Gagged by language
By Lakambini A. Sitoy, The Manila Times

November 4, 2010—Learning a new language is a humbling experience, to say the least. It is as if someone had swung a plank first at one shin, then the other, bound your arms behind your back, thrown sand in your eyes, stuffed a rag in your mouth. Blinded, muzzled, crippled, you must progress nonetheless. For someone who has spent a lifetime working with words, indeed never been at a loss for them, it is psychologically disabling. In this position, I found myself as dependent on my language teacher as if I had been a child. This man, only a year older than myself, a smoker and a rabid football fan, someone so like my male friends back in the old life, but a type of Dane to which I didn’t have social access . . . I hung onto his every word. He was a good person: he knew when a student was ready to fold, and no one ever shed tears of humiliation in his class. But he employed a strategy of needling students to get them to talk, setting up opposition to our every word. For we too-readily admitted defeat, clinging to the security of silence as timid kids will hang on to a swimming pool gutter.

Yet, under interrogation, to suddenly find the words to answer back . . . ! This was exhilarating, like striking out on our own into cold green water, the teacher taking step after step back, arms extended, encouraging us to go farther, ready to catch us if we drowned.

Full story...

The power of language and culture in our children’s education
By Donna Nevel, Huffingtonpost.com

The value and importance of integrating our children’s languages and cultures into their education deserves greater recognition. This is particularly true in the context of today’s increasing emphasis, locally and nationally, on standardized testing and on students becoming numbers rather than individuals who are part of families and communities.

Dual Language programs, a form of bilingual education, are one of the ways to preserve and honor students' languages and cultural identities. Such programs are more important today, not only because of the challenges we face in public education, but, also, given current realities of increased xenophobia, the push for “English only” in Arizona and elsewhere, and attempts to deny immigrant communities basic human and civil rights.

The power and importance of language is understood by both proponents and opponents of bilingual education. It is no accident that when societies, including our own, have tried to colonize or destroy its indigenous communities, one of the first things they have done was forbid the use of their native languages. And if we look at the rhetoric of the English-only movement in this country, we can see it has not only been about opposition to other languages, but also reflects contempt for the immigrant communities speaking those languages.

My children attended a Spanish Dual Language program, one of over 60 Dual Language programs in New York City. Dual Language programs are designed for students to become bi-cultural and bi-literate. Learning and a love of learning flourished in my children's classrooms. In addition to the benefit of learning two languages, children literally stood taller when their parents walked into the room because a deep respect for all children’s languages, cultures, and families was integrated at the program’s core.

Full story...

My bright idea: English is on the up but one day will die out
By Robert McCrum, The Observer

October 31, 2010—In the contentious and overcrowded world of English language studies, Nicholas Ostler stands out as an original analyst of a subject that usually generates more heat than light. Ostler’s Empires of the Word (2005) was a critically acclaimed history of the world’s languages based on his deep knowledge of linguistic theory and a familiarity with around 26 languages.

In his new book, The Last Lingua Franca (Allen Lane), he brings a wide-ranging linguistic perspective to bear on the role and future of global English. His provocative conclusion—that English is likely to go the way of Persian, Sanskrit and Latin and, over many hundreds of years, inevitably die out—will bring hope to the French and dismay to many American linguistic patriots.

Ostler is the chairman of the Foundation for Endangered Languages, a non-profit organization that exists to support, enable and assist the documentation, protection and promotion of endangered languages. He lives in Bath.

Can you express the central theme of your book in a nutshell?

English is on an up at the moment, an up that is probably unprecedented in world history. But world history is full of languages that have dominated for a time, yet there aren’t too many of them around now. So the essential idea is to see what happened to them and see if this could possibly be relevant to the situation of English, which is the world’s lingua franca today.

Full story...

