Language Learning Practices During Post Colonial Countries Are Fraught With Tensions And Contestations

Examples of failed multi-lingual socities are witnessed around the world. India, a country of more than ten official languages, is the worst example of chaotic society and bureaucracy nightmare, regardless English is still used extensively as an official language in India. Without a single recognized common language, the government

In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Gloria Anzaldua explains her emotions and personal situations about social and cultural difficulties that Mexican immigrants, or any immigrant could face when being raised in the United States. She creates similarities between English, Spanish and their variations and how cultural imperialism, defined as, the influence on people’s preference to speak one language rather than the other. And she discusses current social problems in the United States such as sexism, cultural imperialism, racism, low self-esteem, and discovering oneself.

Before we begin, it is very important to understand the difference between an official language and a standard language. An official languages is one that is adopted by the government for document and business purposes, this would be most native people’s second language; one that the government sees as advantageous and necessary. Most of the time a standard language could also be referred to as the native language; a common language that the high majority of citizens use to converse outside of the government. Currently there is a major push to be bilingual, to the point where countries are adding or changing the official language(s). Countries that were presented and are using English because of government ordained laws are Kenya, Zambia, The Bahamas, Jamaica, New Zealand, Ireland; an extremely minimalistic representation the total amount of countries with English as an official language. Almost every other country, especially China and India, have their students studying English. It is advantageous for further education, business, and

The necessity for a global language has always existed to break down the barriers between nations and for communication to create a sense of a global community. English is quickly filling that niche, and instruction in English as a second language is expanding worldwide to places such as Nepal. Nepal is a land locked country located in Southern Asia bordered by China in the north and India in the south, east, and west with varying geographical areas, from high mountains to low lying plains (Weinberg, 61). The implementation of the instruction of English

In her article, Mainstreaming English Language Learners: Does it Promote or Hinder Literacy Development?, author Esther Somé-Guiébré, discusses the impact on literacy development when English language learners (ELL) are placed in mainstream classrooms. In this study, she followed two ELL students who are native French speaking African immigrants in the fifth grade in American schools. One of the students was a recent immigrant, only arriving five months ago, and the second was in her third year of schooling in America. The major concepts Somé-Guiébré highlights are the content knowledge exposure, lack of collaboration between ELL and mainstream teachers, as well as the limited interaction between teachers and their ELL students.

In the 2004 novel Small Island, Andrea Levy exposes the educational curriculum of colonial territories in the pursuit of revealing Britain’s endeavors to maintain a position of global authority. Britain governs the education system throughout the empire, however, the academic content that educators teach is contingent upon the geographical location of the academic institution. The distinctive intellectual experiences that the Jamaican and English students receive reinstates the hegemony that permits the British Empire to assert dominance over colonial territories. The educational curriculums preserve imperialistic sovereignty by presenting colonized populations as inferior, conveying western civilization as superior, and racially privileging

The pluralistic discourse strongly supports multilingualism and advocates for building on diversity. This discourse believes that denying or ignoring people from different cultural backgrounds who speak different languages can lead to fragmentation and disunity. This discourse views bilingualism and multilingualism positively and that they are an asset to the world. Language is an integral part of our lives. It is how we express ourselves, communicate with others and the world. The assimilationist discourse, on the other hand, views monolingualism as the ideal. They view cultural and language differences as something that will drive people further apart. Only through

I stare mesmerized at the Fourth of July fireworks exploding colorfully overhead and struggle to form an intelligible sound. Gurgling and sputtering, I finally spit out the French word “violet” as if by magic. My first word.

* In the educational field, the teaching learning cycle is a model used in contemporary teaching in both school and adult educational settings. Rothery (1996 in Derewianka & Jones 2012, pg 43) who originally developed the model used this to aim at disadvantaged children for teaching literacy and writing in the KLA (Key learning areas) who were from socially disadvantaged areas. Over time the model has been phased across other areas of the English language such as listening, speaking, reading as well as writing. The key involvement of the teacher also known as ‘expert other’ in the teaching learning cycle is guiding the learner to understand key concepts in academic literacy through use of scaffolding strategies to transform students

Once families from Central America have immigrated to the United States of America, one of the first issues they will face is the language barrier. Acclimating to a new country and culture is already complicated; not being able to speak or read the native language adds to the challenges and demands immigrant families face. Six out of the seven Central American countries recognize Spanish as their official language, with Belize being the outlier having English as its official language. While the majority of Central Americans speak Spanish, there are also many indigenous peoples that speak many other languages, including several that are included in the Mayan language family. Because children emigrating from Central America will often only know Spanish, learning in American schools taught completely in English will be a new challenge. Fortunately, both Spanish and English use the Roman alphabet so children should already have a basic knowledge of phonetics. Other languages, such as Mandarin and Japanese, use logograms, which are symbols or pictures to represent words, rather than spelling it out with letters. English and Spanish share many cognates, or words with similar spellings and meanings, which helps when learning new vocabulary terms.

