Criticism #1:	The World Language Program is culturally imperialistic since it is promoting English as the universal auxiliary language. Go to Response #1
	Criticism #2:	If you are committed to world literacy would it not be better to teach people to read and write in their native tongue, so that they may preserve their independent cultures, and find more usefulness in their immediate surroundings? Go to Response #2
	Criticism #3:	There is already a universal auxiliary language. It is called Esperanto. Go to Response #3
	Criticism #4:	The World Language Program is a plot towards the one world government to be run by the Anti-Christ. God did not mean for men to all speak one language or He would not have destroyed the Tower of Babel. The World Language Program is a humanistic anti-religious plot that is part of the satanist world conspiracy. Go to Response #4
	Criticism #5:	The teacher requirements of the World Language Program do not conform to recognised educational standards for the profession. Go to Response #5
	Criticism #6:	The World Language Program does not use recognised pedagogical methods, that is to say a method that is accepted and taught in academically accredited ESL teacher training schools in North America. Go to Response #6
	Criticism #7:	The World Language Program creates or at least reinforces class differences. Go to Response #7
	Criticism #8:	The World Language Program teaches people to speak and read a pidgin rather than traditional English with traditional English orthography. Go to Response #8
	Criticism #9:	The World Language Program is entirely impractical because it does not have sufficient funding or the sufficient backing of any large government organization. Go to Response #9

 

Criticism #1: The World Language Program is culturally imperialistic since it is promoting English as the universal auxiliary language.

Actually, the UNKOMMON Foundation, of which the World Language Program is a program, does not at this point advocate English, or any other language, as being a universal auxiliary language. The Foundation’s official position is that in the natural progress of humanity some still undetermined world authorized administrative body will in the future select an official universal auxiliary language. Until that time the World Language Program is responding to the international need that has manifested itself in the following facts:

	a.	English is the language of choice by more people, to learn as a second language, than any other language in the world.
	b.	There are now more people in the world who speak English as a second or foreign language than there are people who speak it as their mother tongue.
	c.	Over ninety-five percent of all scientific literature is now originally written in English or is translated into it.
	d.	English is the official language of air traffic control and maritime communication.
	e.	English is the defacto international language of much of the business communication in the world. If in the common market a Frenchman, an Italian and a German were to meet they would be most likely to conduct their discussion in English.
	f.	A 1994 national medical conference in China, which has fourteen official chinese dialects, was conducted in English.
	g.	Over ninety-five percent of the material on the World Wide Web is in English.
	h.	By learning English many economically deprived individuals in developing countries can obtain jobs in the tourist industry or with foreign employers.
	i.	Most parents when asked which language they would prefer their children learn as a second language reply, "English". If your children’s first language was not English, which language would you prefer that they learn as a second language if you only had a choice of one?

 

Criticism #2: If you are committed to world literacy would it not be better to teach people to read and write in their native tongue, so that they may preserve their independent cultures, and find more usefulness in their immediate surroundings?

	a.	There are over 3,500 languages in the world that are spoken by over ten thousand people. There are many more if we include the dialects spoken by numerous small tribes. Many of these have no script or only have had one devised in recent decades by someone like Bible missionaries. These latter often have no written tradition and very little scientific literature, if any at all.
	b.	There are a number of historical world languages that are the source for broad historical traditions (such as Sanskrit, Hebrew, classical Chinese, Arabic, Greek, Latin and so forth) but the teaching of these is useful mostly to scholars.
	c.	There are a number of modern world languages that contribute to modern science and culture (such as Japanese, German, French, Italian, Spanish and some Russian and Chinese dialects) but a large percentage of the intelligentsia and leaders of thought in those languages already speak English.
	d.	The countries in the world which are technologically advanced generally already have widespread literacy programs and many of these countries (such as France, Chile, Japan and many others) already require their advanced students to learn English. The World Language Program is devised to reach the socially and economically deprived classes throughout the world.
	e.	The cost of developing a single literacy program in a language with which we are familiar is over two million dollars. We cannot imagine how we could obtain the funding to develop thousands of such programs. If, one were to say, "then just select a few", which one would they suggest that would be more beneficial than English?

 

Criticism #3: There is already a universal auxiliary language. It is called Esperanto.

	a.	Yes, and a very noble and inspirational attempt it was but it never quite caught on. For one thing it may have been too Romance language oriented. For whatever reason, it and over 650 other attempts (according to the People’s Encyclopedia) have not yet been successful. This may be just one more such attempt but we must keep trying. There were many unsuccessful attempts at heavier-than-air flying machines before the Wright Brothers were successful at Kitty Hawk.
	b.	Fifty years ago there were a number of contenders for the universal language. Besides Esperanto there was Interlingua and Ido. French was also very much on the rise and was considered the language of diplomacy. German, however, was the language of science and without which one could hardly get an advanced degree in science. Latin, however, was the language of medicine and the law, not to mention the Catholic church. Greek, Hebrew and Arabic all had their place among Western scholars and there were other languages popular among the orientalists. Italian, of course, was the language of music. Today, however, they have all descended, or at least have nowhere near ascended in popularity as much as English.

 

Criticism #4: The World Language Program is a plot towards the one world government to be run by the Anti-Christ. God did not mean for men to all speak one language or He would not have destroyed the Tower of Babel. The World Language Program is a humanistic anti-religious plot that is part of the satanist world conspiracy. Or something to that effect.

