No English, No Progress

Apparently one key to my success in the world is having learned English. It has little to do with my prowess and skill, it is simply because of the place I was born. I was able to be fluent in the language of power, influence, and success.

I find it a privilege to come here to India with an invitation. Someone finds my skills so useful to fly me around the world and provide me with food and shelter for my services. This is a honor for me to share my skills with fabulous, hard-working students. This opportunity was given to me mostly because of my ability to speak my first language.

It was stated at the English Language Teacher’s Association Conference, “No English, No Progress.” This statement hit me and the intern Milli right in the face. There was something shocking about all these presenters from all over the world using my mother tongue with such ease and skill. There were representatives from Sri Lanka, Lybia, Syria and all were in agreement that the importance of teaching English was so important, it should not be taught as a foreign language, but as a second language.

The disconcerting part of this is that people in the United States hardly know about these countries, but yet so many are striving to speak their mother tongue. Language teaching is not of great importance in the United States because it is felt that we can get far enough using our own language. We can get very far using English, but at the same time being multilingual certainly has its advantages. It also helps people to see the importance of building relationships with people all over the world, which is of great importance in our global economy.

It is certainly convenient to speak the leading international language, yet I don’t feel like I should necessarily be entitled to this without any additional work. Throughout the conference my “white guilt” was being felt strongly. Here I am in another country with miniscule knowledge of their language and I am blessed to be able to have the expectation, or hope that others will understand me despite the fact that I am speaking a foreign language.

I guess all that I can say is I have the utmost respect for my students. They are asked to be comfortable and fluent in three languages. Some students have a knowledge of five languages: Hindi, Gujarati, English, Sanskrit, and the Muslim students also know Urdu. I understand the obstacles of mastering so many languages from my failed attempts to become fluent in another language.

I want to teach my students the important place English has in this world and show them the necessity of learning it, but also understand the struggles they are having as a result of being asked to learn so many language. I want them to know that they are fortunate to be able to know more languages than most educated people in the United States.