English Language Teaching in Southeast Asia: Continuity and Change

Abstract

This paper attempts to show how continuity and change characterize English language teaching in a number of the Southeast Asian countries, i.e. while there is continuity in some areas of English language teaching (ELT) in Southeast Asia, there have also been many changes over the last five or six years. However, the juxtaposition of continuity vs. change becomes a dilemma.The paper is structured in three parts. The first section takes a much larger view of the ELT terrain, as it were, in Southeast Asia, in that it describes in some detail the situation of English teaching in several of the Southeast Asian countries, namely, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao P.D.R., Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. On the basis of the role of English in these ten countries and of the status of English language teaching, it is possible, for the sake of convenience, to group the ten countries into two categories — one in which English is regarded and taught as a second language (ESL) and the other in which English is treated as a foreign language (EFL). Attention will be drawn to the fact that in the last five or six years, all the countries in the region, whether ESL or EFL by classification, have attempted to improve the teaching of English and change teaching strategies. One strategy in the EFL countries, for example, is to introduce English as a subject in the school curriculum in the primary grades much earlier than before as in the ESL countries. This has been a consistent pattern.The second section of the paper will be devoted to the strategy of teaching English in Singapore schools, drawing attention to the changes taking place in the English curriculum, which have resulted in a new emphasis in English teaching methodology. The new emphasis introduces greater interaction in the English learning classroom than is the case in the traditional classroom and a more book-based approach to language learning than in the previous curriculum.The last part of the paper attempts some generalizations on the teaching of English in Southeast Asia. One generalization has to do with the fact that some of the changes as observed in the English language curriculum have been concept-driven, particularly by the concepts of communicative competence and skills-integration. Other generalizations to be attempted concern problems faced in the teaching of English and the question of the suitability of certain teaching techniques in settings where English is seldom used outside the classroom. These problems are conceptualized in terms of a number of dilemmas.