House of Representatives moves to increase pay of public school teachers

MANILA, March 1, 2011 (PNA)—The move to increase the salary of public school teachers to address the brain drain in the field of education is gaining ground at the House of Representatives as another lawmaker filed a bill upgrading the minimum salary grade level of public school teachers in elementary and secondary levels -- from Salary Grade 11 to Salary Grade 15 -- to encourage highly qualified teachers to stay in the country.

"We want to encourage all government teachers to stay in the country, give what’s due them, and not push them to seek better pay and working conditions overseas," said ACT Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio in filing House Bill 2142.

Tinio cited Republic Act No. 4670 or the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers, which sets the criteria for salaries of public school mentors to make these at par with those in other occupations requiring equivalent qualifications, training and abilities.

He said the current pay scheme for teachers is not competitive with most other positions in government.

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State of Philippine media reviewed 25 years after EDSA revolution

February 3, 2011 (GMANews)—Twenty-five years after EDSA 1, what is the state of Philippine media?

This is the question posed by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, in a roundtable discussion on Thursday jointly held with the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication in celebrating the college’s 46th Foundation Week from March 1 to 4.

Guest speakers were four seasoned journalists: Business World chairman Vergel Santos, former dean of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication Luis Teodoro, managing editor Melo Acuna of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ media office, and NUJP vice chairman Nonoy Espina.

Addressing an audience of students, mostly taking up Journalism, the speakers shared their insights and analysis on the state of the country's media profession and industry since the 1986 EDSA People Power uprising.

"It is definitely more difficult to practice the profession today than any other time in the past," began Santos, who said things were not as complex in the past.

"Noong araw mahihiwalay mo yung [In the past, you could separate] economics from politics, politics from sociology, and sociology from the other disciplines. Now we presume to know better. Hindi ka pwedeng pumasok sa media na walang [You can’t join media without a] certain level of understanding of these things," said Santos.

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Workers get to whet English skills before going abroad
By Frinston Lim, Inquirer Mindanao

TAGUM CITY, February 26, 2011—Butchers and electricians trained by the city government for jobs in Australia and Canada are being given an additional edge to beat competition: Enhanced oral and written skills in English.

For at least eight Saturdays, graduates of the city’s various community-based skills training will undergo module-based lectures on basic English to help improve their listening, speaking and writing abilities prior to their deployment abroad, according to Darwin Suyat, head of the city’s special programs division.

In partnership with the Department of Education, Technical Skills Development Authority (Tesda) and the University of Mindanao-Tagum College, the city government on Feb. 5 launched its Skilled Workers English Enhancement Program (Sweep) to boost the global competitiveness of its future overseas workers, Suyat says.

“We want to equip our local workers not only the hands-on skills related to their respective fields but also the basic ability to communicate using the language of their employers and their workplace,” he tells the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

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Education department steps up foreign-language program

MANILA, February 23, 2011—Soon, public high-school graduates would be greeting their teachers a hearty “good morning”—in six languages.

The Department of Education (DepEd) is stepping up its foreign-language program in the coming school year, adding two widely spoken Asian languages to a list that already includes Spanish, French, Japanese and German.

Arabic and Mandarin, both emerging business languages, will be introduced to select classes in public high schools, DepEd said Wednesday.

This is in addition to basic classes in Spanish, Japanese and French, which all debuted in DepEd schools in school year 2009-2010, and German classes that started in the current school year.

“Studies have shown that facility in just one foreign language is now perceived as a disadvantage in a global market that is culturally and linguistically diverse,” said Lolita Andrada, DepEd Bureau of Secondary Education chief.

DepEd's foreign language classes are taught in 3rd and 4th year high school classes with speech laboratories and where students are already proficient in English. English has long been traditionally taught in Philippine schools.

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Educators strive to make farming more appealing to the youth

MANILA, February 20, 2011—At a time when college students would rather become nurses, chefs and seafarers, the Commission on Higher Education and the antipoverty NGO Gawad Kalinga have partnered to give agriculture a makeover and attract more students to the rather unpopular course.

