Learn English, Says Chile, Thinking Upwardly Global

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From the NYTimes, December 29, 2004

LETTER FROM THE AMERICAS

Learn English, Says Chile, Thinking Upwardly Global
By LARRY ROHTER

SANTIAGO, Chile - In many parts of Latin America, resistance to cultural
domination by the United States is often synonymous with a reluctance to
learn or speak English. But here, where Salvador Allende was once a beacon
for the left, the current Socialist-led national government has begun a
sweeping effort to make this country bilingual. Chile already has the most
open, market-friendly economy in Latin America, and the language plan is
seen as advancing that process. The government has negotiated free trade
agreements with the United States, Canada, the European Union and South
Korea in recent years, is in talks with New Zealand and Singapore, and
this fall was host to the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference,
with President Bush among the leaders of 21 nations in attendance.

"We have some of the most advanced commercial accords in the world, but
that is not enough," Sergio Bitar, the minister of education, said in an
interview here. "We know our lives are linked more than ever to an
international presence, and if you can't speak English, you can't sell and
you can't learn." The initial phase of the 18-month-old program,
officially known as "English Opens Doors," calls for all Chilean
elementary and high school students to be able to pass a standardized
listening and reading test a decade from now. But the more ambitious
long-term goal is to make all 15 million of Chile's people fluent in
English within a generation.

"It took the Swedes 40 years" to get to that point, said Mr. Bitar, adding
that he sees the Nordic countries and Southeast Asian nations like
Malaysia as models for Chile. "It's going to take us decades too, but
we're on the right track." In any other Latin American country, a campaign
to make English universal and obligatory would inevitably arouse protests
about the destruction of the nation's sovereignty and cultural identity.
In Brazil, for example, legislation has been proposed to prohibit the use
of English in the names of stores or in advertisements and to create new
Portuguese-language verbs to designate basic computer operations.

Here, in contrast, what little criticism there is of the plan has focused
on the argument that schools should teach children to speak Spanish better
before they try to learn English. Only a very small number of groups have
opposed the program on ideological grounds. "We're quite worried about
this because it takes an economic hegemony and translates it into a
cultural hegemony," said Sara Larran, a leader of the Chilean Social
Forum, a coalition opposed to corporate-led globalization.  "Chile's
insertion ought to be into the world at large, not into the U.S.  empire.
These are not Roman times, when Latin was the universal language."

But the Chilean government has presented the English initiative as an
eminently democratic measure, in Mr. Bitar's words "an instrument of
equality for all children" in Chile. That argument seems to resonate
deeply with working-class families eager to see their children prosper in
an increasingly competitive and demanding job market. "This kind of
program didn't exist when I was in school, which meant that only the rich
kids in the private schools got to study English," said Fabiola Coli,
whose daughter is now learning English at the Benjamin Vicua MacKenna
Elementary School here. "If you couldn't afford to pay, and I couldn't,
you were left out. This is better because everyone can benefit."

At the school, kindergarten pupils are learning to count to 20 in both
English and Spanish , and can already address a visitor in English: "My
name is Araceli. What is yours?" The principal's office has a sign in
English announcing itself as such, and various items in the classrooms are
labeled in English "window," "emergency exit" and other things. At the
college level, some universities are already requiring that all their
students study English. Others are also beginning to teach courses in some
majors, like foreign trade and hotel management, in English, and have
plans to extend the use of English to math and science courses.

"More than a choice, it's a necessity," said Patricia Cabello, rector of
the University of the Americas, one of Chile's largest. "Our mission is to
train professionals for an internationalized world, and this is the only
way for this country to develop the way it wants." Though the main focus
of the program is young students, the government has also sought to reach
adults by encouraging businesses to offer English courses to employees. As
part of the program, tax credits are to be offered to companies, and
Rodrigo Fabrega, director of the effort, talks of "flooding the country
with English-Spanish dictionaries and English-language textbooks."

President Ricardo Lagos, himself a former minister of education, has done
his part to set an example. Unlike the presidents of some neighboring
countries, who insist on sticking to Spanish or Portuguese, he makes a
point of speaking at least some English in public whenever he meets with
Mr. Bush or Tony Blair or the foreign press.

"We spoke about the English language and how important it is to be able to
foster through our ministries the learning of English," Mr. Lagos said at
a news conference last month after a meeting with Mr. Bush. "As a country,
we want to be a bridge and a platform for flows of international trade and
in the Asia-Pacific region."

Government officials say that their biggest problem now is a lack of
qualified teachers. But they hope to recruit volunteers from
English-speaking countries to come here, and are also sending Chilean
teachers to places like California and Delaware.

"The first thing we have to do is train an army of English teachers," said
Mr. Fabrega. The quality of the English that will eventually be spoken
here may not rival Shakespeare's, he conceded, but he said that did not
matter. "We'll speak English Chilean-style, because the important thing is
to understand English and to be able to use it as a tool in our favor."


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/29/international/americas/29letter.html