding a major review of marking in GCSE English after it emerged that the number of top grades gained by leading schools plummeted by up to a third this year, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

Schools are calling for Ofqual, the exams watchdog, to launch an urgent inquiry into English language and literature marking as figures show a dramatic year-on-year variation in results.
The scale of the problem has been laid bare in damning research by the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, which represents some of Britain’s leading independent schools.
HMC surveyed 58 members and found that almost all had witnessed a significant rise or fall in the proportion of A or A* grades scored by pupils this year.

Twenty three said results had increased or decreased by at least 10 per cent in both English language and literature compared with 2010, despite broadly comparable scores in other disciplines.

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Sydney toughens up English rules
By Bernard Lane, The Australian

SYDNEY, October 31, 2011--Overseas students hoping to study business at the University of Sydney next year will need better English.

Without fanfare, Sydney’s business school is lifting the minimum English proficiency level for entry to programs such as the bachelor of commerce.

In Australia, undergraduate students from overseas are concentrated in business and commerce courses; many are Chinese struggling with English.

Like its competitors, the University of NSW, the University of Technology, Sydney, and Macquarie University, the University of Sydney had set a minium entry score of 6.5 on the International English Language Testing System test for these courses.

Next year, Sydney will demand a minimum score of 7.

Francisco Pinto, a Chilean student taking a masters of commerce at Sydney, told the HES he felt the change was justified.

He had found some day time classes dominated by Chinese students unable or too shy to contribute to discussion.

He switched to evening classes in the hope of finding more diversity, including local students, and better interaction.

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Telco support? English optional
By Lucy Battersby, Sydney Morning Herald
 
October 26, 2011—Sales staff for mobile and internet companies must be able to “'communicate effectively in the English language”' under a new code setting out consumer protection rules for the telecommunications industry.

The minimum English language requirements apply to all sales staff, including those employed in overseas call centres, according to a draft code released yesterday, but the new standards do not apply to customer support staff.

The new code introduces standard unit pricing for phone calls, text messages and data downloading and recommends consumers get clear and simple information about global roaming charges.

The code was drafted by the industry through the Communications Alliance, with help from the government and industry regulator.

The code has also abolished use of the word “cap” to describe minimum costs and introduced mandatory warnings when customers reach allowance limits.

Requirements such as English language skills were introduced because consumers had complained that they could not understand sales staff and may have signed up for products they did not comprehend, Communications Alliance chief executive John Stanton said.

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English language development faces some testing challenges
By Sophie Arkoudis, The Australian

October 12, 2011—The issue of English language standards in Australian universities continues to simmer. And it won’t go away quietly, especially while language standards continue to be simplistically equated with IELTS scores.

The sector’s blind faith in language testing inhibits the development of more robust ways of addressing English language outcomes for graduates.

At present, universities focus on assessing the readiness of international students to study effectively in English as the language of instruction.

Entry standards do matter, so measuring them is a necessary part of a standards framework.

But far less attention is being given to understanding exit standards and to ensuring students graduate with the English language skills for employment or further study. This is where more sophisticated methods are needed.

There is little doubt current approaches for developing English language skills in university study are not adequate. Many academics are overwhelmed by the language needs of their students and are ill-equipped to deal with them. Most English language support programs are under-resourced and operate on the margins of disciplinary teaching and learning. Allegations of soft marking continue.

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English test centre adopts biometric data to prevent identify fraud

SYDNEY, September 7, 2011—Tough measures against fraud, including a fingerprint scan, have been introduced at one of Australia's biggest English language test centres.

A worker at the LTC centre in Sydney was surprised by last month's introduction of fingerprint scans and photos for all candidates sitting the International English Language Testing System exam.

"It's only an English test. Even people who migrate to Australia don't get fingerprinted at the border," said the worker, who asked to remain anonymous. "I'm concerned about privacy."

IELTS Australia said the photo and finger scan, taken before candidates were admitted to the test room, were simply to prevent imposter fraud.

The LTC worker did know of one recent case at the centre of an attempt by someone, using a Chinese passport issued in Sydney, to sit the IELTS test for someone else. After this staff members were warned to pay special attention to Chinese passports issued in Sydney.

Between 350 and 550 candidates could take an IELTS test in a single sitting at the LTC centre.

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Lack of ALTs leaves English classes in lurch
The Yomiuri Shimbun

October 20, 2011—Takanezawamachi, a town in Tochigi Prefecture with a population of about 30,000, introduced English lessons for students in all primary-school grades more than 10 years ago. English-language classes have been conducted using a team-teaching method in which Japanese teachers are helped by native English speakers in the capacity of assistant language teacher (ALT). This year, however, the town faces a major challenge in its provision of English education.

There was no assistant language teacher available for Takanezawamachi's primary schools at the start of the new school year in April. Two new ALTs finally arrived in mid-July, a delay probably caused by the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake and the ensuing nuclear power plant crisis.

When The Yomiuri Shimbun visited Kita Primary School in Takanezawamachi, sixth-graders were taking an English class conducted solely by a Japanese teacher.

“I like English,” said sixth-grader Saya Kurihara after the class. “I think the earthquake [prevented an assistant language teacher from coming to our school]. I hope we have a foreign teacher again.”

Vice Principal Ritsuko Taki, who supervises her colleagues’ English teaching as well as giving classes herself, was visibly embarrassed that there were no native-speaking assistants.

“ALTs are really helpful because they’re good at praising and communicating with children,” she said. “We’ll do our best to conduct English classes on our own.”

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For businesspeople, English spells success
By Hitomi Seki, Yomiuri Shimbun

September 15, 2011—A good command of English is no doubt advantageous when looking for a job, but not all employers consider it a decisive factor when hiring an applicant.

But many companies have begun to expect more from their workers as they now see English proficiency as a means for them to compete in an increasingly globalized business environment.

According to Jun Nakagawa from Berlitz Japan, Inc., a major English language school, the number of applications from companies wanting their workers to learn English, and individual company employees wanting to improve their English ability on their own, has risen since last spring.

“In the past, our clients were mainly manufacturers with plants overseas, such as pharmaceutical companies and electronics manufacturers,” said Nakagawa. “But these days, more and more people working for IT and retailing companies are taking our classes. They may have been influenced by Rakuten, Inc. and Fast Retailing Co., which now use English as their official corporate language.”

Nakagawa said the people studying at Berlitz these days are mainly in their late 20s and 30s and studying English because they need better proficiency at work.

Some, for instance, are given overseas assignments, while others need to speak English at work even though they remain in Japan…

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Japanese English teachers leave for U.S. looking to broaden horizons

KYODO, July 8, 2011—A total of 96 Japanese teachers of English who will leave for the United States this month on a half-year training program vowed Thursday to use the experience to enhance global understanding.

The junior high school and high school teachers from across Japan, who are in their 20s to 40s, will be enrolled in courses on English teaching methods at seven U.S. universities, stay with local families and work as interns at American secondary schools on the exchange program through early February. The program is sponsored by the government.

Kaori Taguchi, a 32-year-old teacher at a high school in Miyagi Prefecture, told a send-off ceremony in Tokyo that she felt guilty about leaving at a time when her colleagues remain affected by the March 11 megaquake-tsunami disaster.

“Some schools in coastal areas are used as evacuation shelters and classes cannot be conducted properly there,” Taguchi said, speaking as a representative of the teachers. “I hope I can improve my English teaching skills through the program and return the favor by nurturing students who will open their eyes to the international community."

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Is California doing screening of English language learners wrong?
By Maggie Severns, EarlyEducation.net

October 19, 2011—A new study suggests that the state of California may have massive problems in the way it identifies English Language Learner students in its public schools. In California, where one quarter or 1.6 million students are English Language Learners, this misidentification could be costly for schools and students alike.

The report, by UC Berkely Graduate School of Education researchers Lisa Garcia Bedolla and Rosaisela Rodriguez, suggests that the mechanisms used to identify children for English-learner status may not be flagging the right students. Once children are identified for ELL-designation testing via Home Language Surveys, the authors assert, the exam they are given to establish ELL status is not developmentally appropropriate for many, leading to over-identification for ELL services.

No Child Left Behind requires that children be screened for English proficiency and given English language support if needed, but the misidentification of English Language Learners, over-identification of ELL's for special education services, and consistent low-performance of English Language Learners on standardized tests all indicate that many states have yet to design well-functioning systems for children who are not proficient in English.

In order to identify children who will be screened for ELL services each year, states require teachers to send a Home Language Survey to each student's parents. California’s survey asks four questions, including, “Which language does your child most frequently speak at home?” and “Which language is most often spoken by adults in the home?”

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Immigrant students pose language challenge for schools
By Jason Schultz, The Palm Beach Post

FLORIDA, October 15, 2011—“De hond heeft mijn huiswerk opgegeten.”

That means “the dog ate my homework” to the 21 Palm Beach County School District students who speak Dutch as their primary language.

“Tabestan madreseh tatil ast.”

That means “school’s out for summer” for the 49 students who speak Persian or Farsi, a language common in parts of Iran.

Those are two of the 145 languages that district students from more than 200 countries reported as their primary language this year. Although about 96 percent of students speak one of three languages — English, Spanish or Haitian Creole — the school district uses an array of volunteers, pictures and dictionaries to serve children in languages that district officials sometimes can't pronounce, let alone speak.

“We work around it. The communication is not 100 percent, but we use pictures and gestures,” said Solange Colon, a language teacher at Roosevelt Middle School in West Palm Beach. She has Arabic speakers in her English class and said she also has taught English to students who spoke Jamaican patois and Hungarian.

There are at least 39 languages spoken by only one student in the district. These vary from Icelandic to Native American and Eskimo dialects, such as Yupik, which is spoken in parts of Alaska, to Pohnpeian, which is spoken on the tiny island of Pohnpei in the Pacific Ocean.

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State puts pressure on city schools over English language learners

NEW YORK, October 13, 2011—New York City schools are broadly failing to meet the needs of many of their thousands of students who are still learning English, and they must improve or they may face sanctions, state education officials announced Wednesday.

“Clearly the services are poor, and the best indication of that are the student outcomes,” John B. King Jr., the state education commissioner, said in a news conference by video link from Albany.

As a measure of the problem, he said, in 2010 only 7 percent of the city’s English language learners were found to have graduated on time and ready for college and careers. In the lower grades, 12 percent were proficient in English and 35 percent in math, well behind city averages.

“These numbers are not acceptable,” Dr. King said. “We can’t leave so many students behind academically without access to college and career opportunities.”

More than a year ago, the state directed the city to create a plan to improve its performance, and on Wednesday it released the city’s 31-page pledge. Among other things, the plan spells out the extent to which the city is in violation of state law with the services it does provide.

For example, in the 2009-10 school year, about 22 percent of new students who needed to take language assessments to see if they required special services were not tested in a timely manner, the plan said.

Because of shortages of certified teachers, 5,190 children were not getting the language lessons to which they were legally entitled, the city said Wednesday.

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In “Chinglish,” language barriers are a (bad) sign of current times
By Barbara Chai, WallStreetJournal.com

NEW YORK, October 10, 2011—The new Broadway comedy “Chinglish” explores the language barriers that a U.S. businessman tries to overcome as he looks to secure a lucrative contract in China for his sign-making firm.