The CHEd and GK on Friday launched the Agricultural Productivity Enhancement Project, a five-year program that aims to establish “village universities” as the new breeding ground for agri-entrepreneurs and empower communities through additional income generation.

The project will “establish a model agri-ecological tourism farm that will showcase appropriate and viable agricultural technologies” and also provide a livelihood for family beneficiaries, the CHEd and GK said in an agreement signed Friday.

In essence, the project hopes for students to learn by doing—a school experience that “translates classroom theories into real businesses.”

“This agreement with GK, they're trying to make agriculture attractive to students through a certain amount of entrepreneurship. So you work with the land, in agriculture, but you develop a business,” CHEd chair Pat Licuanan told the Inquirer.

“Students will be studying and earning, because they'll be doing things in the field that are earning them money,” she said.

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Philippines lost 24,502 scientists, technology workers in 2009 alone, report says

MANILA, February 14, 2011—The country’s “brain drain” has worsened with the number of Filipino science and technology (S&T) workers leaving the country to work abroad jumping by 148 percent from 1998 to 2009, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) said.

Leticia V. Catris, DOST-Science Education Institute (SEI) officer in charge and deputy director, said that the preliminary findings of an SEI study on the Migration of S&T workers showed outbound S&T workers in the Philippine increased from 9,877 in 1998 to 24,502 in 2009.

“We need more of our S&T R&D professionals to be here in our country to provide the lifeline of our research and development agenda,” Catris said in a statement.

“Our country currently stands at 165 R&D personnel per million Filipinos, which is way below the UNESCO (United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization) recommendation of 380 needed for economic development. We are optimistic that our S&T professionals will feel the need of our countrymen for R&D outputs that could, in the end, change their lives,” she added.

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DOLE launches career and work guides for students, jobseekers

MANILA, February 11, 2011 (PNA)—To help address the perennial problem of skills and jobs mismatch, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), through its Bureau of Local Employment (BLE), launched recently two guides on planning for a career and preparing for employment both for high school (HS) and college students who are beginning to seek jobs.

Career Guide for High School Students: Trainer’s Manual is a 40-page, 21 cm. x 27.5 cm perfect-bound printed reference material on bookpaper, printed in black.

Meanwhile, Employment Guide for College Students and Job Seekers: Trainer's Manual is a 31-page, 21 cm x27.5 cm perfect-bound printed reference material on bookpaper, also printed in black.

"The production of the two guides is part of our initiative to address the job mismatch problem. The guides are envisioned to help students and jobseekers aim or study courses which will provide them skills needed by the industry," Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz said.

She said that career and employment guidance, which is one of the three pillars of employment services, together with labor market information and employment facilitation, is a major component of BLE's job search assistance that aims to link jobseekers to employment opportunities.

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Japan rattled over online exam leaks

TOKYO,  February 27, 2011 (AFP)—Japan's elite universities have had their entrance exams – the most important hurdle in any Japanese student's life – compromised by efforts to seek online help during the tests, they admitted Sunday.

Maths and English questions from the entrance examinations for the prestigious Kyoto University were placed on Yahoo! Japan's question-and-answer service web page on Friday and Saturday.

The postings were made under the same user name, "aicezuki", which does not seem to relate to any common Japanese term, and online answers were soon offered for his or her appeal.

A Kyoto University official confirmed that the postings matched questions from their tests.

Other top institutions, including the private Waseda and Keio universities, faced similar problems, Japanese media reported Sunday as the Kyoto incident made front-page headlines.

The top-selling Yomiuri Shimbun suspected that candidates took pictures of questions on their mobile phones and sent them to an outside associate who placed the queries online.

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Worried Japanese teachers fear they lack sufficient training, confidence

TOKYO, February 26, 2011—Come April, English classes will become mandatory for fifth- and sixth-graders, but a 29-year-old elementary school teacher in Tokyo has heard the concerns of her overwhelmed colleagues, especially the older ones, who have neither taught the language nor studied it since their university years decades ago.

Preparing for the English classes is a new burden for teachers. Some believe they must teach detailed rules of grammar and demonstrate proper pronunciation, even though this isn't required.

