Point:Counterpoint

The Guilt of an English Teacher

Are We Homogenizing the Planet?

By Mykel Board

A Japanese salaryman struggles to tell his first joke in English: "A boy moving to America with family," he says. "He scared of new way living. Father says, 'No worry. It not so different.' Little boy still scared. They get off plane and go with taku-shi to city. Then little boy say, 'Look papa! It okay now. They have Makudonaldo (McDonalds) here too.'"

He shakes his head and laughs. I laugh too, but not as loud. The joke makes me think again about teaching English and how I contribute to the destruction of the world.

If you've traveled during the last 10 years, you've been saddened by worldwide Americanization. American movies dominate the cinemas. Every boy between the ages of three and 19 sports a Chicago Bulls cap. Coca Cola advertises in South America that it is siempre acerca de tu, always near you. They're right. Nike, using near-slave labor in Southeast Asia, sells its shoes back to other Asians. They buy them because they're American. American culture is everywhere, spreading like Typhoid, and the English language is Typhoid Mary.

I'm teaching at the National University in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Warning my students about the coming cultural invasion, I pick the most obvious symbol. "Watch out!" I tell them. "In a few years you'll have a McDonalds right here in Sukhbataar Square."

Altensteg, a chubby-faced girl from the countryside, raises her hand to ask "Mykel-baksh, what's McDonalds?"

I restrain myself from running to her and giving her a hard kiss. "Where else in the world would someone ask, What's McDonalds?" This is before a new American-sponsored TV network brings CNN into the country. Now they know.

Tsengel, another Mongolian student, tells me about European languages. "To us," he says, "French is the language of love. Italian is the language of passion. German is the language of anger . . . . "

"And what emotion is English the language of?" I ask. "English," he answers, "English is the language of money . . . business and money."

That's the reality. If people from different countries need to discuss shipping, trade agreements, or the price of yak milk, they do it in English.

Dollars and cents are only part of the invasion. Some compatriots use the language to wage their own little culture war. On any street in Asia or Eastern Europe, you can see blond crewcut Americans in dark suits. They hand out cards.

"Free English Lessons," they say. "Why pay money to study the language of international business, when you can learn it for free from our institute?"

In Thailand, Kom Chunnul takes a card. He goes to the school, actually a single floor in an old office building. Despite the heat, the young teacher is dressed in a black suit. "Hello," he says, with blue eyes shining as brightly as his smile. "Welcome to our English class. Can you all say, Hello?"

"HELLO," answers the class.

"Now repeat after me," says the young man. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ."

After the lesson, I speak with Kom. "I learned a lot today," he tells me. "I'm going to be Christian."

"Why?" I ask him. "Because, Christian is American, modern. Buddhism old fashioned. All Americans are Christian."

Some missionaries enter a country openly, respect native cultures, and present their religion as a choice among many. Others, however, hide their intentions behind the mantle of English teaching. Their plan is to use the language to change the culture.

The problem doesn't come only from those with a plan. English teachers can destroy as much from ignorance as from malice.

Many well-meaning yet naive teachers wreak cultural havoc in places unprepared for the onslaught. Although the Peace Corps now recruits far fewer volunteers just out of college who have no skills except being Americans, not long ago, some freshly scrubbed, gung-ho volunteers went overseas with the intention of "helping the underprivileged." They taught English. And baseball. And Christianity. And Nikes.

Even experienced teachers with a real interest in the local culture carry the seeds of that culture's destruction. English is the language of power and money. Why speak anything else? English is slowly destroying other cultures and turning the world into a copy of America. National identities are lost. People feel inadequate, or less, for belonging to their own society. Slowly the world becomes more standard, less exciting.

So what should we do? Should we give up teaching English and take a job with the Inuit Institute of Culture? Sometimes that seems like the only moral choice. There are lingering questions, however.

The first and selfish one is: "How can I live all over the world and get paid for it, if I give up teaching English?"

The second one is: "Let's face it. English is the world language. People are going to learn it no matter what you do. Isn't it better that they learn it from me than from those blond guys in dark suits?"

So, you decide to teach. What can you do to make sure that your teaching does as little damage as possible-- and maybe even a bit of good?

Learn the language of the place you're teaching. You may have heard the joke: What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual. How about a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual. And a person who speaks one language? American.

You can't show people that their own language is as valuable as ours if you don't learn their language.

Respect the native culture. That's easy to say. But how do you know what the other culture is? Michael Agar, author of Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation (Morrow, 1994), says that culture is the difference between how you live and how other people live. When you find yourself wondering "What's wrong with them? Why can't they do things the way I do?" you've run into culture.