Performed in English and Mandarin with supertitles, the play grew out of the experiences that Tony award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang had on business trips to China. On one visit to Shanghai in 2005, Mr. Hwang was taken to a brand new arts center “where everything was perfect, except for the badly translated signs,” Mr. Hwang said. “I think that was where I first saw ‘Deformed Man’s Toilet’ for ‘Handicapped Restrooms.’”

Last summer, Mr. Hwang (who won his Tony for “M. Butterfly”) traveled to Guiyang on a research trip for “Chinglish” with director Leigh Silverman and producers Jeffrey Richards and Jerry Frankel. They were hosted for a banquet by government officials, and on the menu was “wood frog fallopian tubes.” “It turned out to be some sort of vegetable preparation,” said Mr. Hwang.

To market “Chinglish,” which begins performances this week at the Longacre Theatre in New York and officially opens Oct. 27, the producers worked with Omnicom Group Inc.’s Serino/Coyne LLC, an advertising agency specializing in Broadway productions. The marketing team included both English and Mandarin speakers, and emphasized wordplay in the campaign. “Emancipated Cow Juice”? That would be Chinglish for fat-free milk, as one ad says.

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New Orleans taxicab drivers now required to “fluently speak” English
By Bruce Eggler, The Times-Picayune

NEWS ORLEANS, September 23, 2011—New Orleans taxicab drivers have long been required to be able to read and write English. The City Council now has added a new requirement: that drivers be able to “fluently speak: the language.

Taxis queue up at Louis Armstrong International Airport as they wait to be summoned to the terminal. A new regulation stipulates that cab drivers must be able to speak English “fluently.”
The council approved the change 7-0 Thursday without discussion.

The law does not specify who will judge how fluent applicants’ English is, or what standards will be used.

Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, chairwoman of the council’s Transportation Committee, sponsored the measure.

As in many other U.S. cities, a sizable proportion of New Orleans’ cab drivers now come from Middle Eastern countries, with others coming from Latin America or other nations where English is not the principal language.

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Republicans in Harrisburg pushing English-only law

HARRISBURG, September 30, 2011—Republicans see making English the official language of Pennsylvania as a cost-saving measure, but Democrats and immigrant groups say it could drain the state’s economy.

Two bills before the state House State Government Committee — HB 361 and HB 888 — would require all official state government functions to be conducted in English.

Proponents of the legislation said the bills would reduce costs and provide an incentive for non-English speakers to learn the language.

However, opponents said the bills should not be a priority and would hurt economic growth.

“This is common-sense stuff that we should have been doing for a long time,” said state Rep. Rob Kauffman, R-Franklin. “Taxpayers across Pennsylvania shouldn’t have to subsidize foreign languages. It may be small, but it will be cost-saving.”

Republican lawmakers were unable to give an overall estimate of total cost savings from the bills. Both bills would eliminate small expenditures such as state-funded, translated voter registration ballots that cost $80 per 1,000 ballots, according to the Department of State. Federal law requires municipalities to comply with requests for multilingual voting ballots.

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Lawmakers urged to rethink English immersion law
By Matt Murphy, State House News Service
    
CAMBRIDGE, October 4, 2011—Armed with fresh findings by the Department of Justice that fault Massachusetts for failing to adequately train teachers to instruct students with limited English skills, supporters of bilingual education on Tuesday called for increased flexibility for school districts to meet the needs of non-native English speakers.

“Limited English proficient students are languishing in the classroom and it's affecting the well-being of an entire population of students,” said Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez, a Boston Democrat and the author of a bill (H 1065) that would reintroduce bilingual education to Massachusetts classrooms for the first time in 10 years.

Sen. Sal DiDomenico filed an identical bill (S 197) in the Senate this session. Both bills were the subject of a hearing Tuesday before the Committee on Education, co-chaired by Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz and Rep. Alice Peisch.

The Justice Department issued a report in July blaming a lack of teacher training on the state’s decision not to make specialized training mandatory, and on outdated training policies that left certified teachers unprepared to properly instruct English-language learners.

As of May 2011, more than 45,000 teachers in over 70 percent of the state's school districts lacked the training required to properly instruct students with limited English skills, according to the federal government’s review.

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New Orleans taxicab drivers now required to “fluently speak” English
By Bruce Eggler, The Times-Picayune

NEWS ORLEANS, September 23, 2011—New Orleans taxicab drivers have long been required to be able to read and write English. The City Council now has added a new requirement: that drivers be able to “fluently speak: the language.

Taxis queue up at Louis Armstrong International Airport as they wait to be summoned to the terminal. A new regulation stipulates that cab drivers must be able to speak English “fluently.”
The council approved the change 7-0 Thursday without discussion.

The law does not specify who will judge how fluent applicants’ English is, or what standards will be used.

Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, chairwoman of the council’s Transportation Committee, sponsored the measure.

As in many other U.S. cities, a sizable proportion of New Orleans’ cab drivers now come from Middle Eastern countries, with others coming from Latin America or other nations where English is not the principal language.

Full story...

In Arizona, complaints that an accent can hinder a teacher’s career
By Marc Lacey, The New York Times

PHOENIX, September 24, 2011—When Guadalupe V. Aguayo puts her hand to her heart, faces the American flag in the corner of her classroom and leads her second-graders in the Pledge of Allegiance, she says some of the words — like “allegiance,” “republic” and “indivisible” — with a noticeable accent.

Guadalupe V. Aguayo, a teacher in Phoenix, filed a complaint after being told that her accent would not allow her to teach students learning English.

When she tells her mostly Latino students to finish their breakfasts, quiet down, pull out their homework or capitalize the first letter in a sentence, the same accent can be heard.

Ms. Aguayo is a veteran teacher in the Creighton Elementary School District in central Phoenix as well an immigrant from northern Mexico who learned English as an adult and taught it as a second language. Confronted about her accent by her school principal several years ago, Ms. Aguayo took a college acting class, saw a speech pathologist and consulted with an accent reduction specialist, none of which transformed her speech.

As Ms. Aguayo has struggled, though, something else has changed. Arizona, after almost a decade of sending monitors to classrooms across the state to check on teachers’ articulation, recently made a sharp about-face on the issue…

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Teachers see change coming in Common Core State Standards
By Nancy Badertscher, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

September 27, 2011—Georgia teachers are starting to get schooled on the new Common Core State Standards that roll out in the nation's math and English/language arts classes as early as next year.

Georgia, 43 other states, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia are moving to the uniform and tougher set of expectations for learning. The standards were developed by the states, with the National Governors Association and former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue taking a lead role.

Supporters say they will make students more college- and career-ready, allow apple-to-apple state comparisons, and ease the transition for students moving from one state to another.

Critics from some education groups say there’s little evidence having national academic standards will improve k-12 public education. They also argue the standards were adopted by states in hard budgetary times as part of a scramble for federal Race to the Top money.

Via Internet streaming, State School Superintendent John Barge last week gave teachers a broad overview of the new standards, which will be in place for the 2012-2013 school year and likely will be the basis of student testing in 2014-2015. More detailed training for teachers via the Internet will start in January.

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US finds statewide problems in schools
By James Vaznis, Boston Globe

September 17, 2011—At least 45,000 teachers in 275 school districts across Massachusetts lack adequate training to instruct students who speak limited English, potentially impeding thousands of the students from advancing academically, according to a US Justice Department investigation.

Detailing the problems in about 70 percent of the state’s school districts, including Boston, Worcester, and Holyoke, federal investigators leveled much of the blame on the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

They said that the state had failed to mandate specialized training for teachers who serve English-language learners and that the department’s policies and procedures are so outdated and ineffective that teachers can complete the training and still not be adequately prepared, according to a letter issued by the Justice Department in July.

State education leaders shared that letter with the Globe yesterday as they outlined plans to overhaul teacher training.

“The pervasiveness and the persistence of the problem in at least 275 districts statewide make plain that the source of the problem is not only at the district level but also the state level,’’ wrote Emily H. McCarthy, deputy chief of the Educational Opportunities Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

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Students speaking native language do well

COLUMBIA, Missouri, September 21, 2011 (UPI)—Mexican-American students speaking their native language have higher grades than those in English-only environments in U.S. schools, a researcher says.

“I understand the reasons behind English-only efforts, but the research shows that if we don't accept the cultural identity of these students in our schools, such as tolerating their native language, Mexican-Americans may not succeed,” says David Aguayo, a doctoral student in the Department of Educational, School and Counseling Psychology at the University of Missouri.

“A real educational disparity exists because Mexican-Americans, along with other Latinos, are now the largest minority yet they still have the lowest high school and college graduation rates,” Aguayo said in a UM release Wednesday.

Aguayo surveyed 408 Mexican-American students, recording whether they were born in the United States or Mexico, their grade point averages and their ability to perform college-related tasks. ..

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Stanford researcher launches national K-12 English Language Learning initiative
By Robin Migdol, Stanford University News

September 13, 2011—Schoolchildren struggling to learn English in American public schools, and the educators responsible for teaching the language to them, will soon have resources to help ensure they meet the nationwide Common Core State Standards, in an initiative led by Stanford education Professor Kenji Hakuta.

“This initiative is really to give access to the standards to a growing group of the student population which are English Language Learners – usually what happens is they're sort of an afterthought,” said Hakuta, the Lee L. Jacks Professor of Education. “Let’s try to better understand what the language needs are that are foundational to these content standards and try to be much more explicitly systematic in making that available to English Language Learners.”

The Common Core State Standards are content-based standards for kindergarten through high school coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The standards, which have been adopted by all except six states, are designed to introduce students to rigorous, consistent material that will prepare them for college and the workforce.

The $2 million English Language Learner (ELL) initiative is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation, both supporters of the Common Core. Hakuta and co-chair Maria Santos, deputy superintendent for instruction of Oakland Unified School District, organized a steering committee of local ELL experts to plan and implement the initiative.

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Stanford researcher launches national K-12 English Language Learning initiative
By Robin Migdol, Stanford University News

September 13, 2011—Schoolchildren struggling to learn English in American public schools, and the educators responsible for teaching the language to them, will soon have resources to help ensure they meet the nationwide Common Core State Standards, in an initiative led by Stanford education Professor Kenji Hakuta.

“This initiative is really to give access to the standards to a growing group of the student population which are English Language Learners – usually what happens is they're sort of an afterthought,” said Hakuta, the Lee L. Jacks Professor of Education. “Let’s try to better understand what the language needs are that are foundational to these content standards and try to be much more explicitly systematic in making that available to English Language Learners.”

The Common Core State Standards are content-based standards for kindergarten through high school coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The standards, which have been adopted by all except six states, are designed to introduce students to rigorous, consistent material that will prepare them for college and the workforce.

The $2 million English Language Learner (ELL) initiative is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation, both supporters of the Common Core. Hakuta and co-chair Maria Santos, deputy superintendent for instruction of Oakland Unified School District, organized a steering committee of local ELL experts to plan and implement the initiative.

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Low marks given to California’s English proficiency test for kindergarteners
By Kathleen Maclay, UC Berkeley News Center

BERKELEY, September 16, 2011—Most of the thousands of four- and five-year-olds who take California’s official test for English language proficiency before they start kindergarten are bound to fail that exam, according to a new University of California, Berkeley, study. It found that only 12 percent of those given the up to two-hour-long exam are deemed English proficient.

