pennycook & cultural imperialism
FND: Pennycook | Pennie Hammond | February 3rd, 2001
Hi Everyone:
This is Pennie in Daejeon, Korea. I am just beginning the Foundation Module and decided to read the required texts before I did anything else. I'm about half way through Pennycook's "Cultural Politics of English," my fourth on the list.
I experienced a strong reaction to the idea that the governments of western nations have an agenda to conquer other parts of the world through language and culture. While this may very well be their agenda, there are other agendas. (Mine, in coming to Korea, was to gain overseas teaching experience, save money and have an adventure in another culture. I planned on staying one year. I am beginning my 4 th with no intention to return home for several more years, because I like the lifestyle and because I am studying Korean traditional music). And it does seem a little arrogant to think that western culture is a fixed thing that wouldn't be greatly modified in its exposure to the host cultures. I learn far more than I teach. To give a very simple example: my first day in Korea, I learned how to drink a hot liquid from a paper cup. Don't fill it to the top and keep your fingers above the liquid line. Such a simple thing ...yet North Americans have been polluting the environment with styrofoam cups for decades).
I wonder what Asian academics say about the great influx of Asian people to North American? Do they see it as some plot to conquer the west? Italian used to be the largest second language in Toronto; now it is Chinese.
My first year and more was spent comparing things to home. Now, every time I attempt to make a sweeping generalization about Korean culture, I give it a little more thought and realize that what is really happening to me here is that I am learning to see my own culture objectively. Many things that I initially saw as Korean, are things that I couldn't see at home "for the trees". I grew up in a family that was very Confucian, in many ways.
Westerners may see their culture as superior, but so do Asians. The meeting of two cultures always changes both, in my opinion. And I see it as a history of greed, envy and ambition in the world, common to all peoples.
I feel that what some people see as advancement, is really cyclical. Other cultures are just in a different part of the cycle. Somewhere I read that as we climb the mountain, the paths merge as we draw closer to the summit. I hope that what is really happening while English is growing as the international language, is that we are taking the best from all cultures to solve world problems.
Just a few Pollyanna thoughts to stir the pot. I welcome your comments.
Pennie Hammond
FND: Pennycook | Jonathan Clifton | February 3rd, 2001
Hi Pennie,
I think you are right about the Pennycook book. I must admit that (a) I haven't read it all cover to cover and (b) that what I did read was a few years ago but I do remember having the impression that he is "well over the top". I've never thought of myself as being part of the military capitalist western plan for world domination (but then again.....). I found a much more balanced view in Holliday, A 1994 CUP Appropriate Methodology and Social Context on the MET reading list. Holliday said something along the lines that we shouldn't see the western TEFL world as the Mongol hordes bent on world domination but we should see the interface between the TEFL world and the local teaching environment as a kind of market place where we can work with the best of both worlds.
Best
Jonathan Clifton
Re: Pennycook | Pennie Hammond | February 4th, 2001
Thanks to the people who responded to my comments re: Pennycook.
I've read a few more chapters and with regard to the cultural problems we encounter teaching in a western style and with regard to the texts that we use, I agree with Pennycook. But, believe me, there is no support from our hosts to make us understand their culture or guidance for teaching methodologies that they see as appropriate. I often feel that we are seen as tape programs. But, when I study Korean here, I have a Korean teacher, not a Westerner.
The book is to make Westerners conscious of the implications of our teaching English as a second / foreign language. The Asians are already aware of most of this (and I don't think they would identify with being 'victims' in the system) and this is one of the surprises one encounters upon arrival, namely the mixed messages we receive; on the one hand they see us as the authority but on the other, show some hostility and resentment toward our presence. I see native speakers suffering daily within the foreign culture for a variety of reasons, so I really don't identify with being part of a plot to dominate the world.
I also feel some resentment from British speakers of English toward what they see as a deviation from English, as spoken in America (and Canada is lumped in with the United States).
Marshall McLuhen never worried about American television programming in Canada. He believed that the viewer placed his own meaning on things. Asians will put western thought into their own context.
