Critical Questions/Reading Response Journal: Week 9 Globalization and literacy

According to Raley (2000 as cited in Kennedy, 2006), The term ‘Global English’, as it is used in the globalisation literature, identifies the powerfulness and status of a language that becomes dominant in global or local contexts with a capacity to cross borders and societies” (p.300).

When talking about English as the globalization literature, according to my own experience, Chinese are passionate about learning English because they assume that if you are able to fluently speak English, you will have a more successful future and “give them a competitive advantage, both at school and later on in their working lives” (Martin Hope, Deputy Director as cited in Kenny, 2006, p. 300). I wonder who make English the globalization literature. Why do English become so important for children’s “future”?  According to Dahlberg and Moss (2005, as cited in Kennedy, 2006), “the significant driver for early education from these movements is a desire to ensure that institutions, like kindergartens and schools help to produce global citizens or workers through the sanctioning of universalised norms and best practices” (p.299).

Society construct the ‘norms’ and ‘best practice’ to be able to evaluate children’s achievements at schools. Institutions try to make children become the “same” citizens who are able to ‘fit in’ the ‘norms’ because it makes it easier for them to who is better than the others.  

In the youtube video, we can see how children are learning English in a English learning camp. They are supposed to learn to speak English in eight days.

“You have to be crazy, you have to forget about your Chinese, you have to be physically, mentally, you have to really one hundred percent been involved. And that’s call the craziness. You have to be very crazy”.

With this statement, I doubt about what dose he mean a hundred percent involved because I can only see children repeat after what the teachers are speaking to them instead of provoking children’s meaning making processes. I have the same question as Kennedy (2006)rises in his article:

“Will promoting Global English and the new technologies associated with globalization mean that we transform children into active global citizens, or will these processes act to reproduce a passive global citizen whose identity is universalized and increasingly less connected to local values and traditions?” (p.305)

What are the values of learning another language? Dose it mean you learn about the cultural and historical aspects of the English-speaking countries while you are learning to speak English? Is literacy simply for people to be able to communicate with others who do not speak the same language as you?