15 December 2003, Issue 7

In Today's Email:

• Islam, English, and 9-11: An Exclusive Interview with Alastair Pennycook
• The Arab Development Report, 2003: Alarming News for TESOL Professionals
• Newswatch -
  - America's New Empire for Liberty, Hoover Digest, No. 4, Fall Issue, 2003
  - Media Battle Rages on Air to Win Over Arab Minds, 25 November, 2003

Islam, English, and 9-11: An Interview with Alastair Pennycook

We feel extremely privileged to announce that Alastair Pennycook - Professor of Language in Education, at University of Technology, Sydney - recently gave an exclusive interview to TESOL Islamia. The interview, conducted via email over the months of October and November, 2003,  touched on various socio-political implications of 9-11 for English and English language teaching in the Muslim world. Here is an extract:

KARMANI: Since the events of September 11, 2001 there has been growing pressure on Muslim governments to reform educational curricula, the belief being that the worldview currently being promoted at schools, colleges and universities was partly responsible for motivating the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. For many such as Susan Glasser in her Washington Post article (2 February, 2003) this means ‘more English and less Islam’. What is your analysis of such formulas? And, in your assessment, do you think English represents a significant threat to Muslim languages and values?

PENNYCOOK: I find this idea quite intriguing. I came across an article recently suggesting that more English teaching in the southern regions of the Philippines might be a good antidote to ‘terrorist’ activities. What could this mean? ......

To access the entire transcript of the interview, please click here >>>

We hope you enjoy reading interview transcript and look forward to your comments and feedback.
 

The Arab Human Development Report, 2003

The recent Arab Human Development Report, commissioned by the United Nations, raises crucial and understandably awkward questions for all TESOL professionals involved in the Arab World. The 217 page report, also entitled Building a Knowledge Society, argues that the prominence of English in higher education (as well as French) is acting as a barrier to science communication in the Arab world. Young minds, it argues, need to be able to develop firm and critical faculties in Arabic. Failure to arabicise science is creating obstacles to communication between different scientific disciplines and slowing knowledge exchange. The report cites Hebrew, Japanese and Russian as successful languages of science, and asks why Arabic has not developed along similar lines.

In the meantime,  English - the report observes - is not delivering the sorts of benefits that are often touted by major ELT providers such as the British Council. The following extract sums up the report's position:

...... facility with the English language is waning across the Arab world. With the exception of a few university professors and educated individuals, real proficiency in English has ebbed, preventing many Arab researchers from publishing their research in international scientific journals. This trend also explains the wide reluctance to make presentations at scientific gatherings in English, or to participate in seminars or even Internet user groups. Paradoxically, this decline makes developing the methodologies of teaching Arabic mandatory. For the dominant language acquisition theories now hold, contrary to past thinking, that a good command of one’s mother tongue is an essential tool for learning foreign languages.

The full report can be downloaded in pdf format in English, Arabic, and French at the United Nations Development Programme website.

Related Articles:

Science Communication 'Needs Updated Arabic'
SciDev.Net
23 October 2003

Newswatch:

America's New Empire for Liberty (Hoover Digest, No. 4, Fall Issue, 2003,)
In a recent article, the historian Paul Johnson outlines how English is key to the "new imperialism" that is embodied by the United States and through which it is able to exercise global authority. He writes:

Media Battle Rages on Air to Win Over Arab Minds (Gulf News, 25 November, 2003)
Despite the spread and influence of English in the world, it would still seem to be inadequate in the struggle for 'hearts and minds' in the Middle East. Duraid Al Baik reports on the language wars that are being fought on the airwaves in the region:

Three foreign powers are engaged in an airwaves war in the UAE and the Arab world. BBC Arabic of the UK, Radio Sawa of the US and Radio Monte Carlo, France's Arabic radio station, are slugging it out to to win over hearts and minds in the region. BBC Arabic and Radio Monte Carlo have been on the airwaves longer, mostly in low-quality AM and shortwave frequencies. But Radio Sawa's entry two years ago with clear digital radio technology has led to an industry shake-up.
Click here for full article >>>