"Many teachers are considerably repulsed. They feel they can't make mistakes and fear they may speak incorrect English" during the lessons, said the Tokyo teacher, who did not want her name used.

Starting with fiscal 2011, the government will require all elementary schools to introduce compulsory foreign-language lessons — basically English — for fifth- and sixth-graders. All kids in this age group will have at least one lesson per week.

While many parents and other Japanese welcome the government's move to provide English education at an early age, some experts are concerned that most teachers are being forced to venture into uncharted waters with little preparation…

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Learning science, maths in English doesn't make one less patriotic, says former PM

PETALING JAYA, February 28, 2011 (Bernama)—Mastering the English language will not make one less patriotic as English is currently the language of knowledge, says former prime minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.

"This is the reality that we have to face if we want to understand Science and Mathematics for the betterment of our lives, and to build the nation towards becoming a developed nation, we have to understand foreign languages.

"If today, we decide to learn Science and Mathematics in English, it does not mean we are less patriotic," he said in his keynote address at the Biotechnology Forum 2011 titled, "Past Wisdom For Future Direction", at a hotel in Subang Jaya, near here, today.

"Both Science and Mathematics are not static subjects but expanded through time with numerous research and inventions, producing hundreds of research papers which are all in English.

"Without the ability to translate all these new knowledge, the Malays will be left behind in some of the most important fields," Dr Mahathir said.

He said those who understood the subjects and could translate them would not be interested to be translators their entire life, adding science would still progress after their deaths and newer works would need translation.

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English proficiency comes at a cost
By Amelia Naidoo, Gulf News

February 27, 2011—While universities in the UAE and the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research are determined to have its graduates proficient in English, at what price does it come?

Research studies recently conducted by the American University of Sharjah (AUS) and UAE University show that using English as a medium of instruction is a threat to the Arabic language and Arab students' identity.

In a paper titled English in the Arab Gulf published in the Asian Journal of University Education, Dr Khawlah Ahmad from the Department of English at AUS explores the challenges of teaching in English, which is done from the primary school to the tertiary level.

"The language issue is causing a great deal of concern and posing many challenges because the official language of all Arab countries is Arabic. An important matter of concern here is Arab-Islamic identity, which many believe is at stake," Dr Khawlah says.

There is an ongoing debate worldwide on the teaching of English (where English is not the native language) around whether teaching English means teaching the culture that comes with it or including the culture of the students involved, Dr Khawlah adds.

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An innovative scheme is helping primary teachers brush up their language skills
By Dorothy Lepkowska, The Independent UK

March 3, 2011—Linda Gordon's last serious brush with the French language was when she passed her O-level while at school in the 1960s. So to be asked to teach it to her primary class more than 40 years on was a little daunting, to say the least.

"Actually, it was quite scary at first, because I wasn't sure how much I would remember, or even if my recall was correct," she says. "But when the English department was asked to contribute to the teaching of French I knew I had to give it a go, as I had some prior knowledge.

"However, I was lacking in confidence and wanted some reassurance that I was teaching it right."

Ms Gordon, who teaches years 5 and 6 at St Bede's Middle School in Redditch, Worcestershire, is far from alone. As of this year, every key stage 2 pupil is entitled to learn a modern foreign language, yet studies suggest that more than half of staff delivering the subject in primary schools have limited knowledge and skills of the language they are teaching.

In response to the need to prepare teachers to take on this challenge, the University of Worcester has launched a course to "up-skill" those, like Linda Gordon, who already have some knowledge…

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Assessment program improves literacy, numeracy and English skills

IRELAND, February 25, 2011 (PressZoom)—Improvement in English language literacy and numeracy skills is an essential requirement for food businesses within Ireland and the UK. Many staff working in this sector originates from outside the UK—often from countries where English is not widely spoken. Many employees in this sector also left school early, maybe without taking any formal qualifications, and lack confidence in their writing skills. What many companies found a problem with was determining how they could select those individuals within their workforce that lacks skills in literacy and numeracy.

