Talk about English - Politics and language pt2 | Текст песни

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• Talk about English
• Politics and language pt2

Jackie: You're listening to Talk About English. I'm Jackie Dalton

Callum: I'm Callum Robertson.

Jackie: And with us is language learner Barbara Menegazzi.

Callum: We're talking about politics, language and language learning.

Jackie: Let's go back to the Madagascar story we've been discussing and our
reporter, Jonny, now because it seems that getting people in Madagascar
to learn English isn't going to be all that straightforward.

Callum: What are some of the difficulties that the country is facing?

Jonny
Jonny: It’s not going to be easy. To find out how tough it is, even now, I went
to the Teaching Resources Centre in Antananarivo, where English
teachers can find books and materials, as well as attending training
courses. There I met Micheline Ravelonananahary, who runs the centre. I
asked her how many teachers relied on it.

Micheline: At the moment, because we run a regular workshop here in this room, we
approximately have about 400.

Jonny: The room we're in here is perhaps the size of a small classroom and it's
got a row of books on one wall - do you think you have enough here to
be able to help all these four hundred teachers?

Micheline: We don't have that. As you can see, here we have very little. We really
need more support from the government because so far we don't get
enough from the government.

Jonny: Lack of funding isn’t the only issue. There is a danger that, unless
everyone gets equal opportunities to learn English, it could become
another divisive factor between town and country or rich and poor.

Callum: So Micheline, who runs a centre for teachers, says she doesn’t have
enough resources – enough books and so on - to help English teachers.

Jackie: Jonny also mentioned something about English learning causing
divisions between certain groups of people. He said learning English
could become a 'divisive factor'. A divisive factor – something that
separates people and causes disagreement or conflict.

Callum: Listen again to the clip: which groups of people might be affected by this
problem?

Jonny
There is a danger that unless everyone gets equal opportunities to learn English it could
become another divisive factor between town and country or rich and poor.

Callum: Jonny said unless there were 'equal opportunities' – in other words,
everyone had an equal, fair chance of learning English, there might be an
imbalance between rich people and poor people.

Jackie: Or those who live in the cities and have easier access to a means of
learning English and those who live out in the countryside. Barbara,
when you were learning English, was there a sense that you were more
privileged than other people in your country who weren't?

Barbara: (responds)

Jackie: I think there are some other rather political issues that this recent drive to
focus on English has raised. What about the French-speaking population
in Madagascar – how do they feel about the fact that English is becoming
such a priority. I asked our reporter, Jonny, earlier on.

Jonny

Jackie: So indeed it looks like not everyone will be too happy about the changes.
But this is an interesting question which comes back to the whole issue
of globalisation and English. There can be very different reactions in
different parts of the world to this. There are places where populations
will wholeheartedly embrace their government's efforts to get people
learning English and others where there's some resistance because,
understandably, language and identity are closely linked and people can
feel like their culture is threatened. Barbara, is there any resistance in
Spain to English?

Barbara: (responds)

Jackie: After this programme, you can listen to Jonny's full report on English
and Madagascar with more of a discussion about some of the issues that
have been brought up by following the link on the webcast page.

Callum: Don't forget, there's still time to enter our competition this week: Who
said 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step?'

Jackie: Send your answers to talkaboutenglish@bbc.co.uk

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