Hello all
I too watched the Newsnight report last night, with steam pouring out of my ears. It was an appalling broadcast: biased, ill-informed, insensitive, pandering to the very prejudices which many of us spend our working lives trying to counter. It misrepresented the purposes of translation and interpreting services. It displayed a complete misunderstanding of the realities of multilingualism. It showed fundamental ignorance of some of the basic principles of language learning and language education. The report even wheeled in a human rights lawyer - of all people - who seemed to believe quite sincerely that access to translation and interpreting services for non-expert users of English should be scrapped. The discussion which followed was fairly useless as well. Paxman was even more irritating than usual. Phil Woolas, the minister for local government, had clearly been briefed to divert the conversation to say how much the government has spent on English language teaching provision, which is ironic given recent LSC decisions. But Paxman wouldn't let him get a word in edgeways - Poor old Woolas may as well not have bothered turning up.
Of course the whole report was barking up the wrong tree: instead of asking why local governments provide translation services, Newsnight should have been asking why central government, i.e. the DfES via the LSC, is busy cutting English language education provision for those who need it most.
What to do to redress the balance? I don't even know if Points of View still exists. But I'd be happy to contribute to a strongly worded letter to Auntie.
By the way, I remember Phil Woolas as the leader of the NUS when I was an undergraduate. Googling him just now for the correct spelling of his name I came across this little gem from his bio-notes:
"After leaving University he went to work for the organisation War or Want as a fundraiser, followed by a job as a Television Producer for BBC Newsnight and Channel 4 News." (http://www.epolitix.com/EN/MPWebsites/Phil+Woolas/3090EBE9-FA62-4980-8E7F-1FE186BCA7CE.htm <http://www.epolitix.com/EN/MPWebsites/Phil+Woolas/3090EBE9-FA62-4980-8E7F-1FE186BCA7CE.htm> ). Maybe there are old scores being settled live on air...
Yours,
Outraged of Leeds (James)
________________________________
From: ESOL-Research discussion forum on behalf of Tim Deignan
Sent: Wed 12/13/2006 9:43 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: ESOL in the media
Hello all
Concerns have been expressed recently on this list about the negative portrayal of ESOL students in the media. Some of you may have seen Mark Easton's report on the BBC last night which looked at the cost of translation. I thought Easton's report was very unbalanced and highly irresponsible.
To view Easton's report, click on the link below and (when it opens) click the button just to the right of the picture (video and audio news):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6174303.stm
Tim Deignan
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ESOL-Research is a forum for researchers and practitioners with an interest in research into teaching and learning ESOL. ESOL-Research is managed by James Simpson at the Centre for Language Education Research, School of Education, University of Leeds.
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