chapter 2 and 3

One of the things I found interesting was that in Outer Circle countries, which had bilingual policies, rarely had bilingual programs that worked. Something always wrong happened in implementing the policies. For example, in South Africa where the language education stated that “the education sector should encourage the acquisition by all South African students of at least two but preferably three South African languages, even if at different levels of proficiency,” most of the other languages were ignored in favor of teaching and using English in the schools; Zulu, even if it was one of the first languages that most students had, was given little attention as it was thought to be a “handicap than a resource” (McKay 41). This shows one of the negative effects that English has in a global context. It’s being taught as the only language that is worth investing on, which translates as being the only language that students want to learn. McKay illustrates that this phenomena isn’t only applicable in outer circle learning contexts but also in inner circle learning contexts. In Australia, where the language policies state that there should be “provision of services in languages other than English,” which should give opportunities to students in order to learn foreign languages as well as English, it’s still an unpopular concept to the Australian students because they see no point in learning another language which doesn’t carry as much status, prestige and power that English already possessed.

I agree with the main finding that the bilingual education project had in considering the study of Philippine bilingual programs. In it, the project stated that, “English proficiency is a necessary but by no means a sufficient condition for academic success. Rather, socio-economic status and urbanization are also important factors” (McKay 45). The main thing that helped me learn English, while maintaining my first-language, was my socioeconomic status and all the opportunities that status entailed. Because I was well off, my parents were able to take me to a private school that offered more resources devoted to teaching using English and Tagalog as mediums. I also think that the teachers who were competent in English chose to teach in private schools because these schools paid more which resulted in public schools having teachers who weren’t as experienced. Moreover, the teachers who knew both English and Tagalog probably had more socioeconomic status, thus were afforded the chance to study in private schools, and chose to teach in private schools as well. All these could have resulted in the fact that public schools didn’t have teachers who were competent enough to teach English as a language as well as a subject.

There are a lot of incentives for learning English. One of them was the legacy of colonization. As we read from chapter 2, Philippines had a bilingual program as a result of it being colonized by the US. Another incentive is the post-colonial policies which seeks to redress inequality by giving access to English for the citizens. Globalization has also become an incentive for the fact that English has become a global language. For example, the status of English in India has increased because of the increase of job opportunities offered to those who know English.