The opposite of English

We had our second round of digital artifact presentations this week! As expected, there were some very interesting ideas. A few that that stood as particular highlights for me were a concept for a game that led students on a journey through the human body, a social networking site that matched foster kids with senior citizens, and a hip-hop curriculum. There was so much creativity and dedication on display.

One student presented a prototype for a project to preserve indigenous languages, with a focus on Tanzania (the full presentation is available here). This student and I had happened to meet and speak together about our projects earlier in the week. There was a clear relationship in that both our artifacts are language-focused, but in different ways: my solution was about bringing English language learning into India's rural countryside, whereas my classmate's focused on documenting and promoting local tongues. During our conversation, I laughingly said something like, "Well, I guess my prototype is the opposite of yours."

Is it? I sincerely hope not. I do spend a fair amount of time worrying about whether English language learning programs could be perceived as a form of cultural imperialism. The last thing I want is for local languages to be displaced by English, or local cultures to be replaced by American ways. On the contrary, one of the reasons I'm so interested in English language learning is that I believe it empowers groups to share their beliefs with the world. The Web has made this more than a remote possibility, and in many ways English is the Web's lingua franca: according to Wikipedia, 56.4% of Web content is in English, followed by German at an absurdly distant 7.7%. No doubt non-English content will increase and automated translation tools improve, but in the here-and-now, getting your message out in English gives you the widest audience.

We are also seeing the emerging idea of "Global English"--the notion that British and American English are not necessarily the "correct" Englishes, that dialects spoken around the world are equally valid, and that if there is a standard at all, it should fall somewhere between all these worldwide variations. I love the idea that English can be a tool for someone in, say, Vietnam to chat with someone in, say, Denmark, without a native English speaker even in the picture.

Of course, all this is easy for me to say: I'm a native English speaker! But in the end, I think it's hard to argue with the demand: many, many people around the world want to learn English. I think very few of these people want to give up their native tongue or culture: they simply want English as another avenue for expanding their own understanding and ability to communicate with the world.