Academic Geekiness Rating of this post: High
Caffeine level: High
Language policy and planning are important issues that are so often overlooked because language, to majority language speakers, is like water to fish: you take it for granted as a part of the environment like sunshine or air. However, when there are languages in competition for usage in different areas of life, multi-lingual people are alert to the issues. Or they *should* be alert to the implications of language choice. The Gulf States (and all of the Middle East (or planet earth aside from monolingual English speakers)) have a serious language policy and planning issue with the roles of English and Arabic (let alone Urdu, Pashtun, Hindi, Tagalog, Vietnamese, etc.).
Qatar (and the UAE (and maybe the other Gulf States)) is in the midst of a push to establish a "knowledge economy" in which they will become an "industrial import" nation. This means that they will educate their population to be able to be support professionals for other companies who want to come to Qatar to establish their industries here. Qatar does not need to develop any industry itself, it just invites other companies to come and create them. Then Qatar provides highly educated professionals at the local level to support these investments. In order to create this professionally educated population, they need to revamp the education system. Part of this "educational reform" is to promote greater English proficiency in science and mathematics so that there can be well educated English speaking engineers and business management people to support the industrial import knowledge economy.
To promote greater English proficiency in high school graduates so that they are ready to do their university studies all in English, the Emir Sheikh Hammad Khalifa al-Thani has decreed that English will be the medium of instruction for science and math beginning in first grade in Qatar. At present there is no kindergarten, but there is a nascent experiment in what they call KG (pre-first grade education). This decree was based on a study that the Rand Corporation did here a few years ago that recommended a series of education reforms necessary to propel Qatar into a knowledge economy.
However, a decree is not a coherent language policy. First, you have to have primary school teachers with sufficient English language proficiency to teach English as a second language as well as math and science. This is a sophisticated professional! You generally have to pay professionals with this type of training a professional wage. At last check, on planet Earth, primary school teachers were not ranking high on the professional pay scale. They are high on the loving care scale, the nurturing scale, and the willingness to do what it takes to help kids learn scale, but not on the professional pay scale. All of a sudden they are asked to teach ESL in the content areas. This is no mean feat. I have not yet heard or read the professional development plans that may have been included in this decree from the Supreme Education Council. They would be complicated.
Another interesting implication of this decree is the problem of teaching language as code. We know (and this is something we actually know as opposed to just suspect) that language is a culturally embedded behavior with a strong social component. If one teaches science and math in English and expects to have high English proficiency as a result of this instruction, one should not be surprised by the lack of success. Already University student admissions professionals in the Qatar and the UAE have explained that they need to have intensive English bridge programs for students to be able to reach a proficiency level that will allow them to succeed in an English only university environment. It was this problem that prompted this decree to start English earlier in primary education. However, language is not as simple as mastering a code. The social issues of language use in science and math as well as the cultural implications of thinking about science and math in English seem to be important elements to consider when constructing a language policy of such magnitude.
In addition, there is the issue of Arabic language proficiency. A problem in the United States with Generation 1.5 is the challenge of developing multi-lingual proficiency. If a student speaks one language at home and study in another language at school, we have seen that the student will often attain reasonable proficiency in both languages, but it will still be somewhat limited in different areas. University professors of Arabic has commented that the reading and writing skills of students who speak Arabic at home, but do their studies in English, is not very good. At Al Jazeera, one person commented that they do have an intensive Arabic language institute for their Arabic language reporters to spruce up their Modern Standard Arabic. An administrator in higher ed in Qatar mentioned that in Qatar there is not a strong Arabic reading tradition because the narrative tradition has been oral poetry and reading is for the Qur'an. The same comments were made in the Emirates as well. There is currently a strong movement to try to promote reading for children, and some educators have reported that the large book fairs have a huge proportion of children's books in Arabic. Bloomsbury publishing in Qatar is trying to promote Arabic language reading in Qatar by getting professionals to go into primary schools and read to children. Bloomsbury is also launching a large translation program to publish more face-en-face Arabic/English books. So there is a strong effort to promote Arabic language reading as a leisure activity, but it is new.
Nevertheless, if there is a push for English language proficiency in primary schools for native speakers of Arabic, Arabic language studies may not be a strong as they could be. If teachers are not trained in the delicate art of ESL through content instruction for kids, the proficiency goal may not be reasonable. Also, if Arabic language proficiency is not cultivated throughout a person's education, from primary through university education, that proficiency may also not be fully realized.
On the flip side, in the English medium schools for non-residents (the majority of the population), Arabic is optional. At one International Baccalaureate school we visited, the government has required that Arabic labels be included with the English on all the doors, but Arabic language and literature was not a required subject for the students. Arabic is optional in the Gulf States.
So if Arabic is a minority language in the Gulf States, and institutional ambitions for national development promote English as the medium of instruction, what will happen to Arabic? Will it experience the life-cycle of Irish Gaeilge where it is subsumed by the language of the economy until there is later an upsurge of cultural language development?
I'm off the Journal of Language Policy and Planning to see what they have to say about this. However, from my chats with primary school teachers, they just got a decree, some recommendations from a foreign company, and some pressure from the economy to change everything. Now. There were the sweetest, more caring teachers ever. Good luck to them: I know they will do their best, but they appear to have been given plans but no tools to build this knowledge economy.
Frau Page and Madam Mohammad: your thoughts?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Hi Ruth - I thought I might "chime" in here as well if you don't mind. Many of the issues you brought up here are very similar to problems that Quebec has faced. Not just in education, but of course with their sign policy - Bill 101. Interestingly enough, in the Francophone culture course I just finished teaching, we looked briefly at Rwanda which, according to a recent article in Macleans magazine, is now "banishing" French as the official foreign language in favour of English and along with this comes serious implications for teachers who are losing their jobs if they cannot speak/teach English.
Yes, Jody, you are so right! Isn't it amazing? Do you suppose anyone has stopped to think about this besides language geeks like us? The implications seem so clear, and yet.....
There is a fine point where the two voices must meet on a meta level, and it is, unfortunately the most liminal area for both parties. I can understand the analysis that leads to the mandate to teach English beginning in grade 1. It is so very pragmatic: Here's what we need, here's a way to get it, here's what we do. Even ACTFL and OFLA have addressed the need for long-term instruction, beginning at a young age. But as you point out, the teachers do not not always have the tools they need to accomplish the goals. Perhaps American or English elementary school teachers could be recruited (at professional salaries) to teach content courses and ESL while the local teachers gain those tools. I would hope that there would be incentives for the native elementary teachers to achieve this goal (and increase their pay/status).
Even language teachers must re-tool at times--think East Germany's (also very pragmatic) switch from Russian to English as the L2. In this case, I'm guessing 1.5-2 generations before it even begins to approach the west's efforts.
Post a Comment