A simple and affordable solution for the assessment and benchmarking of employees in terms of their English language and numeracy skills is Nvolve’s Literacy Assessor program. It allows users to bring together groups of trainees (up to 100 at a time) and assess their English language and numerously skills. The group is presented with a series of questions (covering listening, reading and numeracy) via a single data projector screen and then each individual uses their own unique keypad to answer the questions that are posed to them. This then creates an assessment record which is stored so users can generate benchmark reports at the click of a button.

There are various methods being adopted for increasing productivity of staff and encouraging them in terms of efficiency…

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New Bible updates language; 'booty' falls by wayside
By Bill Chappell, Associated Press

March 2, 2011 (AP)—A pair of Christmas booties. Using the word "booty" to mean "plunder" has become impractical, as other connotations have overtaken its original meaning, religious scholars say.

The Old Testament will have a new look in the next edition of the New American Bible, one of the most popular English-language Bibles. And it'll also have some big changes — in many cases, words like "booty" and "virgin" are removed in the new translation.

Scholars translating from ancient Hebrew and Greek for the new Bible decided that the meaning of those words had shifted in the 40 years since the Old Testament was last updated in the New American Bible.

Here are some of the swaps included in the new Bible:

"booty" is now "spoils of war" — for presumably obvious reasons.
"virgin" becomes "young woman" — especially where the original uses the Hebrew word "almah."
"holocaust" will become "burnt offerings" - scholars say that was closer to the original meaning, before "holocaust" came to be identified with the genocide of World War II.
"cereal"— now co-opted by General Mills and Post, becomes "grain."

Scholars sometimes clashed as they sought to refine the Bible's language…

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Language patterns are a roller-coaster ride during childhood development

February 25, 2011—Why, and when, do we learn to speak the way that we do? Research from North Carolina State University on African-American children presents an unexpected finding: language use can go on a roller-coaster ride during childhood as kids adopt and abandon vernacular language patterns.

“We found that there is a ‘roller-coaster effect,’ featuring an ebb and flow in a child’s use of vernacular English over the course of his or her language development,” says Dr. Walt Wolfram, William C. Friday Distinguished University Professor of English Linguistics at NC State and co-author of several recent papers describing the research. “This was totally unanticipated.”

Vernacular English is defined here as culturally specific speech patterns that are distinct from standard English; in this case, the vernacular is African-American English (AAE).

One implication of the finding involves education, since teachers often advocate teaching standard English early in a childhood education…

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Obama emphasizes importance of education to US global competitiveness

WASHINGTON, February 19, 2011 (AFP)—US President Barack Obama highlighted Saturday the importance of improving the US education system as a means of maintaining America's competitive edge in the modern world.

"Over the next 10 years, nearly half of all new jobs will require education beyond high school, many requiring proficiency in math and science," the president said in his weekly radio address.
"And yet today we've fallen behind in math, science, and graduation rates."

A government study on US school children unveiled last month found that just one in three show proficiency in science in middle school and junior high, while that number drops to one in five of those graduating high school.

And even fewer, between one and two percent, showed a grasp of advanced science, said the National Assessment of Educational Progress, issued by the US Department of Education.

To address this problem, Obama said, his administration has introduced a program called "Race to the Top," which is designed to lifting academic standards.

The government is also making college more affordable and revitalizing community colleges, the president noted.

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Bill calling for English to be official language withdrawn

CHARLESTON, West Virginia, February 22, 2011—A bill to make English the official language of West Virginia was pulled from introduction by House of Delegates leadership for the unique way in which it was presented.

Delegate Woody Ireland, R-Ritchie, has introduced bills annually to make the English language the official language used in the state.

However, Ireland is frustrated that House leadership never allows the bill to come up for debate.

"That bill has been introduced in prior years and never gets any attention," Ireland said.

Ireland feels strongly that something in state code should state that any business conducted in the state needs to be done in the language most commonly spoken here.

So, to make his point this year, Ireland decided to reintroduce the same bill, but this time with a twist - he had the whole thing transcribed in Latin.

His bill still states that English is to be the official language of the state of West Virginia, only this time it reads, "Lingua Anglorum est designata lingua officialis Civitatis Virginiae Occidentalis."

The bill was transcribed from English into Latin by one of the lawyers on the House of Delegates staff.