Lisa García Bedolla, an associate professor at the Graduate School of Education (GSE), and Rosaisela Rodriguez, an academic coordinator there and a research specialist, report that taking the California English Language Development Test “almost guarantees” that a student will be categorized as an English learner. They also point to strong evidence that California schools are misidentifying large numbers of entering kindergarten students as English learners.

In their report for UC Berkeley’s Center for Latino Policy Research, the investigators said their findings indicate that scarce school resources are being misdirected, with students receiving instruction inappropriate for their language skill levels as a result.

The researchers examined the 2009-2010 results of the test, which is administered to new public school students in grades K-12 who are identified through a parental home language survey.

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Now, an institute to polish teachers’ English skills

THRISSUR, October 1, 2011—The State Institute of English-Kerala, a training centre set up at Ramavarmapuram in Thrissur with a view to address serious flaws in English language teaching in the state, will be inaugurated on Saturday.

Education minister P K Abdu Rabb will inaugurate the institute that is considered as a state-level centre for coordinating research and training activities in English language teaching. The institute will work in tandem with the District Centre for English (DCE) set up in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Thrissur and Kozhikode.

According to the Directorate of Public Instruction (DPI), Thiruvananthapuram, the centre will stress on sessions that will improve the communication skills of students through training teachers. Technology-aided English language teaching methods will be used in the training sessions.

It also been planned that the resource persons at the institute will visit the schools, observe the trained teachers’ performance and identify their further training needs, if any. They will then design short training programmes to cater to those needs and offer them either at a school convenient to the participants or at the institute itself.

At the same time, the state government has requested the HRD ministry to sanction Rs 10 crore under the Madhyam Shishya Abhiyaan for the project…

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English and Foreign Languages University set for more trouble

HYDERABAD, September 12, 2011—English and Foreign Languages University (Eflu), mired in controversy for over one-and-a-half years for the delay in appointment of a permanent vice-chancellor, is now facing a complete administrative breakdown.

Minister of state for Human Resource Development (HRD) D. Purandeswari, who is said to have rolled back several major projects started nearly two years ago, should be squarely blamed for the ills befalling the university, sources in the varsity said.

The shelved projects include an English Language Testing examination that the university was to conduct for Science Olympiad Association (SOS), a French training course for students, a centre to start an all India English language testing examination for CBSE Class X students, two of the five-year integrated MA programme (Spanish and Journalism), and Research and Creative Sources Generation Centre.

Sources said the Union minister has been directing the administration to roll back all projects started during the tenure of former VC Abhay Maurya, who had fallen out of her good books. Maurya had to step down from his office when he attained 65 years on June 15, 2010, though as per provisions, he could have been allowed to continue in office for two more years by virtue of nomination.

To further complicate matters, the HRD ministry is currently thinking of scrapping a search committee constituted for the appointment of a new VC. Orders were issued by the ministry to dissolve the current search committee and form a new one by September 14 through an EC meeting.

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Punjabi students hit language barrier in UK

FARIDKOT, September 12, 2011—Four months after the UK made changes in its student visa rules, many Punjabi students in the UK have already been sent back and more may follow for failing to clear the newly introduced English language requirement test.

From April 6 this year, the English language requirement has been changed from B1 to B2 level. This means that those going to the UK for graduation will have to appear for the English language test at the B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference.

Now, Indian students in the UK are required to clear four English Language Foundation Stage tests if the institutions in which they are enrolled feel that the English level of the students is not up to the mark.

“If a student fails to clear these tests in three attempts, he or she is repatriated,” said Kushdeep Kaur (name changed) of Langeana in Moga district.

Kushdeep took admission in a London college nine months back. She failed the language test twice and the college removed her name from the course. “The initial fee for this test is 1000 pounds and if the student fails in clearing the test in the first attempt, the re-appearing fee is 2500 pounds,” she explained.

Though the students are given the visa after they have cleared the IELTS or TOFEL tests in India, many face problems in comprehending spoken English in the first six weeks of the course and are told to clear the four English Language Foundation Stage tests.

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Telugu set to become world language

HYDERABAD, September 9, 2011—Telugu is all set to become a world language, thanks to a move by the information and technology department to “technicalize” the language so that it could be uploaded online easily like English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese and Russian.

The IT department is now embarking on standardization of Telugu language so that many of the complex words can be translated into Unicode so that there would be no trouble in uploading the Telugu text. "Telugu is the language of more than 10 crore people. Our language has every right to be recognized as world language. We have allotted budget for standardizing the language to suit to the Internet," said IT minister Ponnala Laxmaiah.

For example, to give space between words, in English we use the word “space,” but there is no such Telugu equivalent. After researching the old script of Telugu language experts discovered that one straight line was used to denote the comma and two straight lines for full stop. Now, this expert team is working on 'online character reorganization' so that Telugu can be easily available in all international platforms.

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“TOEFL score comparison unfair,” says test development company executive
By Hemali Chhapia, Times of India

MUMBAI, August 11, 2011—An analysis by the ETS which conducts TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) showed that candidates whose mother tongue is an Indian language fared much better than those whose native language was English.

"TOEFL provides accurate scores at the individual level; it is not appropriate for comparing countries," clarified Walt MacDonald, ETS executive vice-president and chief operating officer.

"The differences in the number of students taking the test in each country, how early English is introduced into the curriculum, how many hours per week are devoted to learning English, and the fact that those taking the test are not representative of all English speakers in each country or any defined population," Said MacDonald.

English is gaining currency in India's rural pockets and pedestrian schools, too. And picking up the grammar of what people want, some governments have been forced to introduce the Queen's lingo as the medium of instruction in public schools. "There is a huge amount of English in the country now. Everybody knows a fair amount of English. Also, Indians are intrinsically bright. When they apply themselves to a task, they do well at it," said Yasmeen Lukmani, former English HOD at the University of Mumbai.

Kerala and Tamil Nadu have had English in all regional-language schools from as early as the records read. A Planning Commission member said that no agency or government would be able to provide the exact number of students learning English in India.

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Lack of English proficiency contributes to high failure rate in Namibia                                      

July 8, 2011—About 100 linguistics experts from all over the world are attending the annual Poetics and Language Association (PALA) Conference which is currently taking place at the Polytechnic of Namibia in the capital.

In a speech read on his behalf, the Education Minister, Dr Abraham Iyambo, said English is being taught from the cradle to the grave in many parts of the world.

“But this teaching must be done properly by trained teachers. The teaching of English should not be at the exclusion or neglect of indigenous languages. Do we have these trained teachers? I do not think that we have them in enough numbers in Namibia. Is it obvious that proficiency in the English language will enable learners to perform better in other subjects because these subjects are taught and written in English,” he said.

Iyambo added that it is a fact of life that if learners have deficient English language reading, writing, listening and speaking skills; then they will not understand those subjects written and taught in English.

According to Iyambo, the strident call for the introduction of Science and Mathematics will remain just that, unless equally vocal measures are taken to improve the teaching of English in educational institutions.

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Language program bridges Korea and the world

YEONGI, August 29, 2011—Benjamin Stevens, 24, first came to Korea with his mother for a seminar nine years ago. Fascinated by Korea, he wanted to come back, and realized his dream thanks to the TaLK (Teach and Learn in Korea) program.

Under the government program, he recently visited Korea to teach English, his native language, at a rural elementary school. It was also an opportunity to travel across the country and experience the Korean culture.

Stevens is among 322 young foreigners from English-speaking countries who have participated in the 7th orientation of the program starting in early August on Sejong Campus of Korea University in Yeongi, South Chungcheong Province.

The program was launched in 2008 to provide an English immersion environment to rural elementary schools by attracting native English speakers from abroad. It is also intended to give them a chance to experience Korean culture and travel across the country.

They are placed to rural schools because students there are less exposed to native English speakers than their urban peers. The foreign teachers on the program receive monthly stipend and accommodation subsidy from the Korean government.

Currently, about 600 foreigners are in the country under the program to narrow the gap between English education in the city and the country. One foreigner is assigned per school.

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“Let’s cut spending on English lessons”
By Yun Suh-young

October 9, 2011—To cut spending on private English studies, a civic group has launched a campaign by publishing a booklet underlining the inefficacy of learning English at language institutes.

The World Without Worries About Private Education (WWWPE), an educational civic group, publicized the booklet, titled “What a Waste! Private English Education,” which provides alternative methods to learn English without relying on expensive private institutes, on Sept. 28.

The group will begin distributing 2 million copies of the booklet to citizens.

“We’ve launched a campaign to give parents proper information about private English education, since this takes up a major portion of private tuition costs. We want to help them reduce unnecessary spending on educating their children,” said Kim Seung-hyun, a policy division chief at the WWWPE.

“Parents don’t have enough channels from which they can access relevant information. They mainly rely on what they are told by the private academies but the information they get from these institutes is, most of the time, exaggerated and distorted.”

The purpose is to spread a proper understanding of English education.

“Our organization was created in June 2008 and we have been preparing booklets ever since. This is a sequel to the first one we published,” said Kim.

The booklet discusses 12 misconceptions about English education and gives alternative solutions to each of the problems.

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No English option: Policy has been decided and should be respected

By Eileen Ng, New Straits Times

KUALA LUMPUR, October 30, 2011—The government yesterday put a lid on calls to allow some schools to teach Science and Mathematics in English, with Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin saying that “the policy has been decided and should be respected”.

The deputy prime minister, who is also education minister, pointed out that having a dual-language system would be “chaotic”.

Muhyiddin said it would also make it difficult for the ministry in terms of planning and getting enough quality teachers.

“If we give the option to parents, this will cause kucar-kacir (chaos) in the education system.

“It is hard for the Education Ministry to plan — how to do it? One school wants it in English, another in Malay. Then there is a question of teachers, how do we provide? Some of our English teachers are not so efficient, so if some schools opt to teach the two subjects in English but do not have enough English teachers, then the aspirations of parents will not be realised,” he said after opening the Language and Malay Literature Congress at Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka here.

Muhyiddin was responding to calls from some parents, students and pressure groups such as Parents Action Group for Education (Page)for schools to be given the freedom to choose the medium of instruction for Science and Mathematics following the ministry’s earlier decision to reverse the PPSMI(teaching Science and Mathematics in English)policy.

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Performers in the classroom
By Alycia Lim and Priya Kulasagaran, TheStar.com.my 

October 9, 2011—It was like a scene out of a highly-functioning kindergarten class – in the best way possible.

“Krik!” said storyteller Jan Blake.
.
“Krak!” replied the packed auditorium of enthusiastic English language teachers.

The “krik krak” formula is a call-and-response technique common in Caribbean story-telling traditions, where the storyteller says a prompt word and the listeners respond as a signal that they want to hear the rest of the story.

As she told a folktale about a hen’s adventures while delivering a letter to the king, Blake illustrated how effective stories were in cutting across barriers of culture, language and age.

The conference provided a platform for English teachers and academics to share knowledge and ideas.

The United Kingdom (UK)- based storyteller was one of the featured speakers at the recent International Conference on English Language Teaching (ICELT) 2011.

Held in Lumut, Perak, the three-day conference aimed to gather local and international educators to share best practices for teaching English with each other.

While her skills worked wonders in keeping the audience fully engaged, Blake said that the most important aspect to her storytelling techniques was passion and enthusiasm.