I often feel that the goals of teaching conversation in the way that it is structured here are impossible. How can you learn a foreign language in two hours per week??? But, I also know that if a student is introduced to something in his schooling, he is more apt to return to that at some point in his life and feel some confidence (assuming of course, that the first exposure was a positive one). Despite feeling overwhelmed by the task of getting students to actually speak English, I nonetheless feel that what we are doing here is still important. We have an opportunity to interact personally with people from other cultures and exchange ideas. Should we abandon teaching overseas and leave Hollywood to teach them about the West??? I think not.
Thanks again for the responses.
Pennie Hammond
Re: Pennycook | James Hobbs | February 5th, 2001
I must confess that I found Pennycook the most enjoyable read on FND. I quite agree that he's well over the top in places, though; I really can't accept that The British Council's agenda is quite as sinister as he would have us think. But while I don't necessarily accept all of Pennycook's arguments, I think that the central claims of his book - that the global spread of English is neither politically neutral nor beneficial to anyone and everyone it affects - are important ones that often receive less attention than perhaps they deserve. I remember a task in FND that involved asking for colleagues' reactions to statements such as "English language teaching is an important arm of cultural imperialism" and "TESOL practitioners are helping to kill off minority languages". I asked about a dozen friends and colleagues, mostly by e-mail. I wasn't so surprised that most disagreed, but I was surprised that few felt much of a need to justify opinions. For most of them, the very notion that the spread of English could be anything other than a good thing seemed utterly ludicrous. One even wrote > Hey James, is this a joke? I've answered anyway.
So going back to Pennycook, it strikes me that someone, somewhere, be it governments, publishers, teachers, whoever, has done a pretty good job of banishing such consideration of the wider picture to the outer fringes of the TESOL debate. At least that's how it looks in my neck of the woods.
James Hobbs
Japan
Re: Pennycook | Darin M. Bicknell | February 5th, 2001
English killing off languages?
Ask those Scots, Welsh and Irish if English has killed off their native languages.
Seems like English has always been the ZEBRA muscles of languages, but there are always other views on things even if they are wrong.
I remember from my University days at Trent the story how the Wenjack Theatre was named after a Ojibwa boy who was forced to relocate to a government school and learn not only English but other culturally important things in the minds of the Canadian and Ontario Governments. It wasn't language that killed him but the couple of hundred kilometers he had tried to walk home.
Does English kill other languages? Do guns kill people or do people using the guns do?
Food for thought.
Darin M Bicknell
Re: Pennycook | Lori Solbakken | February 5th, 2001
I reckon, according to Pennycook, with English as the international language, then 'language killing' could be extremely widespread. But it happens everywhere, and English shouldn't take the full rap...
In Taiwan, Mandarin is the official language. Only about ten years ago did they stop slapping students' palms with a ruler for speaking Taiwanese, Hakka or aboriginal languages with their classmates. Now, a new legislation has been passed which will force primary school students to actually study their mother tongues in school! This legislation may have come too late as one of my students recently told me how his teenage kids, who don't speak a word of Taiwanese, can't even communicate with their grandparents.
If speaking 'only English' were enforced as rigidly as 'only Mandarin' used to be in Taiwan, then I suppose people would lose their native languages. However, I don't think I've ever heard of such extreme measures.
It's interesting too how the resurgence of Mandarin in Singapore as a 'cultural identity' issue has ignored the more prevalent languages of Cantonese and Fukien. My hunch is that Mandarin is the real language killer, and was created in order to unify the multitudes of Chinese/Mongol/Tibetan dialects and cultures which used to be so much more diverse...
It seems to me that English is only a tool for international communication, and it's not meant to replace ones native language. Unless, perhaps, the speakers end up residing in English speaking countries, like my father, who lost his native Norwegian when our family emigrated to America 50 years ago.
Lori Solbakken
Taiwan
Re: Pennycook | Pennie Hammond | February 6th, 2001
On the deliciously juicy topic of cultural imperialism, I'd like to share what has got to be the silliest assertion I've ever come across in the TESOL literature. Actually, I guess many of you will have come across this in your own reading, but for those who haven't...
The culprit was US applied linguist Robert Kaplan, way back around the middle of the last century (1966, in fact). He studied 600 student paragraphs, and decided that students from different cultures followed different patterns of progression in their writing. He drew lovely little diagrams, showing how Semitic writers follow a sort of increasing-amplitude zigzag, Romance writers a rather more irregular zigzag, and Orientals (sic) a sort of inward-turning spiral. And Anglo-Saxons? You guessed it: a perfectly straight line!
