Teaching English in a multilingual context : the Algerian case

Abstract

In Algeria, the educational system, as much as the use of languages (foreign and national) are the preserve of politicians. Thus, these thorny domains are rarely dealt with in a way that avoids increasing the level of sensitivity about them, leading to a deepening social fracture. If the debates, more often than not, verge on partisanship rather than objectivity, it is because of the scramble for power between French- and Arabic-speaking intellectual communities. Politics rules even when the concern is that of the technicians or the experts in education or didactics. In a situation where the French language has lost much of its ground in the sociocultural and educational environments of the country, the introduction of English is being heralded as the magic solution to all possible ills-including economic, technological and educational ones. The whole process is being implemented with an immediate result: the popular vernaculars are outlawed, French is being compartmentalised in domains which are decreasing in number, while foreign languages are being called upon to supposedly help Arabic come to terms with the demands of a globalised and technological world. Language policy is not planned according to objective and realistic criteria. It is mostly the outcome of individual or group political take-over. The educational system is also taken hostage by jingoistic attitudes expressed in hasty and unrealistic educational reforms. This is no less the case of English teaching and its early introduction in the primary level, a roundabout way to end the influence of French inside and outside the school system.