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English-medium schools unlikely

SERDANG, October 1, 2011—English-medium schools are unlikely to make a comeback due to the country's education policy, said the Deputy Prime Minister.

The current policy required the Malay language to be the medium of instruction in national schools, said Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

“This is a question of the national education policy.

“It is not possible for us to set up national English-medium schools unless changes are made to the policy and the National Education Act (1996). It's a different story for private schools,” said Muhyiddin, who is also Education Minister, after attending a dialogue session with Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) academic staff and students here.

“However, we have consented for national-type (vernacular) schools to use the Chinese and Tamil languages (as the medium of instruction).”

Section 17 of the National Education Act 1996 states that the national language must be the main medium of instruction in all educational institutions under the national education system.

The Act also provides an exemption to this rule for national-type schools or any other institution exempted by the Minister himself.

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Ensure enough English teachers before making subject compulsory, gov’t told

PETALING JAYA, October 3, 2011—Parents and teachers say that the move to make English a compulsory pass subject in national examinations needs strong supporting structures to succeed.

Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia (PAGE) chairman Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim said the proposal to make English a must pass subject in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examinations was a good move.

“At the same time, we need to ensure there are enough English teachers to properly teach the subject.

“Otherwise it will be unfair to impose English as a compulsory subject if students are not being equipped to do well in the subject. As it is, teachers are still teaching subjects that they are not trained for,” she added.

Yesterday, MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek said a timetable should be set to make English a compulsory pass subject in the SPM.

“Mother tongue languages should also be encouraged and eventually made compulsory in all national schools.

“If such initiatives are planned properly with a staggered timeline, they are achievable,” he said in his speech at the MCA's 58th annual general assembly yesterday.

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Cautious reception of compulsory pass for English
By T.K. Letchumy Tamboo, The Malay Mail

PETALING JAYA, September 15, 2011—Making the English language a compulsory pass at Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) level, a move to be implemented by the Education Ministry soon, has generally been well-received but parents and others caution it must be properly implemented, including having teachers competent to teach English.

National Parent-Teacher Association Collaborative Council (National PTA) president Assoc. Prof. Datuk Mohammad Ali Hassan agreed it is a good move for the long-term because English proficiency of students, will improve their marketability and their leadership skills will increase with its implementation.

“However, I do not think we are ready for this move because firstly, the English language curriculum is not up to the mark,” he said, when contacted by The Malay Mail.

“Firstly, school children today, even after being exposed to 13 years of primary and secondary education, speak broken English as they are unsure of its proper usage. Secondly, the teachers who teach the language are themselves not equipped with sufficient proficiency.”

Mohammad Ali also said there’s a wide gap in English language proficiency between rural and urban schools.

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Local English teachers get help from foreign experts

SIBU, September 11, 2011—Foreign English language experts and consultants are already moving around primary schools in town, helping local teachers elevate the standard of English.

This was revealed by Sibu Divisional education officer Wong Chung Kung yesterday, saying these native speakers of English Language engaged by the Education Ministry hail from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada and others.

“These experts will start from primary schools here, and it is hoped that with their expert guidance, the standard of English will improve tremendously, beginning from primary school level,” Wong said in his speech at an English Essay Writing Competition 2011 at Premier Hotel here.

The competition was jointly organised by Sarawak Australian Graduates Association, central region (Saga) and The Borneo Post, supported by Sibu Education Department.

In this regard, he called on teachers to give their fullest cooperation to these foreign teachers and consultants in the quest to uplift the standard of English among students in the country.

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was quoted by Bernama recently as saying the Education Ministry would hire 370 foreign English language experts from 2011 to monitor the teaching of the language in Malaysian schools.

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“Both English and Chinese are vital,” says former Singapore PM

SINGAPORE, October 8, 2011—Former Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said that, if young Singaporeans give up the Chinese language, they will have lost something valuable.

Mr. Lee noted that, while English has given Singapore access to the world, the Chinese language is equally important for cultural and pragmatic reasons.

He was speaking at a dialogue with 4,000 Chinese businessmen at the 11th World Chinese Entrepreneurs Convention last night.

Speaking in both English and Mandarin during the hour-long dialogue, Mr. Lee answered a wide range of questions, including one on the country’s bilingual policy.

Acknowledging that the bilingual policy was one of the toughest policies he had to implement, Mr. Lee stressed the need for young Singaporeans to be proficient in both languages.

“Everyone knows you got to do English, otherwise you won’t get on in Singapore, you won’t get on with international companies and so on.

“And Chinese is also a must because if you haven’t got that, you wouldn’t have the self-confidence you should have as a Chinese and, secondly, you can’t take advantage of the rise of China.”

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It’s possible with English as master language

SINGAPORE, September 19, 2011—Former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew said yesterday—on his 88th birthday—that he is convinced bilingualism is possible in Singapore, with English as a master language.

The education system is structured in such a way that children are exposed to two languages from the time they enter kindergarten.

His latest remark on bilingualism follows an earlier emphasis on the importance of English as a working language.

The “political and economic realities” was why English was chosen as the nation’s working language, Mr. Lee said at the opening of the English Language Institute of Singapore last week.

The choice of the language had helped Singapore grow economically.

Yesterday, at the launch of the Chinese edition of his best-seller, Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going, Mr Lee disclosed that he was not totally immersed in the Chinese language and found it a constant struggle.

But the former Minister Mentor said he wanted the book to be translated into Chinese, to cater to the needs of older Singaporeans, many of whom do not read English.

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Singaporeans urge to be good role models for speaking English
By Qiuyi Tan, ChannelNewsAsia.com

SINGAPORE, September 10, 2011—The Speak Good English Movement is calling for all Singaporeans to be good role models of English, especially to children they interact with.

This is the message of the movement for 2011, which was launched on Saturday morning by Minister of State for Education and Defence Lawrence Wong.

Mr. Wong said everyone, especially parents, should take the responsibility to learn how to speak and communicate well so that they can be good role models of the language.

He urged teachers and parents to work hand in hand to create an environment where children can listen to good English all the time, anywhere.

Mr. Wong and the movement’s organisers stressed that the aim is not to suppress colloquial English or Singlish, which is endearing to many Singaporeans, but to equip the young with the basics of good English so that they are able to "code-switch" from one language to another easily.

Mr Wong said: “It’s not to say they will not learn Singlish or pick up Singlish amongst their friends, it will happen naturally. You don't have to worry about that…”

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Singaporeans urge to be good role models for speaking English
By Qiuyi Tan, ChannelNewsAsia.com

SINGAPORE, September 10, 2011—The Speak Good English Movement is calling for all Singaporeans to be good role models of English, especially to children they interact with.

This is the message of the movement for 2011, which was launched on Saturday morning by Minister of State for Education and Defence Lawrence Wong.

Mr. Wong said everyone, especially parents, should take the responsibility to learn how to speak and communicate well so that they can be good role models of the language.

He urged teachers and parents to work hand in hand to create an environment where children can listen to good English all the time, anywhere.

Mr. Wong and the movement’s organisers stressed that the aim is not to suppress colloquial English or Singlish, which is endearing to many Singaporeans, but to equip the young with the basics of good English so that they are able to "code-switch" from one language to another easily.

Mr Wong said: “It’s not to say they will not learn Singlish or pick up Singlish amongst their friends, it will happen naturally. You don't have to worry about that…”

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English-language broadcasters get better grade

SINGAPORE, September 8, 2011—While broadcasters here were given a pat on the back by the Programme Advisory Committee for English Programmes (PACE) for providing quality content, recommendations were made for further improvement in some areas, such as in protecting children from unsuitable content, editorial integrity in news and producing more quality local content.

Presenting its 13th report on the range and quality of English broadcast content yesterday, PACE chairman Leo Tan said that he would rate English programming here 7.5 out of 10, whereas two years ago, he would have given it only a six.

Said Prof Tan said: "The standard of English has gone up, the quality, the range of programmes ... it is a continuous evolving thing and not static. Societal norms change, expectations change, the programming must also evolve according to what the societal demands are."

The PACE report, compiled by a 31-member committee, commended broadcasters for the "strong emphasis" on sports programmes last year. It singled out coverage of the Youth Olympic Games by MediaCorp, as well as locally-produced programmes Sports@SG by Channel 5 and Score by SingTel's mioTV.

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English language institute of Singapore opens Tuesday
             
SINGAPORE, September 5, 2011—The English Language Institute of Singapore (ELIS) will be officially launched by former Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew on Tuesday.

The institute aims to drive excellence in the teaching and learning of the English language in Singapore schools to raise the general command of both spoken and written English among students.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) says it will play a key role in providing in-service professional development for both English language and English-medium teachers.

ELIS aims to involve more than 6,000 teachers next year and 12,000 teachers by 2014 in its courses.

It also aims to become an English language teaching hub for Asia.

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Thai students “must learn languages”

June 20, 2011—Thai students have been urged to improve their English and also learn a third language so they can compete with people from other Southeast Asian nations when the region becomes a single economic community of more than 600 million people in 2015.

Sakkarin Niyomsilpa, a demographic expert at Mahidol University's Institute for Population and Social Research (IPSR), said Thailand's weakness was its language limitations, especially in English. He said Filipino labourers could speak better English than Thais, giving them a much better chance of getting hired in other countries.

It was now time for Thai students to improve their English and learn a third language such as Vietnamese, Bahasa, Japanese or Korean, he added.

Mr. Sakkarin said if the education system and students paid no attention to language improvement, Thailand might lose its competitive edge to Vietnam as many Vietnamese could now speak English or even Thai.

He recently addressed an IPSR seminar entitled "A Turning Point For The Thai Population; A Turning Point For Thai Society" that discussed the kingdom's situation as it prepares for the launch of the Asean Community.

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Record 1million pupils speak English as a second language
By Graeme Paton, Telegraph.co.uk

June 22, 2011—A record one-in-six pupils in primary schools and one-in-eight in secondary education speak another language at home, it was disclosed.

The proportion of children starting school with a relatively poor grasp of English has now doubled in just over a decade.

In some parts of London, as many as three-quarters of pupils speak other languages, according to figures.

The disclosure comes despite concerns over cuts in funding to teach pupils with English as a second language. A ring-fenced grant set aside to boost language skills among foreign pupils was abolished by the Coalition, with money now devolved to local councils to spend as they see fit.
But head teachers’ leaders claim this has led to cash drying up in some areas as councils use the money to subsidise cuts to other services.

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said funding had been “cut back quite extensively” by certain authorities.
“Support for these pupils is vitally important,” he said. “These children are just as able as other pupils but they’ll fail to access the curriculum if they are behind in literacy and linguistic skills.”

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What is Crazy English and who is Li Yang?
By Malcolm Moore, Telegraph.co.uk

SHANGHAI, September 12, 2011—A popular myth about China is that it has the largest number of English speakers in the world, if you count the 300 million people studying the language.

But while huge numbers of Chinese learn English in school, only a handful are able to translate their skill at reading and writing, earned through hours of staring at books, into spoken English.

Crazy English, or Fengkuang Yingyu, is Li Yang’s attempt to break that oral barrier. Instead of writing sentences, students stand on the roof and scream them. One Chinese newspaper described the course as “English as a Shouted Language.” While Crazy English still involves rote-learning, it has excited students with its mass rallies, during which everyone chants together, without embarrassment.