Actually I haven't seen the original article: it's summarized in "Teaching ESL Writing" by JM Reid (Prentice Hall Regents 1993). Reading between the lines of Reid's text, you get the impression that Kaplan, having thus invented the intriguing field of "contrastive rhetoric", spent much of the next 20 years trying to eat his foolish words.
Of course, I don't doubt that there are differences in the organization of texts among languages/cultures. But you begin to smell a rat when the straight line just happens to be the author's own language, and the inscrutable spiral Chinese! [In fact, I'd be interested to find out exactly HOW it's possible to write in a spiral, but that's another question...].
By the way, Pennie, and on the subject of traditional Asian music, here's a quote from Indian rudra vina* player Asad Ali Khan: "It should be the task of the Indian government to encourage and support rudra vina players so that they can teach disciples. If this does not happen, I predict that in 50 years or so my pupils, who virtually all come from Western countries, will have to return to India to teach the vina to the young Indians of the future!"
Don't know what that's got to do with anything, really: just thought it might interest you.
Best,
Pinkie
Spain
Re: Pennycook | Steve Mann | February 6th, 2001
Thanks to everyone for a rich and very interesting debate of late.
I noticed a short comment article in IATEFL Issues Dec 2000 on this very subject by Jeremy Harmer called 'Slaying Dragons: Language Fascism and the Art of the Book Review'. In it, he responds to the criticism of David Chrystal's book 'English as a Global Language' by Robert Phillipson in Applied Linguistics 20/2.
If anyone is interested in a copy of this short piece which defends Chrystal against dark ugly purposes of Eurocentric triumphalism, I'd be happy to include it with the next newsletter - a short reply such as 'yeah' or 'send' will suffice.
Thanks again
Steve Mann
Re: Pennycook | Rita Balbi | February 7th, 2001
Hi everybody,
This issue of "English" comes at a time in which in Italy there is a debate about the FL curriculum in schools. The two extreme views are:
1 Every student has to have English from the primary as nowadays nobody can do without; another additional FL might be introduced later in the curriculum.
2 We should teach all European languages from the primary to avoid that our citizens are in touch with just one culture and we are "colonized". All this mixes with the interests of teachers of French, German, Spanish, who, obviously, try to save their jobs and the pressures from families who, for the most part, want English.
My personal view is the following:
• Because the culture of English speaking countries plays a great role in our times people want English and not vice versa (if we are "colonized" we are before studying English);
• We cannot underestimate the role of English as "lingua franca";
• All governments, not just those of English speaking countries, have their hidden agendas when they promote cultural programmes; an example of this is what many European countries are doing "to help" former communist countries;
• Quite often the people who go abroad to teach their language do not mean to colonize anyone even if their presence may influence their students; this is not necessarily bad but is part of the experience;
• Being exposed to additional languages and cultures is always enriching and at school we should teach more languages but aiming at partial competence for some;
• Languages develop naturally for a complexity of reasons and no artificial policy to promote them pays in the long run; this explains why, for instance, English is more taught than Italian at secondary school level in Europe.
Rita Balbi
Re: Pennycook | Pennie Hammond | February 8th, 2001
Continuing with the cultural imperialism topic:
I put the Pennycook aside in favour of a lighter text while I'm traveling a bit. However, my mind keeps working on it.
A number of years ago, while doing some family history research, I took some photos to an old gentleman in my town to ask if he could identify anyone in the pictures. He had many things to tell me, and language came up in the conversation. He said, "Old Mrs. Gavin (my great grandmother) and my grandmother used to get together and speak the Gaelic. What a racket they made." Up to that point, I had never even considered that my Scots ancestors were Gaelic speakers. In just a couple of generations, no one in the family remembered their highland heritage. (At one time there were more Gaelic speakers in Nova Scotia than in the highlands ...an interesting aside). I do resent the term Anglo-Saxon but I guess governments choose the terms. But a culture often accommodates the contributions of those who lost the battles. (Consider the pagan influence on Christianity).
