2019年经济学人 全球英语教学对于非洲和南亚意味着什么?(1)

 

International

《国际》版块

Teaching in English around the world

在世界各地用英语教学

Language without instruction 

没有指导的语言

LAHORE AND LUCKNOW

拉合尔和勒克瑙

More children in Africa and South Asia are being taught in English. That’s often a bad thing 

在非洲和南亚，越来越多的儿童正在接受英语教育。这通常是件坏事。

“Roly poly right, right, right. Roly poly left, left, left,” sings a class of five-year- olds at a government primary school on the outskirts¹ of Lucknow, a city in India’s Hindi-speaking heartland. This English- medium school, one of seven that opened last year among the 215 government schools in the Sarojini Nagar administrative² block, is part of an effort by the government of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous³ state, to counter the rise of private schools. Private schools have been mushrooming in India—private-sector enrolment rose from around a quarter of pupils in 2010-11 to over a third in 2016-17— and in Sarojini Nagar there are 200 registered private schools and many more unregistered ones. One of their main attractions is that the great majority of them use (or claim to use) English as the language of instruction. 

“右，右，右。左，左，左，”印度讲印地语的中心城市勒克瑙郊区的一所公立小学里，一群五岁的孩子正在唱歌。这所英语学校是去年萨罗吉尼纳加尔行政街区215所公立学校中开办的7所学校之一，北方邦是印度人口最多的州，为抗衡私立学校的的发展，北方邦政府建了这所学校。私立学校在印度如雨后春笋般涌现——私立学校的入学率从2010-11年的四分之一上升到2016-17年的三分之一以上——在萨罗吉尼纳加尔有200所注册私立学校和更多的未注册学校。其主要吸引力之一是，绝大多数使用（或声称使用）英语作为教学语言。

As a recruitment drive, the policy seems to be working. A school nearby saw its enrolment rise over 50% in six months when it switched the medium of instruction from Hindi to English last April. As an education policy, however, it is not ideal.

随着一股招聘浪潮，这项政策似乎有效。去年4月，附近一所学校将教学语言从印度语改为英语后，入学率在六个月内上升了50%。然而，这并非一项理想的教育政策。

The language in which children are taught can be hugely contentious⁴. Colonial history determines its political salience. Where colonial powers wiped out the indigenous⁵ population, such as in America and Australia, it is hardly an issue: the colonial language has crushed indigenous ones, though a few of these are making a comeback. In places that were colonised unsuccessfully or not at all—such as Europe, Japan and China—indigenous languages rule. But controversy⁶ erupts in countries with a century or two of effective government by a colonial power—in South Asia and Africa, for instance—where the colonial language retains considerable sway.

孩子们使用的教学语言可能引起很大争议。殖民历史决定了其政治重要性。列强灭绝原住民的地方如美国和澳大利亚，几乎没有这类问题：尽管某些土著语言有卷土重来的趋势，但早已被殖民语言摧毁。在殖民失败或是从未被殖民过的地方——如欧洲、日本和中国——则一直使用本土语言。但经过一两个世纪殖民统治的地方，如南亚、非洲，却爆发了很多争议，在这些地方殖民语言仍有很大影响力。

In sub-Saharan Africa, only Tanzania, Ethiopia and Eritrea do not use a colonial language at all during primary education. Others use either English or French. That is partly because of inertia⁷. Developing curricula and printing books in local languages is expensive, and doing so in scientific subjects in which the terminology⁸ is in English is difficult. Keeping English or French is also, in some places, politically convenient. Where tribes compete for power, the colonial language can be less controversial than the local ones. And then there is the self-interest of the elites⁹, usually the only people who can speak the colonial language properly. “They have a huge return to their linguistic¹⁰ capital” when it is the official language, says Rajesh Ramachandran, of the Alfred Weber Institute for Economics in Heidelberg, Germany. The bias¹¹ in favour of English is sometimes ferociously¹² enforced: Rose Goodhart, a teacher in Ghana, has seen children beaten for speaking in their mother tongue.

在撒哈拉以南的非洲，只有坦桑尼亚、埃塞俄比亚和厄立特里亚小学教育期间根本不使用殖民语言。而其他国家要么使用英语，要么使用法语。部分原因是由于习惯，编写本土语言课程、印本土语言书籍成本很高，而在使用英语术语的科学学科中更难做到如此。而在某些地方，保留英语和法语也会提供政治便利。在部落争权夺利之地，本土语言所引起的争议比殖民地语言更多。而且关系到精英们的私利，而精英们是唯一准确掌握殖民语言的群体。当殖民语言成为官方语言时，“他们的语言资本得到了巨大回报。”德国海德堡阿尔弗雷德韦伯经济研究所的教授拉杰什·拉马钱德兰表示。有时会强行培养对英语的偏爱：加纳教师罗斯·古德哈特看到过一些孩子因为说母语而挨打。

1 outskirts   

n.郊外，郊区

参考例句：

• Our car broke down on the outskirts of the city.我们的汽车在市郊出了故障。
• They mostly live on the outskirts of a town.他们大多住在近郊。

2 administrative   

adj.行政的，管理的

参考例句：

• The administrative burden must be lifted from local government.必须解除地方政府的行政负担。
• He regarded all these administrative details as beneath his notice.他认为行政管理上的这些琐事都不值一顾。

3 populous   

adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的

参考例句：

• London is the most populous area of Britain.伦敦是英国人口最稠密的地区。
• China is the most populous developing country in the world.中国是世界上人口最多的发展中国家。

4 contentious   

adj.好辩的，善争吵的

参考例句：

• She was really not of the contentious fighting sort.她委实不是好吵好闹的人。
• Since then they have tended to steer clear of contentious issues.从那时起，他们总想方设法避开有争议的问题。

5 indigenous   

adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的

参考例句：

• Each country has its own indigenous cultural tradition.每个国家都有自己本土的文化传统。
• Indians were the indigenous inhabitants of America.印第安人是美洲的土著居民。

6 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

7 inertia   

adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝

参考例句：

• We had a feeling of inertia in the afternoon.下午我们感觉很懒。
• Inertia carried the plane onto the ground.飞机靠惯性着陆。

8 terminology   

n.术语；专有名词

参考例句：

• He particularly criticized the terminology in the document.他特别批评了文件中使用的术语。
• The article uses rather specialized musical terminology.这篇文章用了相当专业的音乐术语。

9 elites   

精华( elite的名词复数 )； 精锐； 上层集团； （统称）掌权人物

参考例句：

• The elites are by their nature a factor contributing to underdevelopment. 这些上层人物天生是助长欠发达的因素。
• Elites always detest gifted and nimble outsiders. 社会名流对天赋聪明、多才多艺的局外人一向嫌恶。

10 linguistic   

adj.语言的，语言学的

参考例句：

• She is pursuing her linguistic researches.她在从事语言学的研究。
• The ability to write is a supreme test of linguistic competence.写作能力是对语言能力的最高形式的测试。

11 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

12 ferociously   

野蛮地，残忍地

参考例句：

• The buck shook his antlers ferociously. 那雄鹿猛烈地摇动他的鹿角。
• At intervals, he gritted his teeth ferociously. 他不时狠狠的轧平。