Mr. Li outlined his ambitious plans to the New Yorker magazine in 2008, saying that he wanted a retail chain of Crazy English schools that would be like Starbucks.

"People would get off work and just go to the Crazy English Tongue Muscle Training House and then go back home. Just like a gym," he said.

There are Crazy English DVDs and CDs, books and stadium shows.

More than 20 million people have allegedly signed up for a course.

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Traditional approaches to English education should be changed, says minister

June 20, 2011—English language proficiency is considered one of the key elements in developing international competitiveness. Taiwan ranks 25 out of 44 non-native English speaking countries around the world, according to a study by English First, the world's largest private educational institution.

Despite the vast amounts of money spent by the government on English education, the ubiquitous presence of English cram schools and President Ma Ying-jou's pledge to increase the nation's international competitiveness, many college graduates in Taiwan still have difficulty having basic conversations in English despite over a decade of learning English.

Currently all third grade elementary school students and above have regular English classes on a weekly basis. According to the Ministry of Education (MOE), elementary schools can start teaching English from the first grade. However, most schools in Taiwan outside of Taipei and New Taipei have not introduced these programs due to limited resources.

According to the MOE's white paper on international education at local junior high and elementary schools, the ministry hopes to extend English language education to all elementary school students in Taiwan over the next decade. Wu said the ministry has commissioned the National Academy for Educational Research to study the appropriateness of this proposal, although currently there is no specific timeline for the implementation.

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MHA asks central offices, PSUs and banks to use local language

NEW DELHI, June 18, 2011—All central government offices, Public Sector Undertakings and banks across the country will now write sign-boards and name-plates in the 'second official language' as well, in addition to Hindi and English.

The home ministry taken the decision in order to give due prominence to the 'second official language', which is different in different states and Union Territories.

"The boards, sign-boards, name-plates and directional signs will be written/printed/inscribed/embossed in Hindi (the national language) first (in Hindi speaking states). The order of the other languages including English will be determined by the department concerned or the state concerned," said the home ministry in a statement.

The decision will, however, not affect the “order” in the non-Hindi speaking states. These states will continue to use regional languages, Hindi and English, in that order. The font sizes of the texts of all the languages will be of the same size.

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Bilingualism “key” competency for top Canadian bureaucrats
By Jason Fekete, PostMedia News
 
MONTREAL, October 29, 2011—As opposition parties protest the Harper government’s nomination of a unilingual candidate for the next auditor general, Canada’s commissioner of official languages says mastery of both French and English “is a key leadership competency” for senior bureaucrats.

Questions are also being raised about why one of the people who helped the Conservative government nominate Michael Ferguson as the country’s top spending watchdog is listed as having lobbied the auditor general’s office several times over the past few years.

The Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois all oppose the federal government's nomination of Ferguson, a former auditor general in New Brunswick, because he doesn’t speak French.

The government maintains Ferguson is already learning French and is the most qualified candidate who applied for the position, even though the posting for the $322,900-a-year job said: “proficiency in both official languages is essential.”

The NDP has submitted a complaint to Graham Fraser, the federal government’s commissioner of official languages, protesting Ferguson’s nomination because it doesn’t meet Ottawa's own job requirements and fails to promote bilingualism.

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Despite dire warnings, the future of French on Montreal Island not gloomy
By Jack Jedwab, The Montreal Gazette
 
MONTREAL, October 28, 2011—A report recently issued by Quebec’s Office de la langue française warned that by 2031 the share of people speaking mostly French in their homes on the island of Montreal will fall below 50 per cent. Such dire forecasts tend to attract considerable media attention, along with a predictable reaction. Opposition critics insist that Montreal is being anglicized, that the government is insensitive to the dangers facing the French language, and that it is urgent to introduce new or tighter language laws to curb any further decline.

But if Montreal francophones become the island’s minority, who will be the majority? That question is not directly addressed, which leaves the misleading impression that “non-francophones” will assume that role. The problem is that “non-francophones” are not a language group. No Montrealers refer to themselves as non-francophones. Lumping anglophones and allophones into an imagined category often appears designed to encourage francophones to wrongly associate the “ethnics” with the English language. However, the first language of most Montreal Island nonfrancophones is not English. Identifying with more than 100 groups, allophones simply don't have a common language to impose on the island's francophone population.

The demographic projections for 2031 would see the share of the Montreal Island population that speaks mostly English at home fall to about 23 per cent; in 2006, it was 25 per cent. In other words, 75 per cent of the island’s population will not speak English at home—though one never hears the term “non-anglophones.”

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Strict language rules for immigrants proposed
By Thandi Fletcher, Postmedia News

October 15, 2011—The Harper government wants to force immigrants to prove their proficiency in English or French before being able to write an exam and be considered for Canadian citizenship.

Currently, immigrants ages 18 to 54 must only prove their language proficiency by taking a multiple-choice written test on citizenship questions, which federal officials believe “does not adequately assess [for the] listening and speaking skills” needed for effective integration into Canadian society.

The proposed changes, which would affect about 134,000 applicants a year, would require immigrants to prove they can speak English or French when they submit their first application for citizenship, which immigration officials believe will streamline processing of the applications.

They would have to submit results of an English or French proficiency test approved by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, proof of secondary or post-secondary education in French or English, or proof of completion of a language-training course such as the federally funded Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada.

“The ability to communicate effectively in either French or English is key to the success of new citizens in Canada,” said Immigration Minister Jason Kenney in a statement on Friday. “This change will encourage applicants to ensure that they can speak English or French when they apply for citizenship, thereby improving the integrity and effectiveness of the citizenship program for Canada and for new Canadians alike.”

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Startup aims to teach English on the Web
By Grant Buckler,

TORONTO, October 7, 2011—When Danny Wang came to Canada from China in 2000, he soon got a shock.

“I learned about English in China for 20 years,” says the co-founder and co-chief executive of Toronto startup WeblishPal Inc., “so when I came to Canada I thought my English was okay – but when I tried to open a bank account, I found I couldn’t understand what the cashier was talking about.”

As Wang discovered, books and exercises only get you so far. It takes conversation with native speakers to really master a new language. And when Wang became a Master of Business Administration student at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, that lesson led to a business idea that became WeblishPal.

For a class assignment, Wang pitched the idea of an online business that would link Chinese students studying English with tutors in North America via web video chat. The students would get instruction directly from a native speaker, and the online conversations would help them master pronunciation and idiom. It’s an idea that has been used in teaching languages face-to-face for years, but in this case, students living in China would be able to learn from native English speakers living mostly in Canada and the U.S.

The idea appealed to Barbara Tassa, one of Wang’s classmates, who had come from Estonia with her parents at an early age…

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English teachers fail to make the grade

HA NOI, August 29, 2011—A regulation stipulating that English language teachers must achieve required scores on international English tests come into force with the start of the new academic year, but many teachers are unable to meet the new requirements.

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, all English language teachers are required to score at least 550 on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) exam or 6.0 on the International English Language Testing System (IELTS).

Teachers whose scores do not make the grade would be required to improve their skills and re-take the exam. Those who failed the exam twice would be forced to quit their teaching jobs.

However, surveys carried out by the ministry revealed that few teachers have passed the exams.
In southern Ben Tre Province, only 61 out of 700 English language teachers were able to achieve the required score.

In Ha Noi, nearly 150 teachers from 90 primary schools took the exams, but only 28, which accounted for 18 per cent, passed.

About 500 teachers in southern Soc Trang Province will take the exams next month, and many said most would struggle to pass and need to take short-term training courses to improve their skills.

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$3.5 million grant awarded for teaching English education in Afghanistan

July 14, 2011—This month, U.S. troops began withdrawing from Afghanistan. Thirty thousand troops are expected to return home by next summer.

Now, as the country begins the process of standing on its own legs, the U.S. State Department has awarded an IU center nearly $3.5 million to help teach English education there.

The $3,487,454 grant will fund a three-year project organized by IU’s Center for Social Studies and International Education.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul and the American University of Afghanistan will serve as partners for the project, which will be directed by two IU School of Education faculty members.

Its goal is to develop and implement a master’s degree in English language education at Kabul Education University in Afghanistan.

The faculty members, Terry Mason and Mitzi Lewison, have worked with Afghan higher education for a number of years, establishing an education master’s degree at Kabul — the first master’s degree ever offered there — and bringing Afghan educators to study at IU.

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Kenyan girl beats world in English examination
By Christine Mungai, Nation
  
July 15, 2011—Shiro Keziah Wachira is extremely articulate, almost disarmingly so. She is only 16, but speaks like a person twice her age.

The first time one meets her, one is taken aback by her eloquent and coherent speech, devoid of redundancies like “umm”, “as in”, “like” and “yaani” that characterise a typical Kenyan teenager’s speech.

“We only speak English at home. I read everything, and that’s mostly due to the influence of my mum and dad. We have a big library in our house. I can’t really say I have a favourite genre of literature, I give anything a shot,” says Shiro.

Her parents’ influence has certainly paid off. The former student of St Austin’s Academy, Nairobi, scored the highest marks in the world in English Language when she sat for her Cambridge International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) O-level examinations in June 2010.

She beat more than 420,000 students from all over the world.

“The news was unexpected, but I was very proud of myself,” she says.

Her English teacher at St Austin’s, Mr Frank Atuti, says she is an exceptional student and that her command of the English language is far beyond that of her peers.

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Sixty judges, court personnel complete English language course
                                                                                   
July 10, 2011—A group of 60 Supreme Court judges and other court workers have completed four months of intensive training in the English language.

The training pilot programme was conducted by US Peace Corps in cooperation with the Rwandan Government, the Millennium Challenge Corporation Threshold Program - Rwanda Justice Strengthening Project (MCC JSP).

The programme's objective was to serve as an aid and catalyst for the justice system's transition from a Francophone civil law to an Anglophone hybrid common-civil law system.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Fabian Yankurije, one of the trainees, said that he benefited a lot from the programme since he can now speak and write in English without any difficulty.

"Now I am able to conduct court proceedings in English, for instance, in trans-national cases or foreign investment disputes," he said.

Speaking at the event, Supreme Court Deputy Chief Justice, Sam Rugege, observed that the English language remains a major concern for the Rwanda judiciary.

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151 graduations frozen over faked English test scores

Surabaya, July 18, 2011—After it was discovered that they had falsified their English-language proficiency scores, 151 students from Surabaya State University were prevented from graduating over the weekend.

Heru Siswanto, the university’s head of public relations, said on Monday that the students from a variety of majors had failed to obtain the minimum score of 400 out of 677 on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), which was a prerequisite for graduating.

“We canceled their graduation because of the falsification,” he said.

“We’ve now given them four months in which to do a make-up TOEFL test and improve their scores.”

Despite the fact that the students had knowingly falsified their scores to make it seem as though they had passed, he said the university had still not decided whether to hand down any disciplinary sanctions against them.

Heru said the university was inclined to take a lenient stance on the students, including treating them as the victims in this case. He claimed they had “fallen prey to irresponsible parties who took advantage of their desperation after not attaining the required TOEFL score.”

“As an institute of higher learning, we will work with the police to identify and punish the wrongdoers in this case,” he said.

He declined to say whether the university suspected the students had been aided in the falsification by officials from the school’s Language Center, although he said this was a possibility now being investigated.