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New English language radio chat show debuts in France

Saint Blancard, February 27, 2011(PR.com)—The Flattery Show is the first English language radio chat show aired in the south west of France and a flagship Sunday evening programme broadcast on Radio Coteaux in the Gascony region. The show is presented by American Patricia McKinnes and Irishman John Slattery, who take over the airwaves at 5pm and finish at 7pm.

The Flattery Show is a music based programme that includes light-hearted banter and whimsical jokes by the co-hosts. Listeners' views and comments are discussed and there are rotating segments such as "Song of The Week", "Ask a Frenchie," and "Life in the South-West". To keep listeners on their toes, random topics are picked from a big "Bag O Topics."

The Flattery Show, still in its infancy, has received very favourable feedback from listeners and businesses alike. John and Patricia, who launched the project themselves, say that they are enjoying the adventure of producing a groundbreaking radio show, first of its type in France. “Nearly 500,000 Britons, and at least 3 Irish and 3 Americans that we know of in this area, now have a light entertainment radio program in English,” says John. “It's very exciting to create this show and we see this regular broadcast not only as fun entertainment for the expatriates living in France, but also as a bridge between the English speakers and the French.”

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Invest in adolescents' education and training, urges UNICEF

NAIROBI, February 25, 2011—With the majority (88 percent) of the world's 1.2 billion adolescents living in developing countries, investing in their education and training could break entrenched cycles of poverty and inequality, says the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) 2011 State of the World's Children report.

"We need to focus more attention now on reaching adolescents - especially adolescent girls - investing in education, health and other measures to engage them in the process of improving their own lives," Anthony Lake, UNICEF executive director, said in a statement issued at the launch of the report, Adolescence: An Age of Opportunity, on 25 February.

Lake said: "Adolescence is a pivot point - an opportunity to consolidate the gains we have made in early childhood or risk seeing those gains wiped out."

In Nairobi, UNICEF's regional director for eastern and southern Africa, Elhadj As Sy, told IRIN: "Africa has the largest proportion of children, adolescents and young people in the world. Almost half its population is younger than 18 years and almost two-thirds are younger than 25 years.

"As the gap between rich and poor, men and women, urban and rural keeps widening, and inequality generates a 'nothing to lose' generation, paying more attention to adolescents and young people is especially critical for the African nations. ."

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The loss of mother tongue?
By Gothataone Moeng, MmegiOnline

February 25, 2011—"Young people nowadays ke makgoa, they speak English only, if you ask them a question, they respond in English, they don't understand Setswana," says Freddy 'Rra-Lindiwe' Molebatsi.

 Molebatsi is a 79-year-old father of two brought up in Maitengwe who has been a long time resident of Tlokweng.He speaks Setswana with both a sprinkle of South African Tswana accent and a slight Ikalanga accent, the former a result of 27 years spent in South Africa as a construction worker, where he says he first learnt Setswana along with Sotho, Zulu, Venda and Afrikaans. Despite the languages he learnt later in his life, the traces of his formative years in Maitengwe, where he spoke Ikalanga exclusively - "the language I suckled from my mother" - are evident.

Molebatsi shares his concern about young people's predilection - at the expense of indigenous languages - for English with his 68-year-old wife Gertrude Gini 'Mma-Lindiwe' Molebatsi who, originally from Standerton, South Africa, grew up speaking Sotho and  Zulu. Their concern, however, is microcosmic of how the older generation feel about what has been described in some quarters as a crisis of Botswana's mother tongue languages.

Languages spoken in Botswana are estimated at around 23, many of which are under threat of extinction… 

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EU to offer “one-off” English-language-only entrance exam to attract more British

BRUSSELS, February 21, 2011—In a bid to attract more bright British candidates to apply for jobs in European Union institutions, officials in Brussels are considering an unusual step by offering a special 'one-off', English language only entrance examination.

Last week the European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, lamented the shrinking number of Brits putting in applications to work in Brussels.

The 54-year-old Portuguese, who has been in charge since 2004, called the figure 'shockingly low' and believes that the main reason is because many top candidates are not proficient in any other language than their mother tongue.

