Robert de Beaugrande
Here in Africa, the role of
the English language in many domains of society is so overwhelming that it
seems to be not just an accident of history but a totally natural fact. We are
long accustomed to encounter it as an official language of government and
administration; as the reigning language of business, industry, and technology;
and as the medium of instruction in ‘higher’ education. We also accept that
one’s chances for a successful career in a keenly competitive job-market often
depend on one’s ‘knowledge of English’.
Curiously, these customary
conditions have not been systematically accounted for in the methods of
‘teaching English’ in ‘modern education’. Even at its higher levels in the
university, many ‘English departments’ display scant awareness of a social
responsibility to prepare their students for future careers. We rarely see
courses of study like ‘English for information management’ or ‘English for
industry’, or, more specifically, ‘English for computer programming’ or
‘English for gold mining’. More often, we see courses like ‘semantics’ or ‘the
metaphysical poets of the seventeen century’, names which could hardly even be
understood outside an English department.
How could we explain this
peculiar situation? One explanation might point to the general prevalence of
‘education without production’, which I described in Mmegi last week. In that piece, I speculated that education has
been viewed partly as an entitlement for a non-productive social class that
devalues productive labour, and partly as a guarantee of a future career
largely freed from productive labour. This elitist view has been imported to
Africa along with the whole system of education from the ‘colonising’ countries
like Britain, where elitist education has been practice-driven for centuries.
A closely related import for
Europe has been the devaluation of productive labour and the acute
impoverishment of labourers in ordetr to finance the ‘life-style’ of African
elites after independence. Writing from a Nigerian perspective in Africa Today (October 1998), Tunde
Obadina observes:
African nations have suffered the consequences of a widely held
assumption that political freedom entitled the former colonised instantly to
enjoy the standard of living existing in the West. […] The elites, including
fresh university graduates, have not taken into cognisance the fact that they
belong to a backward pre-industrial society [which cannot afford] the lifestyle
that the African elite seeks to maintain, that has driven it to mismanage and
misappropriate national resources. […] The country’s elites displayed plenty of
appetite for the products and services of modern civilisation but little
enthusiasm or resolve to modernise their society.
‘Standard English’ might also figure in the symbolic ‘capital’ of
the ‘Western standard of living’, and thus as one more ‘entitlement’ of the
same elites. They might favour English departments offering subject-matters
that are safely out of reach for the broader working population — say,
‘semantics’ and ‘the metaphysical poets’.
A second explanation would
be that the programmes of study in ‘English departments’ were also imported
from Britain, and contain here roughly what they did there at the time. On the
university level, the importation was most lively in the 1960s and the 1970s,
the time period when many of today’s African staff did their ‘higher degree’ at
universities in Britain or in their African branches. The specialisations of
those years have become entrenched in the courses we still find some decades
later.
A third explanation would be
that English departments believe the general English they ‘teach’ to be fully
sufficient for a successful career. Most of their teaching staff have had so
little exposure to the specialised English of administration, industry, and so
on that they cannot appreciate the fundamental distinctions that must be
mastered in practical careers. For the same reason, they are unlikely to be
aware of sweeping changes, such as the whole new vocabulary of ‘global
economics’, which prospective employees should have mastered.
A fourth explanation would
be that English teachers believe to be in role of guardians of the English
language like the creed of a dispersed nation of the faithful in the
‘diaspora’. This role encourages the bizarre notion that ‘standard English’ is
endangered and must be warily protected. So teaching and learning are not
evaluated or assessed by judging proficiency for communicating in future careers
but by counting up the usages that are judged ‘incorrect’ or ‘non-standard’ by
some language guardian, as when a student says ‘if I was you’ instead of ‘if I
were you’.
The role of language guardian is inevitably troublesome. It fills the
students with uncertainty and anxiety and discourages them from using the
language with creativity and self-reliance. It renders them tamely dependent
upon a teacher’s opinion. And it leads them to notice how often and
unpredictably an opinion may vary from one teacher to another. Paradoxically,
they are forced to depend upon the same teachers whose expertise comes to seem
increasingly undependable.
Matters can get worse when
the teachers are not native speakers of English. They may feel uneasily
self-conscious and prone to invoke the authority of obscure ‘rules’ they once
found in some textbook or heard from one of their own teachers. They may also
feel suspicious when they encounter unfamiliar usages, and may to mark them
‘incorrect’ just be safe. Sooner or later, this occurs with usages that would
be quite acceptable to native speakers. Again, the dependability of teachers
comes to seem doubtful.
