Transcript RENOVATING THE COMMITMENT - Faculty of Education, HKU

LANGUAGE & CULTURE ISSUES IN
ASIAN ENGLISH-MEDIUM
UNIVERSITIES
Joseph Lo Bianco
Prof. Language and Literacy Education
The University of Melbourne
OUTLINE OF PAPER
i)
Settings & history variations: deeply
shaping;
ii)
iii)
English and global communication;
Identity: National & Personal;
iv)
Positions:
a) Accept & improve;
b) Challenge & problematise.
i) UNESCO 1953
Iconic declaration; post-colonial context
The Use of Vernacular Languages in Education
“It is axiomatic that the best medium for teaching a child is his MT”
• Psychologically ... meaningful signs, expression & understanding;
• Sociologically...means of identification with community;
• Educationally...efficiency of knowledge gain.
Recommended MT be used to as late in education as possible,
beginning as early as possible
i) UNESCO 2003
3 PRINCIPLES
1. MT instruction for “improving educational quality” by
“building on knowledge & experience of learners &
teachers”;
2. Bi-lingual or multi-lingual education at all levels for
“promoting social & gender equality”;
3. Mother tongue an “essential component of inter-cultural
education” connected to “understanding between
different population groups & respect for fundamental
rights.”
i) DUAL ROLE OF TEACHER
INPUT
In content programs lecturer’s linguistic input to learners
(lesson classroom talk) serves three roles
it is the:
1) ..model of English that learners acquire (TL model);
2) … vehicle for content (message-conveying talk);
3) .. content-constituting register for knowledge.
i) OBJECT AND MEDIUM
OBJECT
MEDIUM
Lecturer teaches
ENGLISH through English
Lecturer teaches
SUBJECT through English
Talk is about English, (grammar,
communication, expressions
etc)
Talk is about subject matter,
(geography, maths, history)
i) ROYAL UNIVERSITY
OF
PHNOM PENH
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Teaching Languages Since 13 January 1960
1960s: mostly French
1970s: mostly French, gradual “Khmerisation”
1975-1978: closure & killings
1980s: initially Russian; later also Vietnamese; still later
also Khmer;
Late 80s ~ early 90s: first French then English, some
Khmer
Early 2000s, largely Khmer, booming English, residual
French
i) SRI LANKA
LANGUAGE POLICY PHASES
in
Traditional>Colonial>Modern Education
Official English
Official Sinhala
Restoration of Tamil
Restoration of English
i) KOREA
CONTEXT “OFFICIAL ENGLISH” DEBATES>
PRIVATE SECTOR FINANCING, DISCOURSE
OF “UNIS & SCHOOLS DON’T DELIVER”
School students, Undergraduates, Business People
and Public Officials, Military
ENGLISH AS LOCAL SOCIAL MEDIUM
Based on communicative, task-specified, intensity
and frequency
i) MALAYSIA
FIRST OCCASION FOR BM
Razak Education Commission 1956 >National Education Policy stipulated BM
as MOI,  educational inequalities &  national unity, remove association of
English with privilege (Asmah 1997). 1958 primary school BM as MOI; by 1983
transition to University achieved;
SECOND OCCASION FOR ENGLISH
Employers perception of  English proficiency, also government & academics
(Asmah 1987, Gill 1993, 1999)> international marketplace & English medium
credentials;
> Education Development Plan 2001-2010 (Blueprint for the Future, 2001)
Higher Education for human resource needs to meet national industrialisation
goals, Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced “meritocracy” instead of
ethnic quotas, from 2002. <<<New identity for English, new national identity
through English>>>
i) CORPUS ISSUES
Terminology research & translation efforts of Dewan
Bahasa dan Pustaka effective but rapid pace of new
knowledge required students to read English + issues of
international economic competitiveness
Asmah H. O. (1994) Nationalism & exoglossia: English in Malaysia, pp
65-85 in H. Abdullah, ed, Language planning in SE Asia. KL: Dewan
Bahasa dan Pustaka & Ministry of Education.
ii) ENGLISH AS
LINGUA MUNDI
“2 billion people – 1/3 of human race –learning English by
2010-2015.”
“….the world is about to be hit by a tidal wave of English” and
that “… as many as 3 billion people or 1/2 world’s population
could be speaking the language “.
By 2050
English learners  to “a mere 500 million” ceasing to be a
language> a “basic skill”, English as transactional.
ii) ENGLISH AND SUCCESSION
English … only lingua franca in history
to have been maintained though a
global power succession; in which one
dominant world power succeeded
another but both used the same
language.
