The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was formed in Bangkok in 1967. The five original founding members were Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
What language(s) would ASEAN adopt as official languages? It seems amazing to relate that this question was not even debated at the founding meeting. Delegates apparently tacitly assumed that it would be English (Okudaira 1999). When I asked Edilberto de Jesus, the then Secretary General of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation, why the question of language had not been debated, he remarked that people feared “it would be opening a Pandora’s box”, so the lid was left closed.
Since the initial founding in 1967, six more countries have joined. They are (with their dates of joining in brackets) Brunei (1984), Vietnam (1995), Laos and Myanmar (1997), Cambodia (1999) and Timor Leste (2025).
The de facto position of English as the sole working language of the group was made de jure in the ASEAN Charter of 2008, Article 34 of which states, in English, “The working language of ASEAN shall be English.”
This policy has resulted in serious disadvantages to many of the member states. Why?
Privileging English
Some member states (Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines) had been colonies of English-speaking empires. As a result, English played and continues to play an institutional role in those countries, and local varieties of English developed. In Singapore, it is now the first language of the majority of the population. In the other countries, English had no place. In Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, French had been the colonial language and in Indonesia, Dutch. In Timor Leste, it was first Portuguese and then Bahasa Indonesia. Thailand is the only country of the group that was never a colony. Myanmar is an outlier. Having been a British colony, the military coup led by General Ne Win in 1962 saw English removed from the curriculum, replaced by Burmese.
The decision to make English the sole official and working language has therefore hugely disadvantaged those countries that were not colonies of English-speaking empires. When I sat in on an ASEAN Centre Directors’ meeting, the discussion was dominated by Filipinos and Singaporeans, with the Laotian and Cambodian delegates remaining silent.
It also became apparent in other settings that delegates from Laos and Cambodia had been selected because of their English proficiency rather than their expertise in the topics under discussion.
In recognising the importance of and need for English, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand make English compulsory from Primary 3 (Year 3). This, despite the chronic lack of teachers who have relevant qualifications and/or the level of proficiency in English to act as teachers. The problem is further exacerbated by Education Ministries’ insistence on adopting standard British or American as classroom models. This has led to a ‘discourse of despair’ about the low level of English standards among almost all these countries.
A threat to local languages
The policy of making English the sole working language has also threatened local languages. In many cases, English has replaced an Indigenous language in the curriculum (Kirkpatrick & Liddicoat 2019: 12). In the countries of ASEAN, English has become the second language of education after the respective national languages. It needs to be remembered that, as most of these countries have become independent only relatively recently, they all felt the need to promote and establish a national language, and this further undermined the role of Indigenous languages.
The Philippines is a rare exception, where 19 Indigenous languages are taught in lower primary grades as media of instruction. That sounds impressive, but the Philippines is home to more than 170 Indigenous languages. Indonesia to more than 700. The result of these language education policies is that children – especially those from poor urban and rural areas – are neither learning English and nor are they being taught in a language they know. Not surprisingly, many students are unable to cope and drop out of school, typically around Primary 5 (Year 5).
A key way to undermine an Indigenous language is to remove it as a language of education (Coleman 2011). The head of Indonesia’s Language Agency of the Ministry or Primary and Secondary Education, Hafidz Muskin, last year warned that, without cross-sector support, the future of many of Indonesia’s 714 languages is under severe threat.
Can the problems be solved?
Yes.
First, delay the introduction of English until secondary level and let the primary school focus on the national language and a relevant Indigenous language.
Second, abandon the notion of using an idealised form of standard English as a model. This is an impossible target both for local teachers and learners alike. It is also utterly inappropriate. The main use of English across ASEAN is as a lingua franca. People need English to communicate with fellow ASEAN nationals. It follows that a lingua franca approach to the teaching of it is what is needed, an approach in which being intelligible is more important than adherence to native speaker norms.
Third, ASEAN needs to play a much more pro-active role in encouraging the maintenance of Indigenous languages and promoting the extraordinarily rich linguistic and cultural heritage of the region.
References
Coleman, Hywel (2011). Developing countries and the English language. In Hywel Coleman (ed.) Dreams and Realities: Developing Countries and the English Language. London: The British Council: 1-14.
Kirkpatrick, Andy & Anthony J Liddicoat. (2019). Language education policy in Asia: an overview. In Kirkpatrick, Andy & Anthony J Liddicoat (eds.) The Routledge International Handbook of Language Education Policy in Asia. London & New York: Routledge: 1-14.
Okudaira, Akiko. (1999). A study on international communication in regional organisations. The use of English as the “official” language of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Asian Englishes 2(1): 91-107.