Barroso has spoken with Prime Minister David Cameron and his Foreign Secretary, William Hague, about the problem, and they all agree that in order to boost numbers again, this 'one-off' English language exam is the answer.

“It's one of the options,” said one aide to Barroso, according to the Financial Times. “There is clearly a specific problem with the UK and it seems that language is the real issue.”

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Education minister urges stronger emphasis on English-language education

MUMBAI, February 22, 2011—Notwithstanding the ‘Me Marathi’ agenda raked by Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navniman Sena (MNS), the state has received 5,000 proposals for new English medium schools for 2010-11. With this development, the state reckons that such new schools will lead to a growing demand for English language teachers which are in short supply in the state.

Minister for school education Rajendra Darda said: “The demand for English medium schools is a reality. If we don’t provide English language education to students at the primary level, we will never be able to produce good teachers from our own state. It will lead to dependence on teachers from other states and it will become an insider-outsider debate.”

He emphasized on improving education at the primary level. Stating there is no point raking up a debate on the role of the private sector in school education, he said, “I have no hesitation to grant permission to the corporate sector that wants to open schools. It promises high standards of education and is to our advantage.”

The proposals from retired principals and educationists will also be considered, he added. The state has outlined major reforms in school education beginning with providing lessons to teachers to improve their quality.

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English-reading software introduced in 7 schools

NEW DELHI, February 19, 2011—To improve written and spoken English and comprehension of the language among students in schools, a read-to-me software has been introduced in seven schools in the capital.

The software, introduced in four government and three private schools here Friday, enables students to master spoken as well as written English through a text-to-speech reader.

"Children have lost their reading habits. We took into account that they pick up better from sound and spoken words, so why not use technology to make the lessons interesting for them," said V. Maithali, principal of DTEA senior secondary school in central Delhi.

K. Shiva Kumar, vice president and head of operations for EnglishHelper, said: "The software is also used by the voluntary organisation 'Pratham' to reach out to nearly 18,000 students in Maharashtra. It is a licensed product which we are trying to make more socially viable."

"We will talk to more schools under Delhi government and will expand the project by the end of 2011," Kumar told IANS.

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Romanized Sindhi script to be launched to keep the language alive

AMRITSAR, February 22, 2011—Launching of Romanized Sindhi script is likely to bring new hope for the revival of Sindhi language and script among the globally scattered Sindhi community since there are minimal facilities to teach Sindhi across the world. In India, Sindhi schools teaching the language in Devanagari script are gradually converting to English, as teaching Sindhi in the latter script was not viable for the global Sindhi community.

A dedicated team of experts including Sindhi professors and scholars from India, along with officials of the Indian institute of Sindhology, Adipur, Kutch, 86-year-old Singapore based Arjan Daswani who is the chief coordinator of the project for Romanized Sindhi, and Col (ret.) Ram Gulrajani from Chennai, a veteran of three wars have played a major role in finalizing the project of Romanized Sindhi script, informed Devendra Kodwani, one of the active members of the project and professor, MBA programme at Business School of Open University, London, while talking to TOI on Sunday.

As against 10 to 12 schools teaching Sindhi in Ahmedabad a couple of years ago, now only three to four are left, he rued. Following the launch of Romanized Sindhi script, a Sindhi Trust run Mahatama Gandhi International School, Jakarta, Indonesia and Dada JP Vaswani of Holy Mission of Sadhu Vaswani, Pune have announced to teach the language in the school and the mission respectively, Devendra said.

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144 working papers presented in English-language teachers conference       
            
LALITPUR, February 20, 2011—The sixteenth International Conference of the Nepal-English Language Teachers´ Association (NELTA) concluded on Sunday.

The three-day conference decided to develop and extend new achievements of the English language in the international level.

The conference was organized with a purpose to meet English teachers of Nepal with the international specialists directly for the English language teaching.

English Language Teaching Specialist Professor Dr. John Kyanslo of the USA and Prof. Dr. Adrian Holiday of the UK discussed about the English language at the conference.

A total of 144 working papers were presented in the conference.

The English language teachers and researchers of 20 different countries including the USA, the UK, Japan, South Korea, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Bhutan were present in the conference.

