School is in session for teacher trainers and government officials. Some
70 representatives from each of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) countries begin a series of 11-week English language courses this month
as part of the US-Brunei English Language Enrichment Project.
The $25 million Brunei investment
consists of a five-year strategy to bring together the various ASEAN states
with English as the unifying language.
The first seven courses will be
held at The University of Brunei Darussalam (UBD). Here, the focus will be on teacher-training
skills such as communication and educational training methods. The East-West
Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, will host the four remaining courses in culture and
information technology.
While ASEAN members chose English
as the operational language back in 2009, China may not be ready to accept its
“non-speaking” role in the regional alliance just yet. It wasn’t long ago that
China offered the Thailand government its own version of a linguistic crash
course, proposing to send 1,000 Chinese teachers to Thailand and 1,000 Thai
students to China – no strings attached.
In any event, ASEAN members
appear unimpressed by China’s recent courting attempts. Last week, Vietnam
revamped its 10-year English language program in the wake of a new $730 million
investment in their National Target Program.
Thailand is embarking on its own English Speaking Year Project, designed
to improve the conversational skills of some 14 million students.
Like many of ASEAN’s educational
enterprises, the US-Brunei Project is certainly ambitious. The program will
count on information technology sources to influence major changes in the near
future. Currently brewing are plans for a regional forum that integrates ASEAN learning
materials. Another is an online educational tool for teacher trainers.
As of now, qualified American and Bruneian English
teachers are being recruited to work at higher education institutions in
several ASEAN countries.
So, we’re just getting started.
Building a sound infrastructure takes time. Still, this “tower” may just serve
as the prelude to more sustainable educational resources over time.
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