I'm in a classroom of Americans taking Japanese lessons. There are two Japanese teachers and five American students. The question under discussion: "If you don't know the answer to a problem, is it better to ask your friends or figure it out yourself?"

All the Japanese say the former. The Americans, the latter.

"But why?" ask the Japanese. "If someone already knows the answer, why do you have to do all that work?"

"It builds character and independence," I answer. "You have to learn to rely on yourself."

"You did not ask to build character or independence," says my teacher. "You asked to find the answer."

Bang! Hit on the head with a cultural water balloon.

Okay, so you've found another culture. What do you do with it? What about all those things you found so annoying?

The secret is: Assume that what you think is wrong. Assume that the reason you think it is because someone trained you to think it. When you see something from another culture that looks wrong, rude, stupid, or unhealthy, assume it's right, polite, smart, or healthy. Then figure out why.

In Mongolia, 20 students sit in long rows behind tables with built-in benches. I stand in front, writing on the blackboard. I have eaten the dead lamb, I write. "That's present perfect," I explain. "We use it when an action starts in the past . . . ."

The door opens outward. A swish of black hair appears. Then it closes again.

"As I was saying," I continue, "we use the present perfect when an action starts in the past and continues to the present, or it's effect con . . . ."

The door opens again. A tall, older man, grey hair, glasses, wearing a dell (the traditional Mongolian national costume), leans into the room. He looks at me. Then he scans the students, looking for a familiar face. Not finding it, he goes out, closing the door.

I write on the board: He has rudely intruded in the classroom.

The students don't laugh. One girl looks completely puzzled. She begins to whisper to the student next to her. Then the door opens again. This time I'm ready. I force the door open, slamming it into the chest of the young woman on the other side.

"What?!" I yell at her. "We're trying to have a class in here. Don't you know enough to knock? At least say 'Uchlaarai.' (Excuse me.) Now, what do you want?"

The girl is terrified. Tears well up behind her glasses. "I don't English," she stammers. Then she turns around and walks--very nearly runs--down the stairs.

That night, I think about it. Why is it better to knock first? Knocking on a door disturbs the people inside. It requires action by someone on the other side ('Hello?'), then a response ('May I come in?'), then another action (asking 'Is Tsengel here?').

The Mongol method has none of these disadvantages. It's simple, quick, and direct. It makes plenty more sense. My emotions have yet to catch up with logic. But even if it pisses me off, I understand it's my fault--or at least my culture's.

Language is Culture

Remember that when you teach English, you're also teaching Western culture. Don't act from a position of superiority. You aren't in one. It's likely that the culture you're teaching in is a lot older and more developed than your own. If you explain how one culture is different from the other, explain that neither is better. Always show flaws in your own culture. Don't make it an ideal.

On the other hand, emphasize the good points of the local culture. Talk about the dangers of standardization and importance of maintaining local ideas and beliefs. Stress that English just happens to be the lingua franca of today. Yesterday it was French. Tomorrow it could be Mandarin.

Recognize that teaching is not a one-way street. Only poor teachers learn nothing from their students. If you don't understand something, ask your students. When you teach English, ask students to speak and write about their daily lives. You'll be astonished.

The same young woman who asked me "What's McDonalds?" wrote about her life in the countryside. I still keep her amazing two paragraphs. [Note: A horsefiddle is a Mongolian instrument, kind of like a stand-up bass, with a horse head carved into the top.]

When I was little and live in countryside, my father had camel who had baby. The baby try to get milk from mother, but mother push baby away. The mother angry and not want to feed baby. My father afraid that baby will die.

He call to uncle who live in ger not far away. My uncle come with horsefiddle. He play horsefiddle and mother camel lie quiet. She make soft noises, like crying. Baby camel come to mother and begin suck. Mother let baby suck because the music. Mongolian music make camels quiet.

The English is lousy, but the story is beautiful. It's a piece of magic. I would never have been able to experience it if I asked my students to write about "Why I Want to Go To America" or "What Industrialization Will Mean to Mongolia."

Sure, the world is going to hell in a Coke bottle. And English is part of it. But, as an English teacher I can try to minimize the damage. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. I'd rather it be me than Ronald McDonald--or young men in black suits.

MYKEL BOARD has been a roving English teacher for almost 10 years, and a roving freelance writer for twice that. His long-running social/political column appears in Maximum Rock 'n' Roll. He also runs The World For Free, an international hospitality exchange service.