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Children’s use of too much English detrimental to mother languages

February 21, 2011—The use of English at an early age of a child has been described as detrimental to the preservation of mother languages.

In some urban areas in Lusaka, there is a growing trend among educated parents to teach their children English before they learn their original language.

To make matters worse, most gadgets that children play with use English for instructions of operations.

With this realization, the world is today commemorating International Mother Language day with focus on information communication technologies.

A linguistic expert, Dr. Nkolola Wakumelo, says there should be a provision for gadgets to be written in local languages for young people to use their indigenous languages.

Meanwhile, a linguistic doctor has expressed concern over the use of English in parliament.

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English becomes a must at schools

February 14, 2011—Foreigners looking for a bus stop or a museum in Copenhagen or Stockholm do not usually hesitate to ask a local resident for help since they are almost certain to get a reply in fluent English. This, however, is not yet the case in Bratislava according to English teachers in Slovak schools who have welcomed the initiative of the Education Ministry to strengthen the English-language skills of current and future generations of Slovaks. But some teachers have also expressed doubts whether the legislation passed by the Slovak parliament, overriding a veto by President Ivan Gašparovič, that makes English instruction compulsory at primary schools will be enough to do the job.

Education Minister Eugen Jurzyca believes that giving preference to English, as the contemporary lingua franca, over other languages in the mandatory curricula of primary schools will bring fruit in that every secondary school graduate will be tasked with mastering English at the B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. With that aim in mind, the Education Ministry was able to push an amendment to Slovakia’s Schools Act through parliament.

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Education Ministry to enhance English skills of university entrants

COLOMBO, February 10, 2011—The Sri Lanka Ministry of Higher Education has decided to subject the undergraduates selected from the 2010 GCE Advanced Level examination results to enter the universities to follow three special training courses in English, computer, and human skills development.

Before the courses are commenced a grading test will be held to assess the level of the students' English language knowledge.

The Ministry announces that sitting for the General English paper will be made compulsory from this year for the Advanced Level students to qualify for the university entrance. However, the Ministry has not made a pass essential yet.

The Ministry requests the students of the remote schools who do not have English teachers of to indicate that on the test paper. This move is taken to prevent some students skipping the examination since a pass is not compulsory.

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China orders etiquette classes for schoolchildren

BEIJING, January 24, 2011 (AFP)—China has mandated that all schoolchildren undergo lessons on etiquette—the the latest expression of concern over uncultured manners in one of the world's oldest civilizations.

Teachers will be required to instruct primary school students in the intricacies of basic decorum, respecting elders and proper table manners, according to guidelines posted on the education ministry's website.

Middle-schoolers, meanwhile, will learn how to hold polite conversations, be courteous to others, dress properly, and how to observe etiquette in telephone, email, text-messaging and other correspondence.

In high school, the basics of polite one-on-one conversation, adequate grooming and standing in orderly queues will be among the subjects stressed.

Many of China's down-to-earth citizens are notorious for practices such as queue-jumping, spitting and littering, which are seen as obnoxious in the country itself as well as abroad.

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New website offers wealth of material for English teachers

JAKARTA, January 29, 2011—English language teachers across the country can now share ideas on Virtual Teacher Support Network (VTSN), a free virtual service providing information on English teaching methods.

Created by the National Education Ministry and the British Council, the virtual service has four products: www.teachingenglish.org.uk and h2te.jardiknas.kemdiknas.go.id for teachers, www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglishkids for children and parents and www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish for teenagers, adults and professionals.

The websites provide text material and audio visual teaching tools. The website also has teaching strategies.

While www.teachingenglish.org.uk was created by British Council and BBC, h2te.jardiknas.kemdiknas.go.id is the result of a cooperation between the British Council and the ministry’s Information Technology and Communication Center for Education (Pustekkom).

The British Council said it hoped the program would be able to reach and support the more than 133,000 English language teachers and 41 million students across Indonesia.

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German language finds English voice

BERLIN, February 1, 2011—Germans already "chillen" in their downtime, "surfen" the Internet and, when they leave a nightclub, they may go on to "ein Afterparty."

