> > only a small elite who needs to do business with
> english speaking
> > businessmen will have to talk english.
>
::delurk::
is this true?
i teach english at a YMCA school in taiwan. my students are mostly public school teachers, candidates for medical school, or lower middle-class office workers who deal in shipping and international trending. the last group especially is hardly elite and in many cases horribly overworked.
my employer is only one of dozens of such schools in the small town where I live. Most of the children here, even the sons and daughters of small shopkeepers (taiwan is full of small businesses, lots of people are self employed) speak very good english. In many cases they have spent hours a week in english-language day care and cram schools since before they were entirely potty trained. i'm not kidding.
btw, the recent discussion about chinese xenophobia re: english learning reminds me of some personal experiences in Taiwan. many of my students, though well travelled and by some measures more cosmopolitan than the average US-er, are holding on to remarkably racist and chauvinistic attitudes toward "foreign" language and culture.
They believe, for instance:
Studying english too much will hurt your chinese. Children who grow up bilingual will be confused and unable to think clearly. Studying english will make children lazy because it's 'too easy.' Black people are bad english teachers because they 'have an accent' and always say 'yo yo yo.'
I could go on but i have to go teach a class now. won't be posting much because this account is mostly for downloading lbo posts, but i thought i had something to contribute for once : )
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