English: life long learning

by J.B. Muller

The universal medium of communication amongst most human beings is the English Language with over two billion speakers and another two billion users out of the six billion inhabitants of the planet.

What propelled English to this predominant position was, first, the Allied victory in World War II and the dynamic momentum generated in the spheres of science and technology by the war and the unstoppable continuation of that dynamic momentum spurred by the Cold War and then the dramatic breakthrough into the World Wide Web/Internet that was an American military network spanning the globe, which was opened to civilian traffic.

Meanwhile, the research and development in computer technology and its sibling, information and communications technology established the supremacy of the English Language beyond any dispute.

Indeed, the world uses 12 major languages not the least of which is Pu-tong-hwa or Mandarin, the official language of 1.3 billion Chinese but the English Language takes up fully 50 percent of all the books published throughout the world and the remaining 11 language account for the balance 50 percent!

Microsoft Word and Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) are all in the English Language. Such a vast quantity of material has been developed over the past 60 years in all the major branches of human knowledge that it is impossible to quantify and to even think that all that stuff could ever get translated in toto into the other 11 major languages could only be a dream (or nightmare) because of both volume and complexity and in the face of such an impossibility small languages like Sinhala don't stand a ghost of a chance.

The sheer impracticality of such a project is apparent at once that even a single project like translating the Encyclopedia Britannica is unthinkable; then, new knowledge is added year after year to swell the mountain of information that already is.

With such compelling facts staring us in the face the sensible thing to do would be to set aside all the arguments in favour of the indigenous languages as suitable vehicles of modernisation and get down to the serious job of learning English-at least a 7,000-word vocabulary of communicative English-as quickly as possible.

All arguments against the widespread use of English fade into the shadows when these facts are considered objectively. In this day and age when our very survival as a people depend on our ability to compete effectively in the worldwide marketplace we are constrained to take cognisance of ground realities and operate in the light of those imperatives.

The English Language Foundation was incorporated and licensed on 15th September 2004 with a view to the widespread teaching of English by enabling and empowering the country's cadre of schoolteachers-all 2,000,000 of them so that they would be able to teach the country's 4.5 million schoolchildren. When this is done, it would develop its own unstoppable dynamic momentum.

The Foundation's primary objectives are: -

1. To promote the widespread use and utilisation of the English Language as a medium of communication throughout Sri Lanka;

2. To initiate and carry out programmes to train persons in the teaching of the English Language;

3. To initiate and sustain programmes to upgrade and enhance the ability and skills of untrained and uncertified mentors or tutors to teach better English;

4. To utilise information and communications technology and distance learning techniques in training potential trainers and teachers of the English Language;

5. To apply the experience gained in training potential trainers to design better and more effective methodologies and systems in the discipline of pedagogy;

6. To support through the device of networking all viable programmes of teaching the English Language; and

7. To utilise to the utmost the ability and skills of natural English speakers and that of bilingual speakers of the language in the process of training them as trainers of teachers, more especially those engaged in the teaching of the English Language to students.

To accomplish these objectives the under noted members of civil society came together and became the Foundation's first Governing Council: -

Arun R. Dias Bandaranaike, [Radio and TV Broadcast Journalist],

Nihal Bogahalande, [Rotary District Governor, District 3220-Sri Lanka],

E. P. A. Cooray, [Secretary-General/CEO, The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce],

B. R. L. Fernando, [Chairman/Chief Executive, Chemical Industries (Colombo), Ltd.],

Ms. J. D. M. Gunawardena, [President, Association of Business and Professional Women, Board Member, Women's Chamber of Industry and Commerce], M. Macky Hashim, [President, SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry],

Dr. Tilokasundari Kariyawasam, [Educationist, former Director-General of the National Institute of Education],

J. B. Muller, [Specialist Consultant in Mass Communications, Editorialist and Journalist], Gamini Peiris, [CEO, International Chamber of Commerce-Sri Lanka Chapter], M. H. M. Rafiq, [Managing Director, Wycherley International School], Ms. MichSle Rasquinho-Martyn, [Specialist English Language Trainer]; and Denis de Rosayro, [Specialist English Language Trainer, Author and Chief Administrator, OKI International School].

They will soon all be its trustees when it is converted into a Trust Fund.

These several individuals have jointly undertaken this task free of political affiliations and any other divisive tendencies or any other presumptions and are all agreed that what they have purposed to do is for all the children of Sri Lanka free of race, caste, class, creed, colour, or any other artificial obstacle including that of monolingualism.

The Foundation is very shortly converting itself into a registered Trust Fund and has also sought recognition as a Non Governmental Organisation in order to more fully facilitate co-operation between itself and State institutions and multilateral organisations. It will continue to do what is necessary to meet official requirements and all these actions are on behalf of the children of Sri Lanka.

Its ultimate and overarching objective is rolling back poverty and helping construct the infrastructure for a viable and sustainable prosperity that includes all citizens and excludes none on any grounds whatsoever. The portal to life long learning through the medium of the English Language will be established to genuinely level the playing field and afford every child an equal opportunity to rise and shine.

To the accomplishment of these ends rotary District 3220-Sri Lanka has risen magnificently to the occasion and pledged its fullest support for a three-year collaborative programme of assistance that would establish two major training centres within a three-year period.

Out of the 65 Rotary clubs throughout the country, the Rotary Club of Colombo East has been designated the sponsoring club and it is working closely with the Foundation to launch the pivotal Train-the-Trainer Programme by or before January 2006.

It's been a long and hard road since the idea was first brought to the public attention in April 2003 and it is probably a long, hard road ahead, too, but the founders will strive to make their dream a living reality during their lifetimes.