But the latest English word to creep into the deutsche Sprache is the verb "leaken," which has just been voted Anglicism of the Year in Germany.

Proving the international influence of WikiLeaks, Germans have quickly shunned their old way of describing information being secretly passed on to others and adapted the English verb "to leak." So they talk of the "geleakte Dokumente" released by the controversial site as an alternative to the somewhat unwieldy "durchgesickerte Unterlagen" of yore.

The jury awarding the inaugural prize for Anglicism of the Year was chaired by Anatol Stefanowitsch, a professor in linguistics at Hamburg University.

He said: "The word has really established itself in the German language over the past year and has enriched our vocabulary."

Another WikiLeaks-inspired word made third place – "whistleblowers", a category of people for whom there was previously no precise German term.

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Improving the standard of English in Pakistan

KARACHI, January 30, 2011—Creative approaches to teaching English, introducing new learning technologies, designing innovative material, encouraging research in teaching English language, and supporting continuous professional development are all needed to improve the standard of English in Pakistan.

This was underscored by speakers on the first day of an international seminar on teaching English language organized by Aga Khan University, Centre of English Language (CEL) at the university.

Introducing the seminar, CEL Head Dr Graeme Cane said that the two-day event will give language teachers more awareness of recent developments in teaching/learning methodology. It is also an opportunity for delegates to meet with leading theorists and writers, and to exchange ideas with fellow professionals from all sectors of English Language Teaching (ELT).

Chief guest British Council Director David Martin shared that English language teaching is a ‘live’ issue for educators, politicians and the general public in Pakistan. He highlighted the research conducted by Leeds University, UK’s Dr Hywel Coleman on language policy and shared that several discussions on the recommendations of his study have been held in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.

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Office workers’ English lacking

January 28, 2011—HELP NEEDED: When asked about which area of English they believed they needed most improvement in, most respondents to a survey replied that none were up to par

Only 15 percent of office workers have certification of their English language abilities, while most say they do not have such certification because they believe their English language abilities are not up to scratch, a survey shows.

The Council of Labor Affairs’ (CLA) online job bank, eJob, conducted an online survey from Dec. 1 to Jan. 10 asking 1,529 office workers about their English language certification and asking them to assess their English language abilities.

Only 15 percent of office workers said they had some form of certification indicating their English language abilities, while 84 percent lack any such certification, the survey showed.
More than 70 percent said they did not want to have their English language abilities tested because they thought they would not qualify for certification.

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Rabat spelling bee fosters English language learning
2011-01-24

January 24, 2011—The Moroccan Youth and Sports Ministry held an English spelling bee on Thursday (January 20th) for five high schools in the disadvantaged Rabat neighbourhood of Yacoub El Mansour.

"I never expected to win this contest. I even signed up at the last minute," student Khadija Idammou said. "However, I took part in some programmes under the auspices of the US Embassy, which are always very important since they help students master English within convenient conditions."

In addition to English classes in school, Idammou said she practiced the language "by watching movies or reading newspapers, magazines and stories written by native speakers".

"I also try to take part in such contests that take place outside the high school, so as to improve my level. It is an opportunity to compete against students from other schools," Idammou added.

"The goal of this initiative is to urge Moroccan young people to speak English and give them a good motive," said Veronica Boring, an official from the US Embassy in Rabat. "More and more young people are now speaking English or wanting to learn it. I was delighted to see that many young people in the room speak English."

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English language an important tool, says Luanda teacher

LUANDA, January 28, 2011--The university teacher, Alberto Kuzoma Nzuzi, said Thursday in Luanda that the English language is an essential instrument for Angolans, taking into account that the country is part of the Portuguese-speaking community and a strategic point in Africa.

The teacher was speaking to ANGOP on the fringes of the presentation of the academic work "Use e Será Anglófono" (Use to become Anglophone), comprising a book and a compact disc, for the teaching and learning of English language.

"The country needs this language and must have it as its second language. At workplace and at international conferences, English is necessary,” he stressed.

According to Alberto Nzuzi, the work comprises innovations and focuses on Angolans’ socio-cultural reality, in which names, expressions and local costumes as models are found,” stated the lecturer.

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