Please!! While the World Language Program is neither officially or unofficially associated with any religious or political organization of any kind and has no hidden agenda it is neither anti-religious or opposed to the just aspirations (religious, political, nationalistic, or cultural) of any group. In point of fact, the founder and the vision holder of the World Language Program feels himself to be a very religiously motivated individual wishing the spiritual unity of all the world’s religions and working for a world peace that will result in the unification of all humankind. What more can be said that will satisfy these questioners?

 

Criticism #5: The teacher requirements of the World Language Program do not conform to recognised educational standards for the profession.

	a.	While many professional teachers feel that only people with their qualifications should be allowed to teach ESL, in fact most people who learn English do so from supposedly entirely unqualified persons, their mothers. Just as the medical profession in North America would have us believe that only M.D. obstetricians can deliver a baby although most babies in history have been delivered by midwives, much of the ESL profession would have us believe they are the only ones qualified to teach English as a Second or Foreign Language. The World Language Program might be considered as being the mid-wifery program of ESL.
	b.	The World Language Program is designed more along the lines of an Each One Teach One type of program. We hope that the teachers that we train will teach other teachers, and so forth. The World Language Program is not aimed at the professional although any one is welcome to use it. Let the professional teachers teach in the Universities, this program is dedicated to those who cannot find or afford a teacher otherwise. Many of the World Language Program teachers that we first send out might be looked upon as teacher interns, getting their first experience in the teaching field by giving a year of voluntary service. This puts their services within a range that many secondary schools and other establishments that could not otherwise have the benefit of a trained native English speaker will now be able to have a teacher in their school or other organization.
	c.	There are almost four billion people in the world today who do not speak English. If English, or any other language, were to be taught to four billion people in the next twenty years (and at the present rate there will be well over two billion more people born in that time) then 300 million people have to be taught each year, which is more than twenty million people per month, assuming that it only takes a month to teach a person English. Many people will think such a goal is hopeless, and it certainly is under present teaching methods. Today, many people in non-English speaking countries learn English in a university where it is taught by a professional individual who most usually holds a special graduate certificate in teaching ESL. The current teaching methods are such that it usually takes several years to learn to speak well enough to be able to travel to a different country and go into a restaurant and sit down and order a meal.

 
 

Criticism #6: The World Language Program does not use recognised pedagogical methods, that is to say a method that is accepted and taught in academically accredited ESL teacher training schools in North America

	a.	It is true that the system being used by the World Language Program, is a radically different system that seeks to teach the learner to speak in just thirty days with only three hours per day involvement. The nature of this system is so radically different that it is very unlikely that it will be accepted by the present ESL establishment. What this system is designed for is the ordinary individual rather than the scholar, scientist or professional. Someone who is perhaps going to meet tourists in a hotel, or while driving a cab, or in a retail shop. This system is meant to be ideal for someone needing to read specially translated technical manuals in a factory or communicate with English speaking business people or technicians.
	b.	World Language Program Teacher volunteers will receive, through a correspondence course, a thorough explanation of the pedagogical methods used in the ACCESS system. The ACCESS system uses a variety of techniques that have been tested individually. It is the manner of their combination in this system that is unique.

 
 

Criticism #7: The World Language Program creates or at least reinforces class differences.

The World Language Program is meant as a grassroots program. It is language sharing by ordinary people with ordinary people, rather than a rarefied university level linguistic and scholarly exchange. For this reason it is intended to be the effort of thousands of ordinary but dedicated individuals rather than that of a select and chosen and highly credentialed few. The typical teacher would be either a recent university graduate or student, or retired individual, who is willing to get some life experience by spending a year teaching ESL in another culture. It is the simplicity of the designed program that is supposed to assure their success, rather than extensive previous credentials.

 
 

Criticism #8: The World Language Program teaches people to speak and read a pidgin rather than traditional English with traditional English orthography.

a.

It is true that the World Language Program seeks in less than a thirty day period to teach the learner to speak, read and write a simplified form of English that may be properly called a pidgin. However:

	1.	any English speaking person will be able to understand them
	2.	they may then be sufficiently encouraged that they will go ahead and learn traditional English syntax and orthography
	3.	they will be able to read any of the English classics because these are all machine translatable into their simplified spelling
	4.	they will be able to read any of the files on the Internet because these are all machine translatable into their simplified spelling

b.

Please note, however, that we have not said that within thirty days they will be able to:

	5.	to understand the rapid speech, extensive vocabulary, or convoluted syntax of every English speaker that they meet
	6.	to understand the sophisticated concepts of all the English classical literature and scientific journals that they will be able to read.
	7.	or be able to speak English like an Oxford scholar.

 
 

Criticism #9: The World Language Program is entirely impractical because it does not have sufficient funding or the sufficient backing of any large government organisation.

The World Language Program is a grass roots program of people to people. Hundreds of volunteers have supported it in the past and it will hopefully have the assistance of thousands - even millions in the future. At the moment it is still in a development phase but time and circumstances change in this world, and if its timing is right then it will be able to fulfill the destiny of its vision.

MENU:  HOME » Reconstruction » Recovery » Renewal » Language Main Page