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thelinguist.uberflip.com DECEMBER 2015/JANUARY 2016 The Linguist 11 FEATURES It is telling that, in the recent census, more than 60% of Singaporean grade 1 children reported that English was their first home language. At the same time, it is being reported that many ethnically Chinese Singaporeans are struggling to achieve high levels of literacy in Chinese. Linguistically pitiful Indonesia is the only country of the ASEAN+3 group that has not made English a compulsory subject in primary school. The national lingua franca, Bahasa Indonesia, is the sole language of education. Few of the hundreds of other languages of Indonesia are taught systematically in schools. Some do teach a local language for a couple of classes a week, but, as these classes are not examined, they are not taken seriously. English is the major foreign language taught in schools. There was an attempt to establish a series of 'international standard schools' across Indonesia in which English would be the medium of instruction for maths and science, but these were recently ruled unconstitutional by the constitutional court in response to accusations that they privileged the wealthy. Perhaps surprisingly, many of the schools attached to mosques, known as pesantren, have introduced English for Islamic purposes, providing an excellent example of how English is being reshaped to suit the cultural needs of its new speakers. Even in Indonesia, schools routinely drop the local language to give more time to English. As one scholar noted, "In the long run, children and the younger generation can no longer speak the local language. This is culturally and linguistically pitiful." This has become true for many of the ASEAN+3 countries. Identifying a trend It is important to note that my summary of language education across East and Southeast Asia is a 'macro' perspective. Not only is there great diversity between the countries, but diversity also exists within them. Nevertheless, a trend can be identified: a combination of the respective national lingua franca and the international lingua franca (English) in the school system is threatening the existence of many other languages of the region. Is this necessarily a bad thing? As a linguist, I naturally feel that it is, entailing the loss of so much culturally indigenous knowledge and different world views. But there are many people, perhaps even the majority, who argue that the reduction of languages and the promotion of a few would make international communication much more effective and simple. Many politicians are suspicious of minority languages, as they feel they may encourage 'splittism' and the potential dismemberment of the nation state. It therefore seems to me that the future of many local languages in the region is bleak. Is there anything that can be done? I have argued elsewhere that, while it would be politically impossible to deny people access to English in today's world, there are far better ways of providing it, and that there are ways of ensuring that children learn not only their local and their national language, but also English. In other words, it is possible to have one's cake and eat it, if you can forgive the metaphor. How? First, English should be removed from the early years curriculum. What is actually happening in the vast majority of government schools in the region is that children are not learning English, despite starting early. Major reasons for this include a lack of teachers proficient enough to teach English, a lack of materials, and the frequent disconnect between English and the local community. Rather than introducing English too early, therefore, it would be better for primary schools to focus on a local language – perhaps the regional lingua franca – and the national language. The aim would be to ensure that children develop literacy and fluency in the local/regional and the national language before they start to learn English. English can then be delayed until at least the later years of primary, if not secondary school. At the same time, the English to be taught needs to be radically revised. It should not, as is almost always the case at present, be taught as a language spoken by native speakers of English. Rather, it should be taught as the lingua franca of Asia; a language spoken by Asian multilinguals in order to communicate with each other. Native speakers of English would not provide the linguistic models for the children. Rather, successful Asian multilinguals would provide these models and the materials would include many examples of such Asian multilingualism. This would also entail a radical rewrite of the content of the English curriculum to provide an Asia-centric focus, which would include, for example, materials discussing the different cultures and religions of ASEAN: the Islam of Indonesia; the Buddhism of Thailand; and the Catholicism of the Philippines. Adopting these two measures – namely the focus on the local/regional and national language at primary level, and the delayed introduction of English, taught as an Asian lingua franca – might help to preserve at least some of the local languages, while, at the same time, ensuring that Asian school children develop a form of multilingualism that includes at least two Asian languages along with English. This is a shortened version of Professor Andy Kirkpatrick's Threlford Memorial Lecture, delivered at CIOL Members' Day 2015. Parents of these children appear to be sacrificing literacy in Chinese on the altar of English © SHUTTERSTOCK