The document discusses issues related to the expansion and role of English language teaching globally. It addresses three main questions: 1) Whether English is expanding in balanced ways or at the expense of other languages and cultures. 2) How linguistic policies at the macro level interact with micro-level classroom practices. 3) If academic freedom is being restricted by economic priorities that limit the ecology of languages. The document provides examples from Namibia and criticisms of the British Council and TESOL International for not adequately considering local contexts and needs.

1. Questionnaire.
What is a fundamental aim for TESOL academic?
The fundamental aims for TESOL academic is to answer three questions that
link theory and practice and which also link the micro level and macro level and
issues of practicality with overall national trends.
Question 1:
Is English expanding in balance with other languages or in unethical
ways, at the expense of cultural and linguistic diversity?
English is expanding all over the world in an unethical way, which is when other
cultures and languages are disappearing due to the spread of English. We
cannot deny that this is happening.
These issues have been of central concern because there is now a firm policy
with signatures by ministers that ensure that the expansion of English is not at
the expense of Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic. So, there is awareness
that English not has to be learnt in an additive way and not so proactively.
Secondly, it is important to work with multilingual education and to see more
ways this has been functioning well, which it has in many contexts worldwide,
and he summarizes many of these things in the book “Social justice through
multilingual education” which he has edited with two Indian researchers from
whom he learnt a great deal.
Question 2:
Can we analyze the linguistic policy in practice so that evidence of the
local micro level (classroom activities, curriculum and so on) dovetails
with broader macro level developments, international trends, forces
behind the current expansion of English worldwide?
He wants to see how the local micro level interacts with the local culture. The
macro level is the globalization of the use of English. For example, the book that
we used to do the micro teaching was produced in Argentina. It is an English
book but with elements of our own culture. He wants to see if both things really
interact. We have to teach English not as being superior but considering our
own culture.
Question 3:
Is academic freedom being restricted and subject to a purely economic
rationale by making limitations in the ecology of languages and freedom
of speech?
Phillipson states that it is important to fight for the academic freedom, for a
change of paradigm in much of the way TESOL is understood, because he
gives on example saying that it is difficult for scholars from the periphery, from
post-colonial worlds to get into print in journals which are dominated by Western
academics and by Western publishers.
Marianela Depetris

2. Then, he continues saying that we have to try to influence decision makers in all
parts of the world because he thinks that there is more and more evidence and
for instance there are very serious existential issues that are not being
addressed at the moment in TESOL. For example, there are now universities
that are being exported from the USA, Australia, UK, to China, to Malaysia,
where the websites of these universities are proudly proclaimed that they are
exporting exactly the same content of education and the same medium of
instruction in those contexts as in the whole country. This to his mind is practical
in some ways, because there are things that are vital to be learnt from the West,
but it is wrong to simply export this without taking local consideration into
account.
Why has he chosen the Guardian article?
He has chosen the Guardian article because the title of it says “Language
policy ‘poisoning’ children”.
Expand on the Namibia example.
The article explains what is happening now in Namibia, since English has
become the main medium of education, and that teachers are not competitive
and qualified enough which prevents students from not having a good
education.
Why does he criticize British Council and TESOL International?
He states that this is a result of the British Council’s policies and the way advice
was given to the Namibian convent. Despite the fact that many of them would
be making the right decisions about choosing a medium education.
What does he call “the missing link”?
The missing link is the massive focus on English that has been at the expense
of other languages. It has been depriving people of an appropriate form of
education.
What are his beliefs (languages in plural)?
In principle, why should only be a TESOL, if one loves languages in the plural?
And has persons’ experience of successful and preferably experience of living
bilingually or multilingually, which is what learners are doing. This kind of
experience leads to understanding on how languages are learnt and used in the
real world, as well as within educational constraints. His second fundamental
belief: English, like any language, is not intrinsically good or bad because it is
used for masses of good purposes, as well as less good ones. However, in the
colonial and post-colonial world it is often served evil purposes. Another
fundamental belief: he actually taught English since 1964, and that callous his
understanding of language pedagogy, the forms and functions of English, and
makes him very suspicious of influence figures who pontificate about the
Marianela Depetris

3. learning of English, but who stopped actually teaching the language in
facilitating language learning many years ago.
What is his criticism of narrow-pragmatic views of experts in applied
linguistics?
As a result of too much professional input and output is neither inspiring nor
valid.
English as a global language: how does he counteract this argument?
(10:32)
He states that global, in this sense, applies to one fourth of the world’s
population, so the idea that English, because of its prestige and the fact that
people can see that it opens doors, should necessarily be given in private
places in all contexts is fundamentally false. English does open doors but it
closes them for a large proportion of the world’s population. There are many
false arguments, for instance that English should be the sole of lingua franca
from Europe or that English should be the sole medium education in elite
schools in West Africa or Pakistan, or that English should start earlier in schools
for success in education.
Marianela Depetris