As a result of genealogy, I became very interested in connecting to the culture of my ancestors. I attended several highland games in Fergus, Ontario and discovered that there are many such festivals all over North America. I related to Pennycook (Chapter on Malaysia or Singapore) where he quotes someone who points out that culture has become connected to festivals. It does seem that we look at it as entertainment. We have lost much traditional knowledge. I suspect the culprit is 'specialization' and I guess 'scientific materialism'. I think that is western but not specifically Anglo. There's a nice little book called "A Guide for the Perplexed" by E F Schumacher that puts a lot of things in perspective.
But what exactly is culture? My understanding is that the highland tartans were a Victorian invention and basically a fashion statement with very little foundation in history. However, when you consider the loss of knowledge in areas such as health care - how we rely on medical doctors instead of 'the old wives' tales' - it is clearer why we have to earn lots of money to pay for the services of the specialists instead of using knowledge passed through our families.
Thanks to the person who quoted the Indian musician with regard to teaching traditional music. It reminded me of a Scots violinist named Alistair Fraser who went to Nova Scotia to study the Scots fiddling style that had been preserved there. In Korea, there is a state system to teach traditional music, a separate high school system and a state conservatory, so to speak (the latter under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism!!!!!!!). However, a number of young Koreans have commented to me that my interest in their traditional music has sparked their appreciation.
It looks like the culture of money has a firm foothold. Perhaps English is just a scapegoat to take the heat off international corporations the real policy makers.
Pennie Hammond
Re: Pennycook | John | February 8th, 2001
Hello all,
Loss of languages, loss of cultures, loss of linguistic variation: Pennie's mention of Gaelic reminded me of how my own grandparents were familiar with Irish Gaelic yet two generations later not one word is known by my side of the family at least.
I wanted to contribute something a little different though, which is how loss of linguistic variation can affect accent as well. My mother tells of how as an Irish immigrant growing up in London in the 1940s she did all she could to try and "lose" her Irish accent. This was considered decidedly non-prestigious belonging to a class of people of low social standing. Peer pressure being what it is she achieved her aim and was soon dropping her "h"s like the rest of the crowd.
The irony is that nowadays, regional accents are much more in vogue and the lilt of the Irish accent is perhaps more commonly heard in the media than the "starchy" tones of BBC English. I suppose we could call this linguistic change due to economic necessity. It also highlights society's shifting attitude to what is linguistically acceptable.
John
Ioannina, Greece
Re: Pennycook | Jay Graham | February 9th, 2001
I guess someone forgot to tell former President Sukarno of Indonesia that English was the Intl language of choice for national suppression and domination. He attempted to linguistically and culturally suppress (through mass trans-migration, and military coercion of course) native languages and traditions/culture in other parts of the archipelago.
Although Transmigration was successful, the mother tongue and traditional cultures of other regions remained strong. What Sukarno and later President Suharto failed to recognize was that it was their own culture was its own demise. Javanese migrants given free housing and incentives to move to other parts of Indonesia moved into Javanese villages, and remained very much Javanese (speaking Javanese, eating Javanese food music etc). The cultures didn't exactly immerse into one big melting pot (see Javanese) as the government had hoped.
Although in a militaristic sense the Javanese were successful in "uniting" as what we now know as Indonesia, but they were very unsuccessful in creating a Javanese society. Over 50 years have passed, since the birth of Indonesia a former colony of the Dutch and Japanese. Today now that the New Order is no longer the powerhouse it once was, Indonesia is quickly disintegrating as a nation. Many of the islands and in fact parts of java island still have very different languages, art, music, religious customs that could not be stamped out by the Dutch, Japanese or the Javanese. Although many of the country's 220 million people can speak bahasa Indonesia the country's official and school taught language, mother tongue is definitely alive and well even though not taught officially.
In the end then it is unfair to point the finger only at the English language as a language of suppression etc. Many other languages have been assimilated or killed off by languages other than English.
Pennycook's ideas are extreme but taken from a different view Indonesia language is an excellent tool for suppression. I agree with Loris message that it's not only the English language that can be viewed in this light but many others.
I'm not sure I buy into the notion that English will create a linguistic genocide effect in the future; some cultures are too strong.