There are four main ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, which are Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Moors, Indian Tamil and Sri Lankan Tamil. Majority of the Sinhalese’ mother tongue is Sinhala. Around 73% of the population speak Sinhalese which is constitutionally one of the official languages in the Island. Rest of the population speak Tamil which is the oldest of Dravidian

English has undergone some changes in relation to its status in the world. Some years ago, it only became the first or second language for several countries. Nowadays, alongside with the development of information, communication, and technology the status of English becomes a lingua franca in the world. That is, a language that is used as a means of communication between people with different language. This change, of course, brings some impacts in the roles of English as a language. English is not seen as a language for identity anymore. Yet, it functions mainly as a means of communication. Added to this, the change of the English status as a lingua franca will also impact to the educational sector especially in English Language Teaching (ELT). With regard to this issue, this paper tries to present the notion of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and its implication to the teaching learning process especially in Indonesian context.

Boarding schools in some of these places bring in groups of minorities of tribes to a central location to teach them. In the video, the boarding school in India brought in 60 tribes around the location to teach them English, and the practice of Hindu religion which presents subtle pressure on the children’s identity. The learn many valuables skills at boarding schools but bringing in of many different types of groups affects their learning about their origin tribe or group. When the kids go home they do not speak their origin language as much or even at all. Older generations tend to be the only fluent speakers of these dying languages. Parents even in their fifties or sixties are considered to not speak their origin language because this way of education started around their time. There is a way to resolve this conflict, and that is if every indigenous group had a school of their own. This would be a solution but many of these places can probably not afford a school for their indigenous group. There is a solution but it is a question if the solution could be realistic for the communities or not. Since most of the tribes are not Hindu yet they’re learning Hindu at the school. This may show up in census of religion in areas not being of their origin religion but as Hindu. Younger children’s may mostly convert to Hindu because that is what they are taught in school thus making their indigenous group’s language one step closer to being extinct. Elicitation is a technique of getting any of a number of data collection. This relates to the film

Timor-Leste is a tiny island situated in the maritime Southeast Asia between two giant countries, Australia and Indonesia. Timor-Leste has adopted exogenous languages (Portuguese, Indonesian and English) and autochthonous languages (Tetum and other vernaculars) as major spoken languages in the territory. In 2010, this new country conducted its second household census which reported that Timor-Leste has 32 local languages across the territory which is known as multilingualism and plurilingualism country with polyglot people. The Timor-Leste Constitution, section 13 states that the national language of Timor-Leste is Tetum while official languages are Portuguese and Tetum which is co-jointly applied. Furthermore, section 159 of the Constitution declares English and Bahasa Indonesia as Timor-Leste’s working languages (Constituent Assembly, 2001). Timor-Leste has been using official language in all educational levels for a decade after the restoration of Independence Day by the United Nations on 20 May, 2002. However, Timor-Leste is currently adopting vernacular languages to coexist with official languages (Portuguese and Tetum) as the medium of instruction. The use of these languages as the medium of instruction in Timor-Leste pre-primary and primary schools is interesting me to know how the people of Timor-Leste’s opinions, perceptions, views and thought and

In this research, I’m going to focusing on the English as a language is being taught in many countries oversea today including Thailand. In fact, you’ll be surprising to know that English is required for many of the students in many countries. Unfortunately, it is not necessarily taught as well as it could be because of heavy teaching load, class sizes and adequate technology. Learning an English today still's has been challenging for many countries and specifically in Thailand. In Thailand, the student often gets too overwhelmed with English and mentally tune out in the classroom because English was their least favorite subjects. On the other hand, the students don’t have a resource at school or they don’t have it enough. Furthermore, many students just go to English class and switch back to Thai as soon as they out of school. English isn't used locally in Thailand. Although, there still a lot students continue care about English language because English has been the most ordinarily utilized language internationally and the language of traffic control and the majority of academic journals. It’s the most common language on the internet and the language that travelers use to communicate with different native speakers.