Umberto Eco (1997)
ii) COMMUNICATION
FUTURES
EU/COE
expectation of “plurilingual individuals”
comprising >
Languages of Identity & National Languages
+
LWC & English (-es)
+
multiple, partial and temporary language competencies
+
Multiple Literacies
ii) PRAGUE MANIFESTO
Democracy~~Effective
education~~Multilingualism~~Language Rights~~Language
diversity ~~Human Emancipation
see how English is positioned in identity
terms>>
“Esperanto promotes Global education” unlike
“ethnic” languages (such as English)b/c
Esperanto not “bound” to cultures & nations; “a
language without borders”
ii) CAPITAL THEORISATIONS
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ii
iii
iv
Physical Capital: Language Irrelevant
Human Capital (embodied market): trade,
exchange or investment
Social Capital: Bridging and Building Links
Cultural Capital: Central quality, eloquence,
position, discursive
UNESCO-UNICEF>Human Rights (cultural
capital)
OECD/WB/IMF>Human Capital (embodied
economic) Capital
iii) NATION & STATE
Nation
State
horizontal axis
vertical axis
identity, attachment,
sentiment, belonging,
loyalty etc
administration and
formal authority etc
iii) COMPONENTS of NATIONALISM
Theoretically limitless:
• language (code & narration);
• the past (incl. dead & their “continuing life”);
• culture (high & mass), religion & ethnicity
iii) NATION & IDENTITY
“Every nation speaks…according to the way it thinks and
thinks according to the way it speaks”
Johan Herder 1772
iii) CULTURE, RELATIVITY,
LANGUAGE
Wilhelm von Humboldt’s introduction to study of Kawi
language of Java> The Heterogeneity of Language and its
Influence on the Intellectual Development of Mankind (Berlin
1836) > languages differ in essential ways > SapirWhorf RELATIVISM (weak or strong versions)
to
…. relativity shifts focus from static concepts (language, thought, and
culture) to dynamic notions (speakers/writers, thinkers, discourse
communities)
iii) IDENTITY & ENGLISH
LEARNING IN CHINA
identity is a notion that is not self-evident but ambiguous
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Asked about cultural identities informants made clear and strong claim
of Chinese identity, but this got broadened and enriched in the process
of L2 learning (Gao, 2002: 15)
I feel terrific when I find my command of English is better than that of
others;
English learning has a great impact on my self-confidence;
When I have difficulties in English learning, I begin to doubt my own
ability;
Whenever I have overcome a difficulty in learning English, I can feel
my own growth; (Gao, 2005: 45
After learning English, I'm often caught between contradicting values
and beliefs; (Gao, 2005:46
iii) IS ENGLISH A POST-IDENTITY
LANGUAGE ?
Hashimoto and others in Korea who show how
nationalist placation is involved in promoting
English; China Ministry of Education English
and FLs in separate compartments; Tun
Mahathir reassuring nationalists that Malaysians’
sense of nationality can be realised through
more and instrumental English
iii) WORLD CALAMITY
• 1956 All Party Report on Chinese Education> Singapore's
strategy "equal treatment" policy. Said the new nation’s
education system was ‘unnatural’ because 85% of
children taught in English & Mandarin; neither a MT.
If because of a world calamity children in England
were taught Russian and Mandarin but continued to
speak English at home, “the British educational system would
run into some of (our) problems”.
iii) CHINESE VIEWS OF
ENGLISH’S IDENTITY EFFECTS
TENTATIVE
i) Keep Chinese “essence” separate from English;
ii) Adds needed individuality and ‘assertiveness’;
iii) Produce an English invested with Chineseness;
iv) Identity formed in childhood linguistic
socialization; adult process unclear.
iii) SUBJECTIVITY &
IDENTITY
Writing on identity is often oriented to a primary
assumption about human subjectivity and
identity from either an essentialist framework or
a constructivist alternative grounded in concrete
settings of language use and behaviour.
iii) MULTI-FACETED SELVES
Both essentialist (enduring) and contingent (situated) interacting selves and
identities interact with an endangered self.
Individuals often overcome cultural divergence by separating permanent self
and ethnic/language identity from locally situated self for adjustment
purposes
Enduring self> lifelong concept of “me” deeply rooted in language, heritage,
memory, educational and socio-cultural practices. Situated self develops
during adjustment to new context without harming the enduring self.
Spindler and Spindler (1992, 1993), Hall (1996), Ryan (1999), Norton (2000)
iii) SEMIOTIC RELATIVITY
how the use of a symbolic system affects thought
iii) LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY
linguistic relativity, or how speakers of different
languages think differently when speaking
iii) DISCURSIVE RELATIVITY
how speakers of different discourses (across languages
or in the same languages) have different cultural
worldviews
iv) POSITIONS
i) ACCEPT & IMPROVE
ii) CHALLENGE & PROBLEMATISE
iv) ACCEPT AND IMPROVE
Questions which follow from this position>
Pedagogical
i) How improve effectiveness of content area
instruction?
ii) How organise/sequence and assess
delivery of EAP support?
iii) Attitude to sociolinguistic context &
communicative norms & practices of
learners
iv) ACCEPT AND IMPROVE
Questions which follow from this position>
Policy and Politics
i)
ii)
iii)
How to deal w cultural consequences of
becoming ESL not EFL society?
How to minimise concerns?
How to compensate or placate opposition?
iv) CHALLENGE AND
PROBLEMATISE
Questions which follow from this position>
Social Equity of EMI choice
i) Class distribution of “standard” &
academic English;
ii) Ethnicity/regional distribution of
“standard” and academic English;
iv) CHALLENGE AND
PROBLEMATISE
Questions which follow from this position>
Cultural and Identity Consequences of EMI choice
iii) Nationalist discourse of “indignity”;
iv) Linguistic discourse of National Language
domain attrition;
v) Personalist discourse of individual learner
identities
OUTLINE OF PAPER
i)
Settings & history variations: deeply
shaping;
ii)
English: multiple characterisations;
iii)
Identity: National & Personal;
iv)
Positions:
a) Accept & Improve;
b) Challenge & Problematise.