The magic of ignorance - English a false prophet

[Anthea Fraser Gupta]

I think Trond and I are sort of in agreement and sort of not...

> Italian, Bengali etc. children (immigrants) have the right to
> so-called mother tongue education,

This is excellent though I really do wonder about the practicalities...
By the way, I have some issues with the term 'immigrant': I don't like
(and have published on) the autochthonous/ immigrant distinction made in
much European policy, as it is invidious. Many members of ethnic
minorities in Europe are classed as 'immigrant' who are born and brought
up in the European country and are citizens. I don't like that
distinction.

> Monolingual countries, such as Burundi and Rwanda, still have their
> primary and secondary education in French, and not in Rundi or
> Kinyarwanda.

Nevertheless, it does remain the case that there are many multilingual
countries (e.g. Nigeria, India, Papua New Guinea).

> And even in multilingual countries picking out say 5-10 languages for
> implementation in the school system will grant the vast
> majority of the
> children education in mathematics, reading, writing, science,
> etc. in a
> language they speak and understand (either their mother tongue or a
> regional language they speak as a 2nd language).

True. Though the colonial language is also going to be one of those
languages, with many people speaking it as one of their native
languages. Local tradition also has to be considered -- not all
languages are regarded as languages of education. Local social
discrepancies also need to be accounted for, as in many places some
ethnolinguistic communities have higher status than others and the
provision of state education in the medium of a language with low status
may not be well accepted, and may lead to the flight of the wealthy
members of that community to private education (if private education is
permitted in the country). The realities of inequity have to be
addressed on a number of fronts.

> [I wouldn't say "superb", neither ironically nor in earnest.
> There are
> always things to correct,

No doubt -- but would you be able to suggest anywhere better????

> If pupils have Malay as their mother tongue, then the
> experiences from
> e.g. Finland should suggest giving Malay a strong position, and teach
> English as a foreign language (on an advanced level). What to do with
> bilingual Malay - local lg children should be decided upon as
> a result
> of a concrete evaluation of the linguistic situation.

The situation in Malaysia is that Malay is a native language (almost
certainly) of well over 50% of the population, but is associated with
one particular ethnic group (classed as the indigenous 'race'), which
constitutes JUST over 50% of the population, though that 50% is reached
by including people who are members of ethnic groups subsumed under
'Malay' who are associated with related languages other than Malay. You
refer to "What to do with bilingual Malay - local lg children": the
concept of 'local language' wouldn't be meaningful. The 'Malays' are
officially classed as indigenous. The other languages are mainly
languages from South Asia and from China, and a handful of speakers of
other languages, including a Poruguese lexifier creole, Kristang.
Bilinguals (and trilinguals) can be almost any combination, such as:
Cantonese-Mandarin; Cantonese-English; Tamil-Malay; Tamil-English;
Punjabi-English; Kristang-English.

Malay has been spoken as a lingua franca in a very wide region for
centuries and is well accepted as a language of education and culture,
which all Malaysians are expected to learn to a high level and to speak
regularly. It has become the main medium of education in Malaysia since
independence, and has been established in all levels of education and
all subjects for something like 30 years.  Many children whose native
language is not Malay are educated in Malay.  In all that time English
has been taught as a subject to all children. Malay and English are so
embedded across society that it is often hard to identify a child's
native language(s): as soon as a child goes to nursery at 2 or 3 or
starts playing with other children they usually acquire one or both of
these languages (and sometimes others, depending on where they are),
even if their native language is neither English nor Malay. A child who
learns a language from 3 is not much different than a child who learns
it from birth.

However, the education system in Malaysia is diverse, even within the
government sector, and there are private schools offering education in
Mandarin Chinese (another language that became a native language after
being an educational medium), in Tamil, and in English, and in various
mixtures of the 4 languages.  Pretty well everyone learns Malay but the
learning of English is variable, and is economically and racially
divisive. Naturally, the majority community (like majority communities
in UK and US) have less interest in learning other languages than the
minority communities do. It is essential in terms of access to
professional and business networks for all Malaysians to develop skills
in English.  I don't myself think that the current solution of using
English for science and technology is the right one, and I don't
actually think that the standard of English across the board in Malaysia
is bad as the Malaysian government's rhetoric suggests it is. But I do
agree that the inequity of access presents a problem, and I can see that
some use of English as a medium will raise exposure to English (I think
I'd go down the route of English days or weeks rather than associating
English with specifi subjects).

> All this positive things being said about Northern Europe, I must
> confess that our most skilled English teacher (and German, French
> teacher) is the television. Unlike countries like France, Germany,
> Turkey, Russia, (Chile?), we never dub foreign television programs or
> people interviewed on the news, instead we subtitle. This
> provides for
> a couple of hours extra teaching a day...

Another major factor all over Asia!

> Hindi leaves the scene to English only in too many
> domains.

I don't understand this comment. English has a role mostly at national
level. The regional languages are very very powerful indeed. The film
industry has also spread Hindi beyond its homeland and exposed Indians
to Hindi beyond its northern homeland.

> Also, there is a hen-and-egg reasoning in the situation you describe:
> "Only the English speaking are rich, and we will give
> education only to
> the ones speaking English => only the rich/privileged people will be
> able to utilise the educational system". Language planning
> and planning
> of education are political actions, the key question being
> "for whom".
> Politicians may of course build a school for the social and/or
> linguistic elite, as they most often do, but they should not
> be allowed

This wasn't what I meant! In India, it is a major imperative to deliver
primary education, in the dominant regional language, to all children.
Equality of access to higher education doesn't enter into a situation
where only a minority complete primary school. But once education is
being delivered to the whole population, countries can let access
progress, and then they start to need to think about access to higher
education and professional training. It isn't difficult to learn more
than one language, and languages can be taught to older as well as
younger children.  But what can't be allowed to happen is a system in
which those in state-provided schooling are massively disadvantaged
against those in private schooling.

> If, in a region (be it
> monolingual
> or with a dominating lingua franca spoken by all the
> children, I see no
> cultural or political reasons for having them learn their basic
> multiplication table in a language they do not understand (other than
> the grim heritage of imperialism).

Yes. An additional consideration is that there may be a national
imperative, where languages are strongly regional. I do not think the
legacy of imperialism has to be grim, so many years after it has ended.
Social divisiveness is human nature and societies have to find ways of
redressing it, but I really cannot see the colonial languages as
automatic enemies.

Interesting discussion!

Anthea

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Anthea Fraser Gupta (Dr)
School of English, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT
<www.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/afg>
NB: Reply to a.f.gupta at leeds.ac.uk
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