What are the gains that English brings, and how can these gains be kept without other ills developing? In the case of Singapore, no question that making English the dominant language of education has had tremendous gains. Also in India, English was the means to attain independence, unity against the British, and modernization after 1947. English is now the

• main source of scientific and technological education and the
• most widely acceptable link language of interstate relationships, and
• sole gateway to global sources of knowledge and power.

Roots of English now much deeper than in 1947 (at Independence). This also true for many other parts of Asia.

In Malaysia, English now expanding as the language of technology, after attempts to keep it at bay. Investment in English is part of investment in technology, educational and economic reconstruction; it is most accessible gateway to growth.

• Problems:
• failure to visualize and set apart what English can do best
• Tendency to see it as a panacaea for all linguistic and societal ills
• Language tends to be seen as intrinsically superior
• Cooperation: how can language resources in multilingual settings be made to cooperate so that the outcome is additive bilingualism not subtractive bilingualism?
• How can literacy through the mother tongue be strengthened so that it becomes a strong support for learning a second language, rather than replacing it?

Awareness of importance of English leads to societal tunnel vision leading to

• failure to distinguish between what English can do and
• what it may not do well, or at affordable cost.
• English. language is seen as intrinsically superior, leading to certain wrong approaches.
• Cooperative approaches tend to be ignored
• Additive bilingualism instead of displacive/subtractive bilingualism should be the goal.
• Home language should be used to:
• smooth transition from home to school
• help build usable skills in effective literacy
• Literacy acquired through first language serves as strong support in learning second.
• Reading proficiency will be at a higher level.

Open suspicion toward English:

In India, e.g. English has been given roles and responsibilities which should be assigned to the home language/indigenous literary languages. English thus displaces other languages since they are seen as inadequate. And English is not then used for other roles, weakening its effectiveness for them.

In India: English should be main vehicle for certain kinds of knowledge, a library language. It is the best source of scientific knowledge today. Despite growth in book publication in other languages, it is not in science and technology. These languages lack the proper registers for science/technology.

What curriculum is used, however?

• Tendency to use the ESL aural/oral method used in the West. Or aural/oral inside a form-focused curriculum.
• Notional-functional or communicative approach came from the EEC. Predominates in most Asian state level EF(S)L programs.
• Interactive paradigm with negotiated syllabuses and authentic material has begun to influence a few models, e.g. Singapore.

All are foreign models, imported from the West, devised to meet the needs of western learners of English. Each one is person-oriented and aims at native-like competence; each puts a premium on oral-aural competence, and do not work well in context-reduced domains.

The Center States promote these as the best and as universal in the peripheries; an inherited belief in the superiority of imported models carries them forward, and they get adopted in ELT systems.

Failures of these systems:

• Products of a monolingual world where English is taught to speakers whose language the teacher doesn't know.
• Taught to people who will interact with native speakers of English in a world different from their own.
• Aim is social survival through effective oral communication.

Two consequences:

1. Goes against the established practice of language teaching.
2. Prevents teachers from exploring the strengths of bi/multilingual classrooms where teachers/learners ordinarily share and use languages, attitudes and expectations, to enrich learning.
3. These attitudes rule out the strengths of bilingual learners, treating them as liabilities rather than assets. (Their first languages are only sources of interference and fossilization.)
4. Emphasizing social survival at the expense of addressing the context-reduced cognitive domains.
5. Results in wasted effort.

Meanwhile, standards decline; ownership of English builds walls between rich and poor, elite and masses; frustration and failure result.

5. Issues and Answers.

1. One solution: allow ELT longer teaching time, starting earlier and giving English a larger role.

   Problems:

   1. Results do not seem to justify the expense;
   2. requires much more funding for little return
   3. in homes where literacy and education are not highly-valued, early ELT may result in problems.
   4. In India, earlier use means less well-trained teachers being pressed into service

2. Another: make English the medium of instruction in primary/secondary.

   Problem: not more effective, not educationally feasible, and not conducive to development of mother tongue proficiency.

3. Alternatives:

   What must the school system do?

   1. Take into account that different languages can serve different purposes
   2. learner's strongest language serve best for providing effective literacy.
   3. languages serve best when they work cooperatively to share educational and social tasks, and promotive productive processes of transfer of learning.
   4. In bilingual contexts, different learners bring different strengths, and this differentness should be recognized and rewarded.
   5. Mother tongues are not problems (liabilities) but assets
   6. English needs be a non-threatening partner: needs to be used as their most effective source of (western-based) knowledge.

4. Summing Up:
   1. Teach English as most important language of knowledge and focus on skills and abilities needed to use it in context-reduced cognitive domains. Accept this goal and the approach of ELT will change. [This is now often referred to as intellectualization issue. (hs)]

   2. Ensure that learner's strongest language is used for building skills of literacy so transfer of learning will work, and language loss will be minimal.
   3. Use comprehension-based approaches and aids to teaching; use strengths of bilingual teachers and learners.
   4. The different languages should be brought into mutual interdependence and interanimation.
   5. Evaluation and reward system where abilities serving language use for acquisition and production of knowledge are recognized and rewarded.
   6. Recognize value of research in/on indigenous languages; encourage it at centers of excellence.