In reality, ‘standard
English’ has more support today than ever and is in no danger at all; if
anything, it is endangering other languages by luring their speakers to
transfer their loyalties. Moreover, most of the choices native speakers of
English make do not involve following ‘rules’ about what is ‘correct’ and
‘incorrect’, but rather judging what is more or less appropriate, idiomatic,
respectful, and so forth. So trying to teach English in terms of ‘rules’ and
‘correctness’ is not merely intimidating and confrontational. It also
disregards the realities of contemporary usage.
And, as I have indicated, it ignores the realities of English in
society and the professions. So we seem to have English education without production. Like education in general, it
would be seen as a certification of being set above productive labour and an
entitlement to a relatively labour-free job. In practice, the usual job has
turned out to be teaching English in the schools, which is laborious in its own
way but not too productive unless it prepares learners for future careers.
But now comes the powerful the
impact of ‘globalisation’ as I described it in last week’s article, which means
a world-wide exporting and importing of social and economic conditions. If (to
quote from Tunde Obadina) a ‘country’s elites lack the resolve to modernise
their society’, then modernisation will get imposed from the outside — will get
imported, you might say. And a diploma granted by ‘education without
production’ no longer guarantees a
desirable job, not even in schools which, as I explained last week, are losing
their public funding as the rich people move their cash ‘offshore’ and the tax
base dries up.
So its high time to consider the prospects for English education with production. Ten key requirements could be
identified:
(1) RELIABLE INFORMATION
ABOUT STANDARD ENGLISH. Very large computerised ‘data banks’ of authentic usage
are now available from the Standard English of native speakers. Instead of
passing on the same tired old ‘rules’, we can check what native speakers
normally say by ‘browsing’ through these data banks. For instance, when I
recently checked, I saw that ‘if I was you’ and ‘if I were’ are both widely
used, whether the context is formal or informal. I also saw that ‘if I were
he’, which is still being taught in some schools as correct, is no longer used;
I found only ‘if I were him’ or ‘if I was him’ being used about equally often.
(2) ACCESS TO AUTHENTIC DATA
BASES. Obviously, reliable information is of little use if it cannot be
accessed by teachers and learners of English. This requirement is no longer
unrealistic, thanks to the Internet —
one genuine benefit of ‘globalisation’ after all. Portable computers will
become as commonplace as the cellular phone. They can even operate from
wireless networking under names like ‘Ethernet’ and ‘Breezenet’, which makes it
unnecessary to rip open floors and walls for new wiring. In the Bonita School
District in Los Angeles County, California, thirteen primary or secondary
schools are currently linked by a
wireless network to each other and to the ‘Information Superhighway’. Teachers
there have Web pages for every area of curriculum, plus explorer guides to get
started.
(3) USER-FRIENDLY BROWSING.
Again obviously, computerised information about standard English is of little
use if you have to be a redoubtable hacker to get access. Here too, the
Internet is making rapid progress as the proprietors of the data banks of
authentic usage see the commercial advantages of courting subscribers with
friendly services. Subscription prices today are a tiny fraction of what they
were five years ago, and the ‘help’ modules are finally becoming really
helpful.
(4) LEARNER-CENTRED METHODS.
Progressive educators have conclusively shown that ‘learner-centred’ methods
get superior results, but most of education remains teacher-centred. Perhaps
teachers feel insecure or defensive if they are not in constant control, or
fear that the learners will not do serious work on their own initiative. But
such feelings and fears are badly misplaced, the more so when the
subject-matter is a language like English. A teacher-centred method only means
that the person who gets the most practice using the language is also the
person who needs it the least — the teacher. The learners may feel left out
and, as if to prove it, tune out when they are not being called upon.
These problems too might be resolved
if teachers and learners join in an interactive browsing of authentic data
banks. The teacher becomes an expert consultant on the usage of native speakers
rather than a fault-finder with the usage of the learners. Together, they could
notice, for example, that ‘if I were you’ is typically used to offer advice
that may or may not get accepted, as in ‘if I were you I’d keep pestering them
because sooner or later a job will come up’ (authentic sample). Instead of telling people what they should
do, you suggest what you would do in their place, which of course you are not.