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Looking for qualified English teachers
By Katarína Koreňová, Spectator.sme.sk

August 1, 2011—The idea of compulsory English in Slovakia’s schools has opened the gates for arguments, both for and against the concept from its very inception. Nevertheless, the Slovak Parliament overrode a presidential veto of the amendment to the Education Act on March 1.

Starting in September this year, English will be mandatory for all incoming third-grade pupils.
Education Minister Eugen Jurzyca has said that his ministry hopes students will master at least one foreign language by the age of 15. In an interview with the weekly .týždeň he argued that “English is the language of experts and to a great extent also of diplomats,” noting that more than half of EU member states have compulsory English in their educational systems. Slovakia is the 14th to take that step.

Opponents of the new legislation do not necessarily disapprove of mandatory English classes. Apart from those who object to what they call the unreasonable preference for English over other foreign languages in the curricula, the most common concern is a lack of qualified educators to teach those classes.

“We do not have enough English teachers, either qualified or unqualified,” says Eva Tandlichová, Professor Emeritus of the Department of British and American Studies at Comenius University in Bratislava, and a recognized expert in the field of teacher training.

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English tuition needed before tablet PCs are given to pupils
  
August 16, 2011—Education Minister Worawat Ua-apinyakul has encouraged schools of all grades to offer students intensive English courses in preparation for the distribution of tablet PCs.

Since the English language is widely used on the devices, students from all grades should learn more English before the tablets are delivered, planned to be in the next academic year.

During its election campaign, the Pheu Thai Party promised to give a free tablet PC to each Prathom 1 (Grade 1) student under its One Tablet Per Child project.

The promise, however, has drawn criticisms from educators who believe that Prathom 1 children are too young for the PCs. Some critics have also voiced their concern about the inadequacy of digital educational content.

Mr Worawat said the distribution of tablets should not be limited to students at the Prathom 1 level.

"They should be provided to all actually. However, they will be handed out in lots based on the readiness of the digital content and the students themselves," he said yesterday at the second round of the ministry's executive meeting held at the Royal Princess Hotel. The minister insisted the free tablet PCs would be complementary to existing learning via textbooks.

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English proficiency or attitudes: what are the true barriers?
By Achara Deboonme, The Nation
Published on August 8, 2011

Is Thailand's low English proficiency a barrier to economic expansion?

That was a tough question from a young Thai man who graduated from a university in Sydney.

He asked that question because he is the only one on a eight-person team who has to cover English-related stuff for their magazine.

Statistically, the right answer is "yes." Studies show that in a society where over 90 per cent are literate, few are fluent in English.

Many universities are correcting this by demanding their undergraduate and graduate students to submit their theses in English.

But how can you force someone who doesn't know English to write in the language? Eventually, that requirement just gave extra work to those with a good command of the foreign language.

Given that I was also contacted for help, it's true that many English-language theses are completed by these people, not the students themselves.

That does not surprise me. In my university days, only English majors took more than 60 credits (20 courses) of English.

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Should Pacific parents emphasize the English language?

August 31, 2011—A Pacific Island education activist in New Zealand says it's up to Pacific parents to decide if they want to emphasize command of the English language with their children, not schools.

Danny Tolovae, the Pacific Advocate for the Pacific Island Community Tauranga Trust in New Zealand, was responding to comments from John McCaffery, a senior lecturer at Auckland University's School of Arts, Languages and Literacies, who says says bilingual education actually helps students do better in school.

He said Pacific parents who favour English over their vernacular Pacific language with their children have been taught that attitude because of decades of mistreatment at the hands of New Zealand, Australian and English teachers who physically punished Pacific children if they spoke their own languages at school.

Danny Tolovae says that didn't happen to him, and he's unfamiliar with such practices.

TOLOVAE: I haven't heard that through my own upbringing. I spent eight years in Samoa and I've never have heard of beatings and stuff like that. Colonisation happened at the time, but I couldn't remember being beaten up. We could be sent outside to ... cut the grass with our hands, round the school but that was part of sometimes our activities that we had to do in school…

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Good English starts in the home

TAURANGA TRUST, August 7, 2011—The trust’s Pacific advocate, Danny Tolovae, says some Pacific children are struggling in school because their low ability in English is preventing them from understanding what is being taught.

He says government funding cuts are not helping.

“They have stopped printing Pacific language journals and have cut back on funding Aoga Amata School,” says Danny, of the Samoan language pre-school.

“My preference would be for every culture to learn basic English – Why? – because it’s spoken widely around the globe.”

For families, however, which have immigrated to New Zealand, Danny says they need to make the effort to speak in English in the home as a part of their children’s education.

He says relying on a Pacific language as a first language is not helping.

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English language teaching continues

September 12, 2011—Minister of Education and Science of Georgia Dimitri Shashkin spoke of a “linguistic revolution” to the diplomatic corps, representatives of international organizations and civil society gathered at the Courtyard Marriott on September 9. Presenting the achievements of the program Teach & Learn with Georgia (TLG) the Minister and TLG Program Manager Maia Siprashvili-Lee discussed the annual impact of the program on improving the level of English at Georgian schools.

Shashkin emphasized the importance of the program which according to the Minister has ensured the “success of educational reform” in the country. “We can proudly say that we have made a linguistic revolution at Georgian public schools,” Shashkin said stressing that the Georgian pupils had a wonderful opportunity to learn English from native English speaking teachers, while the Georgian teachers could improve their professional skills. “The fact that two-thirds of university entrants chose English as their second language at the Unified National Exams means that the revolution has been a real success!” stated the Minister.

Strengthening the English language learning process through TLG at Georgian schools is among the main priorities of the Georgian government. The native English speaking teachers with their local colleagues have been teaching the pupils together at public schools all around the country.

The main goal of Teach & Learn with Georgia is to improve English language proficiency through recruiting English speaking teachers for Georgian public schools. The authors of the project also rely on exchange of information, experiences and cultures to create significant ties between Georgia and other countries from different parts of the world…

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English language prioritized in Georgian schools
By Salome Modebadze, Messenger.com.ge

August 8, 2011—English language is becoming mandatory at all the accredited and authorized educational institutions in Georgia. The initiative of the Ministry of Education and Science aims to raise interest towards English language as the main priority for the Government and the initial step for the Georgian citizens to integrate with the international society. On August 5th the First Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Georgia Koka Seperteladze held a briefing where he explained the principles of the project.

As Seperteladze explained to the media, the Decree of the Ministry refers to the first year students of Bachelor’s degree from the 2011-2012 academic year and would be organized in coordination with the National Examination Center (NAEC). The higher education institutions that get a relevant license from the National Center for Education Quality Enhancement would also be able to carry out English language exams. “Those entrants who passed an English language exam at Unified National Exams should have B2 level in English and those who passed exam in other foreign language should obtain B1 level in English,” he said stressing that the students who hold TOEFl, IELTS or other international certificates in English language will be free from the additional exam.

Deputy Minister of Education and Science Nodar Surguladze explained the six international educational levels to The Messenger. A1 is the starting level for the foreign language and C2 emphasizes the highest educational background – equal to the mother tongue. B1 is the level necessary for overcoming the Unified National Exams in Georgia, while B2 is considered for Master’s degree, followed by C1 – for Doctor’s degree.

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Help, text messages, Facebook are killing language!
By Cosmas Omegoh

September 7, 2011—English Language experts in the country are worried that advancements in communication technologies are changing the complexion of the language for the worse. They are emphatic that the Internet, social network systems, Global Systems for Mobile Communication (GSM) and allied innovations are affecting the teaching and learning of the language. According to them, these new technologies are providing platforms for the wrong use of the language. Students and the society, they say, are being negatively influenced by them.

Mrs. Adeniyi, Head of the Department of English Language at Amuwo-Odofin Junior High School, Mile 2, Lagos laments that students nowadays no longer pay the right attention to English Language instruction. Despite efforts being made to help them develop proficiency in it, their writings are being heavily influenced by the short message services (sms), otherwise known as text messages that they send and receive with their phones and on facebook. She warns that the trend might have telling consequences in future.

“We have a big problem on our hands these days” she breathes out with a tinge of disappointment. “Our children are increasingly getting uninterested in learning the English Language. They don’t write simple words anymore without a lot of errors. You need to see the kind of essays they write these days. They no longer care a hoot about it.”

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Over 600,000 fail English as WAEC releases results

LAGOS, August 11, 2011—The West African Examinations Council (WAEC), on Wednesday, released the results of the 2011 Senior School Certificate Examinations (SSCE), with over 600,000 failing English Language, out of the total 1,460,003 results released.

Also, about 80,247 candidates who wrote the May/June examinations had their results eing processed due to various errors and omissions, while 81,573 candidates had their results withheld for alleged malpractices.

The Head of National Office of the WAEC, Dr Iyi Uwadiae, said this at a news conference in Abeokuta, Ogun State, on Wednesday.

According to him, out of about 1,540,250 candidates who wrote the examination, about 600,000, representing 37 per cent, obtained credit in Mathematics, while over 800,000, representing about 54 per cent, obtained credit in English Language.

Uwadiae said the candidates whose results were withheld were found to be involved in various examination malpractices.

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English anguish

“Our own experience shows,” President Mahinda Rajapaksa told the 9th International Language and Development Conference on Language and Social Cohesion on Monday, “that language can be an instrument of division and conflict.”

He continued that Sri Lanka is trying use language to bind our people together. The government is committed to securing the language rights of all communities and to transforming the country into a trilingual society, and English was to be used as a link language.

What President’s words entail is the conversion of a multilingual society made up of essentially monolingual communities into one comprised of one multilingual community.

That this is possible is proved by the existence already of multilingual language communities, for instance Bohras, Malays and Sindhis—who, in addition to their mother tongue, speak English, and the two main languages of this land.

Now, the learning of English in Sri Lanka has been fraught with impediments, not the least of which is that caused by myth.

For example, the language policy of 1956 has been blamed for the alleged decline in English knowledge. The truth is that, at that time only five percent of the population were proficient in English, the then official language, whereas the figure was 13 percent two decades later.

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India awards 40 scholarships to English teachers of Sri Lanka

COLOMBO, September 13, 2011—The governments of India and Sri Lanka today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to set up a three-tier English language training system in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka’s Minister of Education Bandula Gunawardena, on behalf of Government of Sri Lanka, and High Commissioner of India Ashok K. Kantha, on behalf of Government of India, signed the MoU today.

According to a press statement from the High commission of India in Colombo, the MoU will implement a project entitled “India-Sri Lanka Project for Expanding English Language Training in Sri Lanka.”

The Government of India will utilize the services of English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) in Hyderabad as the technical consultant for this Project.

High Commissioner Kantha and Minister Gunawardena distributed the ITEC scholarship and travel documents to 40 master trainers who would be traveling for three month training programme to EFLU, on 18 September, 2011.

As part of the technical assistance under the MOU, India will provide training to 40 Sri Lankan teachers at EFLU under the ITEC programme…

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NDB Bank helps develop English language teacher skills

September 3, 2011—NDB Bank joined hands with the British Council to launch an initiative that will improve the teaching skills and knowledge of secondary English language teachers in Sri Lanka.

The official agreement was signed between Russell de Mel, CEO of NDB Bank and Tony Reilly, Country Director of British Council.

