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Q1 · English in the world · 25 marks
AO1 /10 · AO2 /5 · AO4 /10 · suggested 65 minutes
Original SUFAS discussion extract. All people, organisations and events in this teaching scenario are fictional; it is not a report of empirical research.
An English classroom is not automatically an open door
A fictional college is considering teaching all its courses through English. Its promotional draft describes the change as opening a door to the world. The phrase is attractive because it brings several different promises together: access to international materials, opportunities for further study and confidence in meeting people beyond the local community. Those promises deserve consideration. They also deserve to be separated, because none follows automatically from changing the language of a classroom.
A student may know how to explain a scientific process in a language used at home but struggle to follow that explanation in English. Another may speak English fluently while misunderstanding the process itself. If both receive the same assessment, a teacher needs to know whether difficulty comes from language, subject knowledge or the interaction between them. Calling one student weak can conceal a much more specific teaching problem.
The change may also alter whose knowledge is heard. Confident English users can answer quickly, interrupt a misunderstanding and present their work without extended preparation. Others may have a useful question but need time to formulate it. Their silence should not be mistaken for an absence of thought. A language policy affects participation as well as the words printed on a worksheet.
Support need not mean abandoning English. Teachers might explain specialist vocabulary, allow initial discussion through more than one language and make the expectations of an assignment explicit. Such arrangements require planning and expertise. Simply giving permission to translate difficult words does not guarantee that a complex concept has become clear, and not every class shares the same additional languages.
There is a further question about status. If English is always used for important explanations and another language appears only for jokes or discipline, students may learn an unofficial hierarchy of knowledge. The college might not intend that message. Nevertheless, repeated arrangements can make one language seem naturally suited to serious thinking and another suitable only for informal life. That judgement is social, not a property discovered inside the languages themselves.
The policy should therefore be evaluated through evidence about learning and inclusion, not the appearance of modernity. Ask who gains access to resources, who needs additional support and how subject understanding will be recognised. Families should be told what teaching through English can offer and what it cannot promise. A door is useful when people can move through it; displaying its name above an entrance is only the beginning of the work.
Question
Discuss the issues raised by the text about the use of English as a medium of education. Refer to specific details from the text and relevant ideas and examples from your wider study of English in the world.
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Model and rationale
The text questions the assumption that using English as a teaching medium necessarily gives equal access to education. Its door metaphor separates the prestige of a policy from the conditions needed to benefit from it. English may provide useful connections, but the discussion suggests that its institutional role can also redistribute opportunities within a classroom. A convincing evaluation must consider both effects rather than treat English as either a universal solution or an inevitable harm.
The contrast between subject knowledge and fluency is central. The student who understands a process in another language may be disadvantaged by an assessment of that process through English, while fluent expression can conceal conceptual difficulty. This illustrates the difference between learning a language and using it to learn something else. Cummins's distinction between conversational fluency and academic language proficiency offers a relevant lens: confidence in everyday talk does not automatically supply the language resources required by specialised study. The distinction should guide questions about demands, not become a fixed label for every bilingual student.
The passage also treats participation as a language-policy effect. Rapid answers and interruptions may favour those who can formulate English immediately. This can be related to linguistic capital: institutions assign value to particular resources, and unequal access to those resources can affect whose competence is recognised. In Bourdieu's account, such value is socially produced rather than an intrinsic superiority of a language. The example does not prove that every English-medium classroom silences multilingual learners; teacher practices and opportunities to prepare could change the outcome.
A multilingual response can therefore be compatible with developing English. The text's initial discussion through more than one language could help students organise concepts before presenting them in a required register. However, its warning that translation alone does not guarantee understanding is important. Access depends on materials, teachers and assessment design, not merely on allowing or banning a particular language. Kachru's account of differentiated roles for English also reminds us that its educational status varies across societies and histories; one college cannot represent all contexts of English use.
The strongest criticism concerns the division between serious explanation and informal uses of other languages. Repeated allocation of functions can create a hierarchy even without an explicit statement that one language is inferior. That is a question of institutional practice, not evidence that any language lacks the capacity for abstract thought. At the same time, providing English may expand a student's repertoire and future choices. Preventing access in the name of protection can also reproduce inequality.
The text therefore supports conditional evaluation rather than a simple choice between English and local languages. Its fictional example raises questions that a real study would need to investigate through classroom interaction, learning outcomes and participants' accounts. English-medium education is most defensible when the opportunity it promises is matched by support and recognition of existing knowledge. The relevant measure is participation and learning, not the prestige of the medium alone.
- AO1: identifies the distinction between language proficiency, subject knowledge and classroom participation.
- AO4: applies academic-language proficiency and linguistic capital as lenses rather than automatic verdicts.
- AO2: develops a qualified position with source evidence and practical counterarguments.