Jay Graham
Re: Pennycook | Tom Bloor | February 19th, 2001
Just to explain my occasional participation in these discussions: I retired last year but I retain the title of Honorary Fellow in the LSU, and so I see this as a way of remaining marginally involved, and I hope that nobody minds.
I have been very interested by the recent lively discussion about the international role of English. If you think 'Pennycook is over the top', just try Phillipson- e.g. Phillipson R 1992 Linguistic Imperialism Oxford: OUP.
I agree with most of the comments made, but I don't think that it is possible to refute the arguments of Pennycook or Phillipson by pointing out that individual expatriate teachers' motives are far removed from any desire to establish a politico-cultural hegemony, or that students do not feel that they are being colonized. I imagine that most expats teaching English around the world are for the most part tolerant and liberal individuals, probably with a mean average of sympathy for other cultures which is greater than that of their compatriots who stay at home. (I am aware, of course that most English teachers are not expatriates or native speakers of English). Also, most people who learn English are willing - indeed eager - to do so. But that says nothing about the reasons for the massive spread of English through the world or about its political implications.
There can be little doubt that world English has been brought about largely as a by-product of various forms of oppression, conquest and imperialism, initially the British empire and more recently American quasi world-dominance and the global economy. As some of you have recently pointed out on this list, English is not unique in this. Languages are often killed off or downgraded as a result of the spread of other languages. It has always happened. To some extent, perhaps, it is incidental; sometimes it is deliberate and implemented by force. The shameful treatment of indigenous populations in Britain and Ireland, the United States and Australia (to name but a few) has led to a huge reduction in the number of speakers of indigenous languages, sometimes by forcing them to speak English, sometimes by actually exterminating the speakers themselves. The fact that such things have happened in many other places with other languages coming out on top (China, Russia, France, Spain, Scandinavia, most of South America, etc) does not make it excusable, but it is an important point to bear in mind, and, to be fair to Phillipson, it should be said that he makes this very clear. (Phillipson and more especially his partner and sometimes co-author Tove Skutnabb-Kangas have written extensively about linguistic minority rights in many different settings). In some of these countries and others, immigrant languages have had similarly shoddy treatment.
However, the current situation with English is that it is encroaching in a significant way on the lives of people who are not under the political control of Anglophone nations - at least not overtly so.
Like most linguists, I tend to sympathize with the linguistically oppressed rather than the oppressors, and so I am glad that Phillipson, Pennycook, and many others, have spoken out about the issue of global English. However, there is a danger of over-simplification on the issue. If the global economy is bad for poor nations (and poor individuals in the rich ones), this is not the fault of English but of the global economy. (I think this is more or less the point that Rita Balbi recently made on this list).
To oversimplify: the dominance of English is a largely inevitable outcome of the increasing economic dominance of Anglophone communities over the past three centuries, one manifestation of which was the wide distribution of English as a mother tongue and lingua franca around the world by means of imperialism and colonization. Of course, the controllers of the global economy are not exclusively native English speakers, but they seem to be happy with the role of English or at least resigned to it. Even the French, whose language was once internationally dominant in some spheres of life, seem to have succumbed. The fact that English is the dominant language of the global economy reflects the historical international dominance of Britain (considerably diminished) and America. Teaching or not teaching English in this or that country is not going to affect the economic circumstances very significantly.
I am not sure what we are supposed to do about the language problem per se, except, as I have hinted, be sensitive to local needs and pressures. Perhaps we should be less aggressive in promoting English, but that is a little difficult if you are in the business. Certainly, teaching it badly is not going to help so you may as well keep up the good work. It will be some time before English is ousted from its present position, but it will eventually happen - though no doubt some other language(s) will take over the imperial role.
I have co-authored two or three articles relating to this question, focusing mainly on African situations, and my co-authors and I have tried to maintain the difficult position of pointing out some of the anomalies and practical disadvantages in the simplistic anti-hegemony position whilst at the same time signaling broad sympathy for the political stance of the people making those arguments. Some basic principles that emerge are:
• Language planning cannot be done in a vacuum; language(s) are part and parcel of the sociopolitical context
• In evaluating language dominance issues, every situation must be examined individually
• A language does not possess inherent attributes of the type: oppressive, imperialist, reactionary, progressive, primitive, creative, logical, etc (though of course it may be used to further oppression, reaction, progress, etc or to resist them)
• A language is not the property of any national or ethnic group (eg English does not belong to the English, the British, the Americans, etc).