The project aims to support one of NDB Bank’s strategic CSR initiatives in Education through a Secondary English Teaching Improvement.

Training and related services comprise of a teacher training course in the Secondary English language, consisting of 20 topic-based modules on key class room issues for select Secondary English language teachers teaching 11 to 18 year old students of Government Schools in the North Western Province. The teachers will be trained in up-to-date learner-centred, activity based methodology.

Each module will be assessed independently and upon the completion of all 20 modules the participants will be awarded a British Council Certificate in Secondary English Language Teaching at the end of the course.

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Skills for Life to promote Cambridge English Language qualifications

August 14, 2011—The University of Cambridge ESOL Sri Lanka office and Skills for Life (Pvt) Ltd, an authorized centre for the University of Cambridge English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) examinations, recently concluded two awareness programmes in Colombo and Kandy. The session in Colombo was directed towards corporate and educational establishments of both the public and private sectors. The successive event in the hill capital, Kandy was graced by Sarath Ekanayake, Chief Minister of the Central Province and officials of the Provincial Ministry of Education, Department of Education, Principals and teachers of schools in the Central Province.

A speaker from the University of Cambridge enlightened the audiences of Colombo and Kandy on the importance and relevance of University of Cambridge English Language qualifications, especially for candidates whose native language is not English. The speaker also emphasized on the international recognition placed on these qualifications and why they should be taken up in a country such as Sri Lanka.

Skills for Life is an organization that provides well researched, widely accepted curricula in key skill areas that have become training priorities today. The courses on offer not only assist in training new entrants to the workforce but are also aimed at nurturing young talent from early childhood…

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Why Americans no longer say what they mean in plain English
By Lara Marlowe, The Irish Times

IRELAND, June 25, 2011—In the preface to Pygmalion , George Bernard Shaw famously wrote that every time an Englishman opens his mouth he makes another Englishman despise him.

This is less true in America, where social mobility and democracy have blunted linguistic markers, while in politics there’s a premium on imaginative language that makes an apathetic public sit up and take notice.

But Democrats are handicapped by their split electorate, explains Timothy Meagher, a fourth generation Irish-American and professor of history at Catholic University. Republicans tend to be white and working or middle class, while Democrats encompass the poor, ethnic minorities and Americans with university degrees.

“The language that appeals to educated Democrats is more formal, more academic,” says Meagher. “College professors love Obama, because his language is beautifully crafted. But other groups can find it alienating.”

Race further complicates Obama’s linguistic choices. In his efforts to be a “regular guy”, the president calls people “folks” and drops his ‘g’s. “If he indulges too much in colloquial English, it sounds like black argot,” says Meagher.

“It’s easier for white politicians to descend into folksiness.” Obama’s intelligence and Ivy League education can be a political weakness that make him appear distant and cold, Meagher explains. “Dropping his ‘g’s can seem hip and cool to blacks and young whites, but older whites, and especially middle-class whites, may hear language that conjures up images of poor blacks. Do white Americans see someone like them, or someone who crosses a boundary? He’s boxed in by American stereotypes.”

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Hungary wants to dump English for being too easy to learn
By Gergo Racz, Wall Street Journal (blog)

August 18, 2011—Hungary’s government wants to dethrone English as the most common foreign language taught in Hungarian schools. The reason: It’s just too easy to learn.

“It is fortunate if the first foreign language learned is not English. The initial, very quick and spectacular successes of English learning may evoke the false image in students that learning any foreign language is that simple,” reads a draft bill obtained by news website Origo.hu that would amend Hungary’s education laws.

Instead, the ministry department in charge of education would prefer if students “chose languages with a fixed, structured grammatical system, the learning of which presents a balanced workload, such as neo-Latin languages.”

Besides giving a deceptive sense of achievement, English learning also makes acquiring other languages more difficult, the ministry argues. Reversing the order, on the other hand, makes learning English essentially effortless, it added.

“If someone is earlier taught another language, they’ll hardly notice that they can learn English alongside. This is because unfortunately, we use exclusively English words when talking about computers, international music and molecular biology,” Deputy State Secretary Laszlo Dux said in a radio interview on state radio station MR1 Kossuth.

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UN peacekeeping: Over 600 police officers fail in English language test
By Mohammad Asghar, The Dawn

ISLAMABAD, October 26, 2011—More than 600 police officers were disqualified in the English language capacity test conducted by the United Nations Selection Assistance Team for deployment in peacekeeping missions here on Wednesday, it has been learnt.

A total 1,213 applicants, including 120 females, from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), motorway police and regular police of the four provinces ranking from head constable to superintendent appeared in the test which started at the Police Lines Headquarters in Islamabad on Tuesday.

The four-member UN team conducting the test comprised Ms. Victoria, Mr. Eyas, Ms. Francis and Mr. Murat. Two of the team members are from Ghana, one each from Turkey and Jordan.

During the first day of the test on Tuesday, nearly 300 applicants were disqualified in the English reading test, while their number rose to over 600 on Wednesday as they could not qualify the English language listening and report-writing test.

One of the applicants, who is associated with the Rawalpindi district police said: “Today`s English listening and report writing test was very difficult during which majority of the applicants could not qualify.”

Deputy Superintendent of Police Rawalpindi Iqbal Kazmi, who was one of the applicants, said: “It is an opportunity for the police officers to learn and also a game of luck. It would be a new experience to be deployed with the UN peacekeeping missions.”

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Aman Ki Asha: “I really like the Pakistani people, would love to return”
By Lubna Khalid, TheNews.com.pk

October 26, 2011—“India and Pakistan have a lot in common, we even have the same issues with regards to children, women’s rights, education and so many other things,” comments T. K. Arunachalam, the Indian educationist who was in Karachi recently for a teacher training conference.

“We need to build on common grounds. I think increased people-to-people contact between the two countries will go a long way towards dispelling misunderstandings,” adds the soft spoken, down-to-earth, straightforward head of a South Asian programme to promote English language teaching (ELT).

He is the Regional Manager of the University of Cambridge English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Examinations, a department of the University of Cambridge and world leader in English language assessments.

We caught up with him in Karachi on the fringes of the 27th Annual International Conference of the Society of Pakistan English Language Teachers (SPELT). Hailing from Chennai (previously Madras), T.K. Arunachalm oversees University of Cambridge’s operations in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

His forte — and passion — is promoting English language initiatives for educational institutions, while reaching out to adults who have had little or no opportunity to learn English…

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“English belongs to no one, and everyone”

KARACHI, October 17, 2011—The 27th annual international conference of the Society for the Promotion of English Language Teaching (SPELT) ended on Sunday at the Habib Public School complex after three days of very productive talks and lectures on modern trends in the teaching of English and the changing global perspective of the language.

Lectures were delivered and multimedia presentation made by both local and international experts on the subject.

Day three of the conference began with a very informative lecture, accompanied by slide presentations, titled, “Pakistani English revisited”, by noted expert on linguistics Dr. Tariq Rehman of the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore.

Dr Rehman acquainted the participants with the various non-native English speaking brands of the language and explained the historical development of expressions of various cultures and ethnic groups that had come to be transfused into English and the historical factors that prompted the development. He also highlighted certain differences between the native and non-native brands of the language that had come about on account of the sexual and social taboos existing in countries of non-native English speakers.

The crux of his talk was that “we’d have to shed this trend of trying to copy American or British accents”. English, he said, today is a global language and as such all groups are well within their right to have their own accents and their own expressions…

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Pakistan’s madrasa reform “stalls”

October 11, 2011—A majority of Pakistanis are in favour of English language teaching being introduced into the country's madrasa schools, according to a recent survey carried out by Gallup Pakistan. The nationwide poll indicates that 59% of Pakistanis want the language to be taught as part of the schools’ traditional Islamic curriculum, with 31% of respondents against.

But a government campaign to combat Islamic extremism that is seeking to bring madrasas under closer state control and to broaden the range of subjects they teach is unlikely to deliver effective change, critics say.

While madrasas came to be characterised in the west as a breeding ground for Islamic terrorism post 9/11, a decade on the US and other major aid donors say that reversing poor standards of education across Pakistan's school system, and not just in madrasas, will have the most direct impact on inequality and social conditions that give rise to extremism.

However, attempts to improve the quality of teaching in madrasas appear to have stalled. The religious affairs ministry claims there are over 18,000 registered madrasas in Pakistan. But observers estimate that the actual number of schools could be as a high as 30,000.

According to the International Centre for Religion and Diplomacy, the US-based conflict-resolution charity, only 10% of madrasas complied with the government’s voluntary registration programme launched in 2002.

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Conference on English language teaching held in Pakistan

KARACHI, October 14, 2011—The Society of Pakistan English Language Teachers (SPELT), in collaboration with Habib Public School (HPS) and Oxford University Press on Friday held its 27th International Conference entitled ‘English Language Teaching: Building Bridges’ at HPS Gymnasium.

This conference was aimed at enhancing teachers’ professional skills, bringing professional development and fostering connections between teachers at local and international levels.

University of Karachi (KU)’s Husein Ebrahim Jamal Research Institute of Chemistry director Prof Dr Muhammad Iqbal Chaudhery was the chief guest.

Speaking on the occasion, the chief guest said that the SPELT was doing wonderful job by connecting Pakistani people with the international community. He said that English language is a tool by which one could acquire knowledge, education and communicate with international community.

He said that it built bridges among people. He continued that Pakistan was the sixth most populous country of the world in which 40 to 50 million children went to school and for these students there were just half a million teachers available.

He emphasised the need of training for the teachers and suggested to use satellite and video conferences for it.

HPS CEO Almas Bana said that they were proud to be the host of the conference. He elaborated that HPS was a non-profitable organisation, providing quality education since its inception.

Oxford University Press MD Ameena Saiyid said in her inaugural speech that the SPELT was providing an opportunity for exchange and generating of new and viable ideas.

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English language teaching in Pakistan
By Taimoor Khan, The Dawn

KARACHI, October 4, 2011—The greatest claim that English language has to its fame across the globe is its adaptability and versatility.

The practicality of the English language opens innumerable prospects in the social and financial world. Regrettably, the way English language is taught leaves barely any ground for learners to properly incorporate this language in their daily communication.

The major source of learning English in Pakistan is our school classrooms where, ironically, teaching amounts to nothing more than boring English spelling drills, some formal grammatical constructions, and precise definitions for an endless array of words which make the subject appear desolate.

Injustice done to teaching of English language in Pakistani classrooms on account of the archaic methods adopted to teach it appeals for a thorough overhaul and a dire need to introduce the concept of ‘Applied English’ which stands for teaching of English with examples from real life.

Students tend to develop anxiety which results in developing a sense of resentment towards the subject.

There is a lot more to English language teaching than merely slogging at grammar or cramming vocabulary for the sake of learning it. It is taught either as an abstract system (grammar) dealing with de-contextualised meaning or as communication
dealing with contextualised meaning.

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Factbox: Mandarin vs. English

September 20, 2011—Around 840 million people worldwide are native Mandarin speakers, while a further 180 million or so speak it as a second language, making it the world's most widely-spoken tongue.

By comparison, 340 million people are native English speakers, although some 510 million or so people have learned it as a second language.

Mandarin, or Putonghua, is China’s standard language, spoken across the country.

