In the midst of multiple international conflicts, an interwoven global economy and the shrinking nature of our techno-driven world, language learning can no longer be considered an elective subject, but should rather be a necessary core to modern education. Typically, we put language learning on hold through much of elementary school, but this is the time when children’s minds are most adept for absorbing words and languages.

Schools throughout the country are realizing this need and implementing Dual Language Education.

From neighborhood schools to charters and magnets, these schools are providing their students with greater opportunity to academically compete with students abroad by diversifying their skill sets in areas of communication, problem-solving, critical thinking, and analysis. Some education leaders are even predicting that dual language education will be the future of American schools.

Dual Language Education vs. ESL/ESOL

Dual Language Education is often confused with ESL/ESOL programs. While there are similarities between the two, there are major differences in their agendas.

The Breakdown: Compare & Contrast

Dual Language Education
- Schoolwide approach
- Goal: To provide ALL students with the skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) necessary to become fluent in both languages
- Programs usually begin at a young age (kindergarten or 1st grade) and continue for at least five years
- Students automatically opt in by enrolling in the school
- Depending on the type of program, requirements are placed on instructional time in partner language
- Not available in every school Read the rest of this entry »

The role of national languages in defining and articulating national identities is a hackneyed subject, but, somehow, the privileging of learning a sacred language has not been explored much in the debates on nationalism. In this brief article, I intend to draw attention to the rise of Arabic studies in Pakistan and its long-term consequences for the Pakistani public sphere.

In his 1983 book Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson provides three major causes for the waning of the pre-national empires and the rise of modern nation-states. One of the reasons, according to Anderson, was the rise of vernacular languages in place of what were considered the sacred languages, Latin and Arabic included. I have long maintained that Anderson misses the point as he only looks at the official use of these languages and not about the symbolic aspects of their power. In case of Arabic, for example, while it never was the official language of Muslim India, it still remains a language that wields immense symbolic power.

In fact, this symbolic power never really recedes and actually comes to haunt and shape the politics of Pakistan in the mid nineteen seventies. Those of us who are old enough to remember it probably know that until the mid-seventies, most of the government schools offered Persian as a second language. There were quite a few reasons for it: Persian, having been the lingua franca of the Mughal court, had been the language of Muslim administration of Northern India for quite some time; Persian was also a mother language for Urdu language and Urdu poetry and prose; Persian was also a language that, at least, impacted the border regions of both Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and, most importantly, Persian was the language of our close RCD ally, Iran. Read the rest of this entry »

FRAUD used by SCHOOLS

Students want to attend high quality established schools. Schools will use fraud to attract students to their school or attempt to appear more established to qualify for government programs or association membership. Schools that claim to have specific affiliations, qualifications, assets, programs, staff or history that are untrue are committing fraud. Schools have also used fraudulent statistics to show jobs or salary upon graduation.

A favorite trick is to name a language school as a “college”. The word college in Canada is not an official use name and anyone can name any building, house or barn as a college. Students should not choose a school simply because it has college in the name. College in the name does not mean anything in Canada.

Another trick is to use the same name or almost identical name of a famous school in the USA, UK, Asia, or Europe. If the famous school has not registered the name in Canada then anyone else can register the name without any affiliation with the original school at all. Students should not pick a school because it has a famous name in their country as it may have no affiliation at all and is designed to trick students.

Schools will appoint international agents or representatives to promote and market the school to potential students then not pay for the advertising or not pay the agency fees. Fraud schools will defraud agents by stating students did not register.

Some of the schools are owned by agents. When an independent agent presents the school with a potential student that student will be contacted by the head office agency and re-registered in the name of that agent thus defrauding the original hardworking agent. Read the rest of this entry »