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“Do you speak English?” is a frequently asked question, which Saudi people must be prepared to answer with a confident “Yes!” when applying for a job or to a university. In Saudi Arabia, as in many other places, knowledge of English has become a major prerequisite for many positions and in numerous disciplines. This demand for English has opened the way for an explosion of private institutes teaching the English language, where English is regarded as a commercial product that can earn good money for the purveyor. It is therefore reasonable to expect that the promotional discourses disseminated by these institutions conceal language ideologies that shape learners’ beliefs regarding English learning and its teaching.
My master’s thesis explored the approaches that English language teaching institutes use to persuade their audience that they should learn English in their institution. It examines language ideologies by looking at how English language learning is presented in the online advertisements produced by these institutes, and at the ways in which they represent themselves to their audience. To do this, I analyse visuals and texts to see how institutions make use of a range of language resources in promoting their services.
The analysis of the institutes’ ads shows that, in their attempt to persuade a potential audience to enroll, they conceptualize English as a global language. For example, English learning is described as totally advantageous as it supposedly opens the gates to job opportunities, education and travel. English learning is also represented as fun, confidence-building, and personally empowering.
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The findings also reveal concepts that simultaneously mystify and oversimplify English learning. For instance, native-English speaking teachers are described in idealistic terms; there are claims that the use of specific textbooks will guarantee successful language learning and that success in global English proficiency tests such as IELTS or TOFEL is assured.
To be presented with such ideologies must affect people’s beliefs about what English learning involves. The elevated position given to English in the ads must diminish the status of Arabic in the minds of the younger generation. Thus, the English language teaching industry in Saudi Arabia must consider an approach that avoids presenting English learning as a totally beneficial phenomenon. In addition, other misrepresentations, such as the value of a specific textbook or considering native-English speaking teachers as being the best, should be reconsidered by the industry as these representations may deceive English learners regarding the utility of other language textbooks or the characteristics of the ideal teacher.
My PhD research will expand on the study of the language ideologies underlying the promotional discourses of English language teaching institutes in Saudi Arabia. Videos, pictures and texts taken from the institutes’ websites and Twitter accounts will be included in the study. The thesis will also explore how audiences actually receive the promotional discourses of the institutions.
Reference
Alkhalil, S. F. A. (2018). Promoting English in Saudi Arabia: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Advertisements for Private English Language Teaching Institutes. (MRes), Macquarie University.
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This is an important analysis, and I am glad to see that you will build on it in a doctoral thesis. I am lecturing at a conference in Qatar in one week’s time, and will be making many similar points. I will also be talking to top administrators and evaluators of education about creating a healthy balance between Arabic and English. An article recently published online in the journal Language Policy traces the failure of an attempt to impose English-medium education in the initial years of schooling in Qatar. I video recorded a ten-minute talk for the recent TESOL Annual Conference which denounces 8 myths about ‘global’ English, see Professionalism and myths in TESOL. Video presentation at TESOL 2019 in Atlanta. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPwUVhE0XKE. Good luck with your continued work in this field.
Thank you so much for your comment, Prof. Phillipson.
I’m so happy to hear your supportive and positive comment on my analysis, and so grateful for sharing the youtube link “myths about global English” which highlights many points that I will address in my current study about ‘ideologies of English language teaching and learning in Saudi Arabia”.
I really appreciate your comment. Thanks a lot.
Whether Dr. Phillipson alluded favourably to Esperanto in his much praised work ‘English-only Europe’ or in one of his equally brilliant presentations in various languages easily found online, I can’t recall. The excerpt below lit up my screen straight after I’d heard all of his Youtube presentation cited here at Language on the Move and had seen a famous Al Jazeera interview hosted eruditely and politely by Riz Khan between Dr. Phillipson and Robert McCrum
‘Zamenhof was so appalled by the inhumanity of nationalism and capitalist imperialism that he devised a peace movement and an interlocking language movement. Esperanto is a reality in the crisis-ridden modern world in which the need for more social justice is equally acute. Strengthening the rights of speakers of all languages is a cause that Esperanto contributes to substantially. Decision-makers ought to take it more seriously.’
I’d bet London to a brick were Baha’is allowed to wager that Dr. Phillipson still admires the human rights dimensions of policies practised and printed by the Universal Esperanto Association on its multifarious non-political, non-religious, non-aligned and pro-indigenous platforms around the world