This introductory article provides an overview of the Pacific East Asia Region and some varieties of foreign language use there. Future articles will treat individual countries. Proposals for The Region articles of up to 2,500 words may be submitted directly to the column editor.
You have to know languages when you go to sell something. But when you buy, everyone does what he must to understand you. -- Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Love in a Time of Cholera
The Scope of the Region
A rectangle with corners in Myanmar, New Zealand, Kiribati, and Japan, the region comprises 21 Asian and Pacific countries: the Republic of Korea (ROK), North Korea, Hong Kong (HK), the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of China (ROC) or Taiwan, Thailand, the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar or Burma, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands: Fiji, Micronesia, Tonga, and the Cook, Solomon and Marshall Islands.
The "Pacific Century" and "Asian Challenge" are economic and political sound bites. This column will ask whether the terms apply to language learning as well. A recurring theme will be the ways in which fundamental changes in the distribution of power and wealth in Asia are exerting a profound and far-reaching impact on the language education policies and learning environments of these countries.
National profiles will list educational levels offered in the various foreign languages, teacher education programs, and national and state foreign language teaching organizations. They will describe the characteristics of classroom teaching and learning, relevant government policies and initiatives, current issues and debates, and employment prospects.
Economic and Educational Growth
As economic prosperity and trade levels increase throughout Asia, world market forces have stimulated labor, management, and government in many Asian countries to unparalleled investment in foreign language skills. In Vietnam, for example, the market has proved a stronger stimulus than the decade-long war. Only in recent years have the growth of international trade and prospects of English-speaking markets led to the relative rise of English and decline of French as an international language.
The Japanese Model
Paradoxically, the dominance of Japan in the region has also contributed to the growth of English as an international language and of English language teaching. Although Japan has long been the region's dominant trading country, its largest single bilateral contact remains the US. In Asia, Japan primarily provides capital, technology and intermediate goods. Japan is hesitant to transfer technology, including foreign languages, except through joint ventures with local groups. From the 1960s, the market economies centering on the US -- Taiwan, ROK, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines -- adopted strategies of economic development patterned on the one pioneered by Japan in the 1950s. The result for the Asia-Pacific region was growing economic interdependence, an interdependence in which English played a large part.
Since 1975, Asia has grown faster than any other region of the world. This growth has been due to superior accumulation and productive investment of not only financial but also human capital -- development of effective educational and training systems for technology, including foreign language fluency, to match financial investments.
In all the rapidly growing East Asian economies except Thailand, the growth and transformation of systems of education and training during the past three decades has been dramatic. The quantity of education children received increased at the same time that the quality of schooling, and of training in the home, remarkably improved. By 1965 HK, ROK, and Singapore had already achieved universal primary education, well ahead of developing economies elsewhere. Primary and secondary enrollment rates naturally vary according to per capita income, but Asian countries outrank other countries of similar incomes.
By 1987 Indonesia had a secondary enrollment rate of 46% and ROK had achieved 88% secondary enrollment. Only Thailand's 28% secondary enrollment was well below average. (In recent years Thailand's weak educational performance has led to serious shortages of educated workers which threaten continued rapid growth.)
A common, though imperfect measure of educational quality is expenditures per pupil. Between 1970 and 1989, real expenditures per pupil at the primary level rose 355% in ROK. A somewhat better measure of school quality is the performance of children on tests of cognitive skills, standardized across economies. In the relatively few international comparisons available from such tests as TOEIC and TOEFL, East Asian students with the possible exception of Japanese students tend to perform better than students from other developing regions -- and even, recently, better than students from high-income economies.
How much a child learns is also influenced by the home learning environment. In terms of the mother's education and the number of children at home, the learning environment in ROK during the past 20 years was enhanced 114% more than in Brazil and 147% more than in Pakistan (World Bank, 1993, p. 46).
Historically, nearly all societies have provided educational opportunities first to boys and only later, usually gradually, to girls. Asia has also eliminated gender gaps in enrollment faster than most areas, thanks more to the successful push for universal education than to deliberate attention to females. By 1987 East Asian economies had all achieved universal primary education for girls, and except for Indonesia, secondary enrollment rates for girls are higher than other regions of the world (Ross, 1995).
Varieties of English Education and Use
The United States, not Japan, still serves as the primary foreign absorber of Asia's productive output and the primary provider of English-language technology and labour. However, economic growth has also seen a growth of varieties and purposes of English language use.
In Australia and New Zealand, national varieties of English are primarily taught as a second language (ESL) to immigrant and native speakers of other languages, for communication with the Anglophone majority. The multilingual nations of Malaysia, Singapore, HK and the Philippines have developed unique, institutionalized forms of English, more properly "English as an Additional Language" (EAL) than EFL, as their speakers communicate with native (NES) and non-native (NNES) English speakers from within and beyond their nations' borders. In the ROK, Japan, and Taiwan, virtually all English teaching is EFL, and with few exceptions -- college English Speaking Societies, for example --communication is with NES and NNES foreigners.
The Double Significance of China
While the US is still the dominant trade partner, intra-regional trade accounts for 40% of the entire trade of East Asia. Moreover, direct investment in the region from 1991 to 1994 has surged four times more than between 1986 and 1990 (Keun Lee, 1993). Much of the surge is attributed to China. With 844 million native speakers, Mandarin is the dominant first language in Taiwan and the PRC. In Hong Kong, where Cantonese is the first language, Mandarin is competing with English as the foreign language used for trade. And as the Chinese economy and markets grow, Mandarin will no doubt grow in regional importance.
On the other hand, part of China's transition to an open door policy is the drive for English language education. China has over 200 million EFL students, nearly as many as there are native English speakers in the US. English is taught at elementary schools, beginning in the third grade. The education at government-operated Schools and day-care centres reflects policy: The unified national English proficiency and entrance examinations focus on the reading ability needed to assimilate foreign technology and to catch up with industrialized nations. At the same time, this tremendous growth actually has created a shortage of teachers, as foreign companies can pay much higher salaries than colleges for English skills.
Future Columns
Upcoming columns will assess the role of English and other foreign languages in government, economics, trade, and education in the region. How might the new Englishes reflect the culture of their language communities? What changes will affect requirements for textbooks and dictionaries? The next column discusses how Hong Kong schoolbooks will be revised to reflect Beijing's view of history after the British colony reverts to Chinese rule.
References
- Asian Development Bank. (1995). Asian development outlook 1995 and 1996. Oxford University Press.
- Keun Lee. (1993). New East Asian economic development -- Interacting capitalism and socialism. M. E.Sharpe.
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Ross, R. S., Harding, H., & Leiffer, M. (1995). East Asia in transition, toward a new regional order. M. E.Sharpe.
- World Bank Policy Research Report. (1993). The East Asian miracle, Economic growth and public policy. Oxford University Press.