Hi dear coleagues/moderators,

Since tomorrow's session by Bonny Norton is going to be about
'Identity, literacy and English language teaching'  you are all very welcome to ask questions and express your ideas as far as this issue is concerned.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thx in advance

Tarik Boussetta

Is it true that learning a foreign language can affect the use of L1? If yes, how?

>>>> If the answer is no

How can one convince (mainly) those politicians who - for some reason or another - advocate the use of L1? ( that nowadays learning a foreign a language  - be it a subject or a medium of instruction- is very important)

Cheers

Tarik Boussetta

Hello everyone,

I think this video touches on the question of what the place of English education should be in the wider educational context, and I wonder if this question is not related to the issue of threats to minority langauges, which has been mentioned by some colleagues in the themes and issues thread. If education takes place only in English, but English is not the langauge the students use outside the classroom, is this a threat to their native language?

I am curious to hear what you think,

Helen

This is not really a comment, but it is something that came to mind on reading this post and I think it adds food for thought. To sum up, shortly after the handover of Hong Kong back to China, the government implemented a policy for schools to switch from English-medium to mother tongue instruction.

This table shows the significance of this, particularly in secondary education:

Table 1
Language of Instruction in Hong Kong Schools, 1960-1997 and after 1997

Source: Pan, 1999 Cited here http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/pubs/discover/05hongkong.htm This link also gives us some information on the initial success of the scheme.

However, studies over the years have indicated that the policy may be the cause of a drop in student performance and schools are now being given the opportunity to revert back to English-medium instruction

See here http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/249651,hong-kong-secondary-schoo... and here http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=16&art_id=63415&sid=18199466&con_type=1&d_str=&fc=4

Apologies for the digression

Georgina

Dear All
In response to Helen, in our country Nepal, we learn our native lang as a compulsory subject unto the class XI & XII. This helps us to communicate efficiently if we join the government offices. English is also taught as a second lang.unto the undergraduate program. later we may take major classes or other professional coureses in English as per our inerest. This set of students are more advantageous at multinational companies. Rather they can communicate both in the native lang. & in Eng. At the workplace, we speak both native & Eng. lang.In classroom more of English but when need be we use Nepali lang as well. Outside in the society we use native lang. so no threat...

Samjhana

In general terms the taped video session by Elana Shohamy was a very interesting talk about language politics. She is from Israel where there are many languages spoken. It was fascinating to listen to her insights on this topic. I think it relates a lot to what is discussed in the link at the beginning of this thread.

Wednesday 1 April

Plenary session by Elana Shohamy
'Language teachers as active and critical partners in creating and negotiating language policies'

http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2009/sessions/62/plenary-session-elana-shohamyhttp://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2009/sessions/62/plenary-session-elana-shohamy 

Kenny Christian