Refs:
Bloor M & Bloor T 1990 "The role of English in resurgent Africa" In Clark R, Fairclough N (eds) Language and Power British Studies in Applied Linguistics No 5 London: BAAL/CILT: 32-43.
Discusses pros and cons of English as a lingua franca (including literary works, education, etc) in various African countries, and the role of English as a medium of revolution in apartheid South Africa and Namibia. The promotion of the white minority language, Afrikaans, at the expense of English, was the trigger for much actual revolutionary confrontation, especially uprisings in the schools. Even the promotion of indigenous languages (Khosa, Zulu, Sotho, etc) at the expense of English was viewed with suspicion by many in the liberation movement at that time because it was seen as a government ploy to divide and rule. ('Apartheid' means 'separation').
Bloor T & Wondwosen Tamrat 1996 "Issues in Ethiopian language policy and education" Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development Vol 17 No 5: 321-337.
Profiles the complex multilingual situation in Ethiopia and recent changes of policy for languages, especially in education. Discusses the problems of implementing mother-tongue teaching at the expense of the traditional official (hegemonic?) language, Amharic, and argues that, ironically, this could enhance the status of English.
After writing this email I read the Phillipson review of Crystal (AL 20/2), which Steve Mann mentioned, and Crystal's response (and AL 21/1). Not having read Crystal's book, I can't reach a conclusion, but I confess that I found Phillipson's vehement attack on Crystal's book fairly convincing until I read Crystal's response, which persuaded me otherwise. However, even before I read Crystal, some of Phillipson's comments worried me, notably the following: 'More fundamentally the weakness of Crystal's description is that practicalities are referred to rather than the more important issues of linguistic equality or language rights'. I should have thought that practicalities do need to be addressed - not instead of rights, but in addition. How else can change be implemented?
Incidentally, there is a review in the latest Applied Linguistics (March 2000 Vol 22 No 1) of a book called Resisting Linguistic Imperialism by A Suresh Canagarajah. This seems to argue that third world students want English but not the cultural and pedagogic package that often goes with it. It is in the area of methodology that this Sri Lankan scholar perceives imperialism at work, apparently. Adrian Holliday (1994) has some interesting ideas on this topic: Appropriate Methodology and Social Context Cambridge:CUP.
I hope I haven't gone on too much. It's a big subject.
Best
Tom Bloor
Re: Pennycook | Suzanne | February 19th, 2001
As a follow-up to the discussion on linguistic imperialism and the like - which seems to cause a lot of people to feel a little uncomfortable - there's a book I would like to recommend which is likely to make a lot of people feel even more uncomfortable. It springs to mind in light of the recent events in the Gulf - and I would particularly recommend section III (Mythmakers of the Gulf War) to those who do not believe in conscious manipulation of one/other country(ies) by another. John Pilger, the name may ring a bell for those of you who are GUARDIAN readers, is also a journalist putting forward a particular point of view. However, the facts, and much of it is fact, make very interesting reading. For those who are interested:
Pilger, John (1992) Distant Voices, London: Vintage.
And even for those who aren't - one for future.
See ya,
Suzanne
Germany
Re: Pennycook | John Bartrick | February 21st, 2001
The Observer newspaper, p.1 11/02/01:
"Germany is ready for war with the English again - but this time the barricades are up against an invasion of nouns, verbs and adjectives. A proposed language purification law aimed at repelling English words is receiving support from academics, linguists and politicians who want hefty fines for anyone caught speaking ...what they call "Denglisch". Flirt, baby, power, edutainment, clever, administration and underwear have become part of everyday vocabulary... Complaints by older Germans that they no longer understand simple everyday tasks because of the increasing use of English are rising".
I thought I would share with you another example of the insidious spread of the beast they call the English language! While the journalist is obviously playing up the English / German rivalry for dramatic effect, the mind does boggle at the thought of law enforcement officers carrying out their duty.
