The Role of English in Our Interconnected World
by Sarah Bernadette Ottow
As a self-proclaimed “edupreneur” who started my own business with the distinct goal of supporting educators of multilingual learners in innovative ways globally, I’ve been reflecting on the role of English in our rapidly changing world. My team of consultants and I provide professional learning for educators of multicultural, multinational learners through innovative technology, curated content and relationship-building near and far. In our increasingly interconnected world where knowledge is less centralised and more valuable through social media and crowdsourcing, we find it critical to engage through agile, flexible options for our clients and broader professional learning networks. We find it critical to promote the value of multilingualism in our largely monolingual, Englishonly schools and workplaces.
Confianza, the name of my business, is a word in Spanish, derived from Latin, that means more than one might think if looking only at the root, “confiar”: confidence. Like many words that don’t quite translate between cultures, Confianza is more than a word, it’s a cultural concept, meaning mutual respect and trust. It means promoting reciprocal power relations and equality between stakeholders. Confianza is a missing ingredient often in education when we are focused so much on standardised outcomes at the expense of capitalising on reciprocal ways of teaching, learning and relating. The concept of confianza is often overlooked in communities where the dominant culture and dominant language overshadows funds of knowledge of all people in that community. This is particularly true in the focus area that my organisation supports—honouring multilingual, multicultural education which has been historically centered around the English language.
In a world where English is very much the language of money, the language of technology, and the language of access, largely coming out of the impact of American-global capitalist structures, it can be all too easy to devalue other languages and other perspectives. For example, in many spaces on this planet, the “America” is used to connote the United States. Yet all of the Western Hemisphere is also known as the Americas. As my time living in Latin America taught me firsthand, the word “American” is ethnocentric, rather than creating an English word equivalent (which does not exist in the English language as it does in other languages) to “United States-ian”.
Naming my organisation a non-English word was intentional in this landscape of overemphasising English and, where my team does much of our work, in the United States where monolingualism is not only expected but enforced in ubiquitous subtractive language program models. I am not a native Spanish-speaker but rather an long-term tourist, a wanna-be bi-cultural, bilingual—and multicultural, multilingual—humble citizen of the world. Wherever I travel in this world, I learn basic phrases and seek to acculturate as opposed to imposing my “ugly American” stereotype on those I have the privilege of visiting. I did the same when I was in the classroom teaching children from over 40 different linguistic groups. I aim to model what the traditional, US-born, white, monolingual can actually be, which is to learn about others’ ways of being, talking, learning so as to not over-emphasise a historically imperialist frame of mind, an ingrained colonist framework with its impact still felt from the inception of the United States through today.
As the joke goes, “What do you call a person who speaks two languages?” (Bilingual) “What do you call a person who speaks more than two languages?” (Multilingual or polyglot) “What do you call a person who speaks one language?” (American). It takes effort to go outside of one’s comfort zone, to learn not just another language but another cultural perspective. It takes extrapolating oneself from the dominant white racial, “American”, English dominant framework and becoming an expatriate even if by frame of mind only. In fact, you don’t have to leave your own country or the country where you are currently inhabiting to have a global mindset.
The contributors on my team and I share practical tips for learning about students’ and families’ ways of life, cultures, languages, practices right without going too far from your own backyard. One helpful tool for valuing all perspectives is the concept of ensuring that texts in a classroom have windows, mirrors and sliding glass doors for all children.Mirrors are texts that mirror one’s experience, whereas windows show other ways of being and sliding glass doors allow one to enter other experiences. “Diversity needs to go both ways,” explains Rudine Sims Bishop, “It’s not just children who have been under-represented and marginalised who need these books. It’s also the children who always find a mirror in the books and therefore get an exaggerated sense of their own self-worth and a false sense of what the world is like because it’s becoming more and more colourful and diverse as time goes on.”
“Is this ‘English bubble’ helping or hindering our global society?
In a global scale, “diversity going both ways” means learning about and integrating languages and cultures even while teaching in an English-forward curriculum and even in an international school. If you are working as an English speaker abroad, you can resist what I call the “English bubble” in the international school space. The “English bubble” is when you are promoting an English-focused curriculum taught by English speakers living in another country with another language yet you are speaking English most if not all of the time in the larger community outside the school. In the English bubble, English can often usurp the mother tongue(s) because of English’s rank in the world ,its role in power historical and current relationships, and often because those of us who speak English and are hired, in part, for their language skills can easily get away with not learning much of the heritage language of the country in which they are living. I urge us to ask ourselves, “Is this ‘English bubble’ helping or hindering our global society? By not taking the time to learn other mother tongues, are we promoting mutual respect and trust in our changing world or are we perpetuating mainly an English-centric, Western-dominant perspective?”
Things are changing though. “America is no longer the centre. Now we have a multi-polar world,” author Fatima Bhutto explains. When it comes to cultural influences, with the popularity of K-Pop, Bollywood and Turkish soap operas, the days of “American dominance” are over, Bhutto asserts in her book “New Kings of the World”. However, when it comes to languages, we are seeing mother tongues become extinct while the prevalence of English flourishes. I met student Fatima Djalalova through my work at the Tashkent International School in Uzbekistan. In her TEDxYouth talk titled, “What if English was the Only Language?”, Fatima ponders that whole having one language may unite the planet and even bring us more towards world peace, we should consider the very real impact losing one’s mother tongue can have. “Language is not just about communication. It is about sharing a part of your soul.”
We need to remember that educators are social agents in schools where we are either promoting or interrupting power relations through our actions, and what languages cultures we choose to emphasise or de-emphasise, to integrate or ignore. To deliberately move away from monolingualism and monoculturalism is a small but important step in this increasingly interconnected and multi-polar world, especially if we are to retain the richness that cultural and linguistic diversity inherently brings to the proverbial table. Let’s promote mutual respect and trust for all stakeholders by learning, retaining and promoting non- English languages and non-Western cultures in this global world. We can indeed create an international educational ecosystem where all ways of being and communicating are not just integrated but valued and utilised as the strengths they are.
About the Author
Sarah Ottow is a professional learning specialist focused on improved cultural understanding, communication and collaboration with twenty years of teaching, training and coaching experience. Sarah is the author of The Language Lens for Content Classrooms: A Guide for K-12 Educators of English and Academic Language Learners published byLearning Sciences International. Having taught English language and literacy skills to every age group, including adults, Sarah has enjoyed working in public and private schools, non-profit organisations and corporations across the US and internationally.
References
Reading Rockets: Windows, Mirrors and Sliding Glass Doors, by Rudine Sims Bishop.” YouTube, January 30,2015.
The Days of American Culture Dominance Are Over, Author Says. National Public Radio, September 27, 2019.
TEDxTalks: What if English Was the Only Language? Fatima Djalalova, TEDxYouth@TashkentIntlSchool. YouTube, May 23, 2019.