So they can ignore your advice without giving offence.
(5) AN INTEGRATED VIEW OF
LANGUAGE. The tradition in English teaching has been to parcel out the language
into a ‘lesson plan’ covering ‘pronunciation’, ‘grammar’, and ‘vocabulary’,
each by itself. The learners may do these ‘lessons’ well enough and yet not be
able to communicate well. Recent research has established that learning and
memory are different for ‘archival knowledge’ (like a library) and for
‘operational knowledge’ (like a computer program). So when language is cut up
and handled in pieces, the learners do not build the resources for assembling
the pieces again when they want to speak naturally. But if they can browse authentic
usage, they can see for themselves how the pieces are usually fit together by
native speakers, and English does not need to get cut up in the first place.
(6) RELIABLE INFORMATION ABOUT LEARNERS’ ENGLISHES. We know well enough
that we can teach most effectively if we build upon what the learners’ already
know. For ‘English education’, that means data banks of the ‘Englishes’ of the
learners at various stages. We can then determine which tendencies or problems
merit special effort because they are typical and difficult, and can offer
focussed guidance to new teachers. Some universities in Europe and Asia have
already set up such data bases, and many can be expected to follow.
(7) RELIABLE INFORMATION
ABOUT LOCAL ENGLISH(ES). Learners may be strongly influenced by local varieties
of English, such as we find in many parts of Africa. So here too we need large
data banks, such as the one for ‘South African English’ at the University of
Port Elisabeth. Browsing these data can help teachers and learners to notice
differences between a local English and Standard English. For example, in South
Africa you hear ‘David's doing history, isn’t it?’ (authentic sample)
whereas in England you would hear ‘David's doing history, isn’t he? ’
(8) RELIABLE INFORMATION ABOUT
THE LEARNERS’ HOME LANGUAGE(S). Trying to teach English as a foreign language
with no knowledge of the language or languages the learners use at home is like
farming in an area with no knowledge of its soil and climate. Yet many English
teachers are in just that situation, especially when they find work in
unexpected places. Governments who are really sincere about ‘promoting English’
will have to provide the language training needed for incoming English teachers
to be, if not fluent, at least knowledgeable in their learners’ home languages.
(9) ACTIVE OUTREACH BETWEEN
ENGLISH TEACHING AND SOCIETY. English teaching needs a clear sense of purpose
from knowing what demands the broader society might make upon the English
language. Some institutions are now running programmes in ‘English for Academic
Purposes’ for use during one’s present education, and ‘English for Professional
Purposes’ for use in one’s future career. But these programmes are small and
isolated in comparison to the real demands. And the teaching materials are
disturbingly inadequate. They devote no serious attention to the Englishes of
learners or local regions, nor to home languages, nor to home cultures. One
required textbook for ‘Business English’ I at an African university has the
assignment to ‘write an essay on when father papered the parlour’!
Here too, strategic use of
data banks may help. This time, we need data about the active usages of English
in universities or in professions, so that we can identify which expressions
are frequently used and how. From my own work I would suggest that academic and
professional English could also stand a deal of improving if their users could
be made more sensitive to quality.
(10) DEMOCRATIC VIEWS ABOUT
LANGUAGES. Like the very presence of English in Africa, the ‘superiority’ often
claimed for it over other languages is if anything an accident of history.
English is not even well-designed, having accumulated a unique hodgepodge of
inconsistencies and borrowings that baffle prospective learners and users,
especially in pronunciation and orthography. Many seemingly ‘wrong’ usages
result simply when learners try to make English more consistent than it is,
e.g., by giving ‘regular past tenses’ to ‘verbs’ with ‘irregular’ ones (say,
‘builded’ for ‘built’).
We should finally recognise
that no language is inherently superior or inferior to any other, and that
every one can be developed for any purpose. Anyone who doubts this need merely
examine the development of Afrikaans; given the proper resources and commitment,
the same could be done for any of the other official languages of South Africa.
Indeed, the new Constitution decrees as much.
But this step requires
Africans to take genuine pride in the home languages and cultures, and resist
the fashions of trying to camouflage themselves as Europeans and Americans who
can be ‘happy’ only with ‘elite Western lifestyles’ (Obadina). These home
languages must gain full recognition alongside English as media of commerce,
technology, and -- yes -- of education
with production.