Bye for now
John Bartrick
Re: Pennycook | Viv | February 21st, 2001
Interesting article John.
It would seem that codification has now spread eastwards from France! Surely the more rationally minded in Germany (and elsewhere) would accept that if their own language doesn't provide the necessary lexis, then borrowing from another is entirely appropriate. How would the English speaking 'worlds' get by without such expressions as Cest la vie, QED, and canape?
Viv
Re: Pennycook | Simon Cole | February 22nd, 2001
Thomas recently wrote;
I am not sure what we are supposed to do about the language problem per se, except, as I have hinted, be sensitive to local needs and pressures. Perhaps we should be less aggressive in promoting English, but that is a little difficult if you are in the business. Certainly, teaching it badly is not going to help so you may as well keep up the good work.
It's ironic, isn't it, that teaching English well promotes 'global English'. But what is teaching it 'well'? Here, I hope is an example; a friend from Hong Kong works for a company called Esquel, which is pronounced by Cantonese-speakers 'Eskwel', while the native English speakers pronounce the qu as k (Eskel). "What should I say?" she asked me. I said, well, you can choose, but maybe, since you're Chinese, it's better to say Eskwel and let the others say Eskel.
Is this teaching English well? I tend to think so, but it would have been even better if I had had the time to explain that qu is almost always pronounced kw in English and that all she was doing was simplifying. I see this as a natural process of the change from global native English to English as an International Language and I think we teachers should be aware of this and accommodate the changes our learners are making to English as it is used all over.
Viva la EIL.
Simon Cole
Pennycook | Jake Kimball | February 24th, 2001
Greetings!
I'm a new participant currently, oh, about 1/2 way through the fnd module. My name is James Kimball (but you can call me Jake).
I finished reading Pennycook's historical perspective on the globalization of English a few weeks ago. I too was taken aback by his views. Although I didn't immediately see the process in my own classroom overtly, I later saw it reflected in the textbooks I use. I suppose it's really just a matter of economics when OUP and Longman distribute one-size-fits-all textbooks across the globe; I see the promotion of homogenized English as more of a by-product of economies of scale rather than an outright political plot or conspiracy.
However, being from the US I couldn't help but to reflect on the political status of the English-only movement. For current and one-sided coverage of the debate visit englishfirst.org and elausa.org.
I've been teaching elementary age kids for over 2 years now. Although I do experience satisfaction teaching adults, I find it more of a joy to teach kids. I work at an institute that is undergoing a change in curriculum which makes use of Letterland books, tapes, videos and CDs. As you probably know, Koreans prefer North American to British English so I'm very curious as to how this will influence my students' pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, as well as general perceptions and acceptance of British English; I'm especially interested in adapting this L1 system to L2 classrooms.
I'd be happy to touch base with other participants who teach children. I'd also be interested to hear how any of you have made efforts to make your textbooks and syllabuses more localized.
Thanks for your time.
Jake Kimball
Re: Pennycook | Darin Bicknell | February 28th, 2001
Bill 101...
Try looking into the SIGN laws in Quebec if you want to see how the English Language is under attack in Quebec. As an English Quebecker it was no joke you felt that your language and culture was under attack based on the fears of the 80% Francophone population that their language was being destroyed by English... living in N. America they take the stance that English will eventually over take and replace French... in the eyes of some Francophones the battle to purify all signs took on Orwellian proportions... the stop / arrest sign where French was on top and English on the bottom often were spray painted to remove either the English or French depending on which language the vandal spoke at home. You get a real sense what it must have been like for Jews in Europe when JUDEN was painted on their windows on crystal nacht... My primary School name was hit and the word SCHOOL was painted over... the Protestant School Board for Montreal started to obey the law and we were called "Edgewater" from that point on. The feeling that the English language invades and takes other languages prisoner really takes on another light when a government actively attempts to eradicate it from public view.
I suspect my view of Language Imperialism is that knowingly or unknowingly language makes it own paths no matter what a government tries to do to stop it. Language is a necessity and whether English or any language is destroying others is often a natural progression of those who use it and not essentially those who promote or ban its use.
Darin
Editor's Note: For more discussion on this topic, especially with regards to the teaching situation in Switzerland, see the "What Books for FND" thread.
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