Job Discussion Forums

[zaneth]

Ever feel guilty for bringing Western culture and opening the doors for multinational companies?

Do people's daughters really need to learn English and move to America?

Does ACME Chemical really need an English speaking workforce?

Do kids really need to understand Western cartoons?

[Roger]

The answer is: No!
But, it is good for any of them to at least acquire one foreign or international language.
By the same token, it would be correct to say any anglophone should consider learning a second language in order to pass himself or herself off as an educated person.

It's not necessarily for the benefit of English speakers that people throughout the world learn English; there is even a benefit for their command of their own first language.

[Teacher Lindsay]

Feel guilty????

I don't feel guilty when I cheat on my taxes, run over my neighbour's cat or fock my best friend's wife!

Cheers

[shmooj]

Zaneth has a point which, for anyone who takes EFL seriously, needs a bit of consideration. The issue is not really the language but the purposes for it being taught. Holliday's book Appropriate Methodology and Social Context covers the ground here pretty well.

One of the benefits of using the global language of English is in fact that this common language can them become the tool by which globalization (or McDonaldization as it has been referred to as) or imperialism, linguistic or otherwise, can be countered. Look at what happened in India. The fact that the elite class had been educated in England in English meant in fact that they were able to secure liberation from the British. I would guess that, had they not had such opportunities, they would have been less successful or, at best, successful but without global sympathy for their cause as espoused by the likes of Gandhi and Nehru.

So, no, I don't feel that I am in fact making the world a worse place by teaching English.

I'd encourage those of us involved in TESOL to consider this for themselves though and come to their own conclusion.