The English word “Mandarin” derives from the Sanskrit Mantrin meaning “minister” and originally referred to officials of the Chinese empire. Jesuit missionaries started calling the language “Mandarin” because it was the language that officials spoke.

In 1956, the Communist Party decreed that all education should be conducted in Mandarin and today around 70 per cent of China speaks the language, with a diminishing minority still speaking local dialects such as Cantonese, Shanghainese or Tibetan.

As well as being the official spoken language of China and Taiwan, Mandarin is one of four official languages in Singapore, and is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

Mandarin lessons to become compulsory in Pakistan 20 Sep 2011

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Chinese language gaining ground in the world
By Sabir Shah, TheNews.com.pk

LAHORE, September 6, 2011—Although the government of Sindh province has decided to make the Standard Chinese language a compulsory subject from class six onwards in all schools with effect from 2013, the decision still seems to be a belated one if one takes into account the fact that the world’s largest exporter and second top most importers of goods formally overtook Japan in February 2011 to become the world’s second-largest economy with a nominal GDP of $5.88 trillion.

A BBC report of August 9, 2011 had summed up the “global Pied Piper” China’s unmatched economic prowess more than adequately: “After stagnating for more decades under the rigid rule of Communist leader Mao Tse-Tung, China now has the world’s fastest-growing economy and is undergoing what has been described as a second industrial revolution. Nowadays China is one of the world’s top exporters and is attracting record amounts of foreign investment. In turn, it is investing billions of dollars abroad. The collapse in international export markets that accompanied the global financial crisis of 2009 initially hit China hard, but its economy was among the first in the world to rebound, quickly returning to growth.” A research carried out by The News International shows that there are nearly 510 million Chinese-speaking people using the internet currently—-the second most after those who talk in English.

Mandarin is the most widely spoken language on earth as over 1.372 billion humans residing on the planet express themselves in this lingo.

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Learning inglês by Internet
By Martha Gill, FinancialTimes.com (blog)

September 9, 2011—As Brazilians warm up to hosting the 2016 Olympics and the 2014 World Cup, practising their stretches and squat-thrusts, they have suddenly begun to worry about their English.

This anxiety is pushing up a booming market for English language tuition in Brazil, which has grown as the economy develops and becomes more globalised. And as Brazilians look for ways to brush up their language skills, one Brazilian company is looking to the US to help fill the gap.

Abril Educação (ABRE11:SAO), a Brazilian educational company, this week paid $2m to acquire a 5.9 per cent stake in Livemocha, a Seattle-based company that bills itself as “the world’s largest online language learning community”.

The partnership would use the web to bring together Brazilian students with US-based teachers. The BM&FBovespa-listed Abril Educação had a revenue of R$510m in 2010, according companies figures from Bloomberg, and is controlled by Brazilian media corporation Grupo Abril. It sells textbooks, and serves approximately 30m Brazilian students. Livemocha, on the other hand, is a privately owned company which sets up language lessons via video-link. It currently has 11m members – 250,000 of whom are English teachers.

“There is an increasing awareness in Brazil of the importance of learning English, especially in anticipation of the World Cup,” Manoel Amorim, Abril Educação’s chief executive told beyondbrics…

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TESOL research conference slated as QNCC’s inaugural event

September 18, 2011—The Qatar National Convention Centre will host its inaugural event October 1-3: the TESOL International Association’s “Putting Research into Practice” conference. The three-day conference gathers experts from around the region and across the world to focus on key areas of applied research in the field of English language teaching.

The conference is organized by Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL) in collaboration with university partners in Qatar, Qatar TESOL, TESOL Arabia and other TESOL affiliates in the region.

“Increased English language proficiency is a strategic goal for Qatar and many countries around the world today. Learning English should not mean losing Arabic, however, and figuring out how to do this in the best way possible requires extensive research,” said conference chair Dudley Reynolds, Ph.D, Teaching Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and a member of the Board of Directors for the TESOL International Association.

Reynolds continued, “At Carnegie Mellon we feel it is extremely important to the success of our university and Education City that our teachers understand why certain teaching practices work in some situations and different practices work in others.”

Research projects undertaken by Carnegie Mellon faculty have provided opportunities to learn about good practices that enhance students' literacy development.

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English language schools warned against aggressive price cutting
By Patrick Cooke, TimesofMalta.com

September 28, 2011—Local English language teaching organisations were cautioned against aggressive pricing strategies at the presentation of the industry’s first benchmarking survey yesterday.

The Federation of English Language Teaching Organisations Malta (Feltom) survey, supported by APS Bank, was carried out by Deloitte and covers 2010.

It will bring “real benefits” to the industry, Deloitte financial advisory leader Raphael Aloisio told stakeholders in his presentation at the Radission Blu Resort in St Julians, as it will help schools to compare their own performances with that of the industry as a whole, enabling them to take timely corrective actions where necessary.

The report highlighted the consequences for the industry of the sharp decline in student arrivals from the peak in 2008. Although student arrivals increased 6.5 per cent last year to 72,695 students, the figures remained 15.4 per cent below the 83,288 students who came in 2008.

In an attempt to boost student arrivals, schools lowered tuition prices, resulting in total school tuition revenue last year being 4.6 per cent below 2009 and 10.6 per cent below 2008.

Reduced student volumes and lower pricing levels also forced schools to cut back significantly on their staffing costs and other expenditure by close to 20 per cent from 2008 levels.

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Language advantage
By Tony Liaw, TheStandard.com.hk

October 3, 2011—For Ng Kam-lun, operating a tutoring school may appear to be the logical outcome of a life immersed in education. After all, the early part of his career was spent as an English-language teacher in a public school and - more importantly - as a tutor.

Ng started his own cram school in 1988, calling it Intel Education. Today, it has morphed and evolved into publicly-listed Modern Education (1082).

In the process, Ng has acquired almost legendary status in local educational circles, with many secondary- school students addressing him as “Ken Sir” and legions more investing his name with a hope for academic competence that can so easily be lost in the thicket of Hong Kong's modern education system.

Having built up a recognizable name in tutoring tens of thousands of mostly secondary students, the company has diversified into skills and test preparation courses. In January last year, Modern Education entered the mainland market and Ng is eager to make his mark.

For him, operating a school is about giving students “all the support they need,” while a business is “a totally different story.”

In the first couple of years of opening up his cram school, it was no different from other such centers, which trumpet the high grades of their students as a selling point.

To make it stand out, Ng decided to turn tutors into stars by packaging them in unheard-of ways. “Of course, teachers have to be knowledgeable. But turning them into stars can encourage students to work harder. Teachers can also serve as role models."

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Asian languages in demand at Zayed University

October 9, 2011—While English remains the dominant language people learn in addition to their mother tongue, an ever-increasing number of students are learning Asian languages.

A survey at Zayed University (ZU) showed Korean and Chinese as the most desired languages to learn. Asian languages look more appealing to ZU students this academic year than it was last year, said Christopher Brown, founding director of International Language at ZU. More than 600 students expressed interest in Asian languages this year, a sharp increase from last year.

ZU founded the International College in 2009 with two major institutes established with a focus on Asian studies. The King Sejong (Korean) and Confucius Institutes (Chinese) began a diverse programme of language training and cultural awareness programmes to promote languages and cultural exchanges.

When asked about the reason for the focus on Asian languages, Brown told Gulf News, “The rise of South Korea, China and Japan, along with the strengthening relation between the UAE and these nations, are good reasons for ZU to help prepare the Emirati work force for their interaction with these countries.”

“Giving the young people of the UAE a chance to learn about Asia will help them to distinguish themselves in a competitive job market,” added Brown.
"Learning a new language is hard work but it is worth the effort as it's a discriminator in a competitive job market," said student Mariam Al Tamimi, 20.

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Call to make Arabic the language of instruction
By Iman Sherif, GulfNews.com

ABU DHABI, October 4, 2011: The dominance of English language on almost every aspect is non debatable. It has become the international communication language for commerce, banking, internet, travel and politics.

The widespread use of English, however, introduces a cultural challenge — how to propel the UAE as a leader in the global market, and at the same time, retain the Arabic identity when the majority of the younger generation refuses to communicate in their mother tongue.

“English is the language of globalisation and international communication. Therefore, we need to have our students reach proficiency,” said Fatima Badry, professor at the American University of Sharjah.

So, schools educate in English, and parents speak with their children in English to help them prepare for a competitive world. Arabic is reserved for traditional studies such Arabic literature or Islamic studies.

In doing so, we are downgrading Arabic in the eyes of our children who become apprehensive of using it and focus instead on the language that will help them integrate in the workplace or society,” she added.

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Unique fair at 300 high schools

October 4, 2011—The Daily Star and Robi will hold English Language Fair in 300 high schools across the country from October 12 to inspire students to improve their proficiency in English.

The fair will start from a well-known school in the capital under English in Schools (EIS) initiative of The Daily Star and Robi, and will be gradually held in other schools till April next year.

The fair will also cover students of 700 more schools that are under the EIS programme.

Two world famous films—Alice in Wonderland and Lion King—willbe screened at the daylong fair.

Besides, students will take part in spot quiz on vocabulary, one word question, extempore speech, etiquette test, and competition for describing pictures. Prizes will be handed out to the winners at the fair.

The announcement came at a meet the press in a city hotel yesterday.

Michael Kuehner, managing director and CEO of Robi Axiata Ltd, Mahfuz Anam, editor and publisher of The Daily Star, Prof Shafiqur Rahman, director of Secondary Education of Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, Segufta Y Samad, vice president of Robi and Mahmudur Rahman, executive vice president of Robi, spoke there.

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French language website creates list of English words it wants to ban
By Lee Moran, DailyMail.co.uk

October 12, 2011—As custodians of the French language, the Académie Française takes its job very seriously.

It has fought against the creeping use of English for decades—asking for certain imports to be replaced with their purer French alternatives.

And now, with the threat of its beloved mother tongue becoming even further diluted, it has taken the radical step of starting to list English words it wants banned from use.

The body has introduced a new section to its website—called “Dire, ne pas dire” (Say, don’t say).

To date only two “anglicisms” have been listed, but the body promises that more will be added over the coming months.

The first is “best of,” which is commonly used across Le Manche (English Channel), with the words joined by a hyphen.

The second word to come under fire is the Franglais construction “impacter,” which the Académie recommends replacing with “affecter.”

The Académie Française was created in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII.

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South Sudan adopts the language of Shakespeare
By Rosie Goldsmith, BBC News

October 8, 2011—The young nation of South Sudan has chosen English as its official language but after decades of civil war, the widespread learning of English presents a big challenge for a country brought up speaking a form of Arabic.

I knew there might be problems as soon as I arrived at Juba International airport—and was asked to fill in my own visa form, as the immigration officer could not write English.

The colourful banners and billboards hung out to celebrate South Sudan's independence back in July, and still adorning the streets now, are all in English. As are the names of the new hotels, shops and restaurants.

After decades of Arabisation and Islamisation by the Khartoum government, the predominantly Christian and African south has opted for English as its official language.

At the Ministry of Higher Education, Edward Mokole, told me: “English will make us different and modern. From now on all our laws, textbooks and official documents have to be written in that language. Schools, the police, retail and the media must all operate in English.”

South Sudan’s education system is very short of resources and most people are illiterate
This was “a good decision for South Sudan,” he added forcefully, rather playing down the fact that there are very few fluent English speakers in the country.

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