Launching into the English medium through an integrative approach
By Rohana R.Wasala, Island.lk

November 4, 2010—For Sri Lankans, English is mainly important in the three areas of education, employment, and international communication. Here we are concerned with education. In addition to being a lingua franca in the job market and in the field of global communication, it is a subject on the school curriculum and it has great potential as a vehicle of education. In a mother tongue medium class, for part of the time, a particular subject may be taught in English to students who need to learn it as a second language, making English an explicit medium of instruction but an implicit object of study. Though, in such a context, the students’ focus is on understanding the content of the lesson, this indirectly helps their mastery of the language. The students can also use the strategy (of integrating the study of English into subject instruction) for self-access work outside the classroom.

Education is essentially the acquisition of factual knowledge, practical skills, and good moral and ethical standards, all of which are useful for participating in the life of one’s community in such a way that one contributes towards promoting the welfare of everyone, thereby improving the chances for happiness for all. Animals also undergo a process of education that is essential for ensuring their survival; but it is a very rudimentary sort of education, and is governed entirely by instinct. In the case of humans, education is an intellectual process almost entirely mediated by language.

To be described as truly educated or cultured, a person must have passed through three basic phases of intellectual development: learning, knowledge, and wisdom.

Full story...

Aussie English and proper English
By Patrick Cox, TheWorld.org

Not that Australian English isn’t proper…

English is so widely and variously spoken that it barely can be called a single language. That hasn’t stopped grammar stickler Simon Heffer from trying to re-establish order. The man is seriously old school, and he doesn’t like what any of Britain’s new schools are teaching –or failing to teach — about English usage. We take a trip with Heffer to a school in Suffolk, where he makes the case for his version of correct English: the difference, for example, between “I will” and “I shall.” Heffer doesn’t like it when English speakers get in a muddle over foreign terms. The Italian term panini, meaning sandwiches, has essentially become an English word. Most of us either don’t know or don’t worry that panini is plural. Heffer, though, does. If he’s buying just one sandwich, he will insist on asking for a panino.

No one’s going to arrest him for that.

Heffer, of course, is far from alone in trying to control our use of the language, before it descends into hellish and unseemly chaos, no doubt taking us with it. In the eighteenth century, English bishop Robert Lowth tried something far more proactive: he laid out a set of grammar rules for English that were, essentially, borrowed from Latin. To that end, he criticized the likes of Shakespeare, Donne and Milton for their “false syntax”.

Full story...

It need not be fluent but to know English helps
By Woo Thim Weng, The Star

October 18, 2010—I have to disagree with the writer of the letter “Make BM a world-class language” (The Star, Oct 17) on some of his views.

I have no qualms with Bahasa Malaysia as the national language and consider myself well-versed in it. I use the language to communicate with my colleagues daily even though Bahasa Malaysia is not my mother tongue.

English is not only used in England, America and Australia. It is the international language.

I work in a MNC and can tell you that it is not necessary to have an excellent command of the English language as the native speakers. There is no need to speak the Queen’s English to communicate effectively with my counterparts in any part of the world.

Even the Germans use English to reply my emails and I understand them perfectly well.

When it comes to education, we have to look at the big picture. Today, most of the students want to further their studies. When a student gets into tertiary education, the medium of instruction, especially in universities abroad, is English.

Full story...

African languages are cool, ok?
By Thandeka Mapi, Mail & Guardian online

October 15, 2010—There is a crisis in African languages, particularly at school level, that everyone concerned—language experts, academics and the government—will have to address.   

I say this after having spent time with learners at Grahamstown schools, who spoke to me about the role of African languages in learning, teaching and socialisation.

The learners are at two township government schools (Mrwetyana High and Nombulelo High), an English-medium private school (Kings-wood High) and a dual-medium (English and Afrikaans) public school (Mary Waters High). They said they did not speak English as fluently and confidently as they would like to. It was clear that all felt it was important to speak and understand English better, both to be accepted socially and to have better employment opportunities. In other words, they viewed English as the language.

“If you speak English well, people respect you. But if you speak isi-Xhosa, it does not matter how well you speak it, no one looks at you differently,” said Sanelisiwe Njongo.

She might have been expressing a personal view but this does seem to be how most young black South Africans think and feel about their mother tongues. One gets the impression that most of them just cannot wait to finish high school, where these “boring” (African) languages are stuffed down their throats.

Full story...