Incoherent - English Program in Egypt.

[Hafiz]

The government has a new big initiative – encouraging Egyptians to speak English. It hasn't started well.

Unfortunately the title/slogan of the government campaign is grammatically/semantically incorrect.

“In an ironic faux pas, the campaign appears to have given itself a title in grammatically incorrect English: “Speak to see you.” It’s a literal translation from the new initiative’s Arabic motto (تكلم حتى أراك), and the meaning doesn’t exactly carry over from the original English so well.

A host of Egypt’s On Live TV’s Morning News show raised the issue when she interviewed the head of the initiative, Reda Hegazi, noting that the title didn’t really make sense in English.

“It’s a great initiative, but I have one little comment” she told Hegazy live on air. “The title is ‘speak to see you’ - maybe I’m wrong here, but I think that in English that’s an incorrect phrase.”

She went on to add that the title should be corrected to “speak that I might see you”. An improvement for sure, but not quite there yet. Hegazy appeared to brush off the comment, instead focusing on the message of the campaign – which is to encourage young people to speak English fearlessly and with confidence.

A more accurate translation of the Arabic might be “Speak so I can see you” or “Speak up and be seen”. It’s good advice for any language learner, but one can only hope that campaign will take another look at it’s phrasing sometime soon.” http://www.albawaba.com/loop/egypt-laun ... ish-890276

Dr Hegazi's objective of " to encourage young people to speak English fearlessly and with confidence" seems to miss the point - coherence and accuracy. Still windy rhetoric does usually win the day in Egypt.

Dr Hegazi is probably the Deputy Director of Regional Centre for Adult Education (ASFEC) in Sirs El-Layyan http://www.teindia.nic.in/presentations_E9.aspx who gives presentations on teacher education at international conferences and is involved in UNESCO literacy (French?) programs. Although they could be the head of General Education at the Ministry of Education with an interest in IT http://www.unesco.org/new/en/cairo/comm ... -in-egypt/ - maybe they are the same person who has been promoted. It doesn’t really matter. Both should know better.

Properly done maybe not a bad idea – better than promoting French as a high status commodity for the privately educated middle classes. However one hopes that the program's 'delivery' is better than its launch.

Talking of delivery, wonder whether there is a plan behind the slogan/launch – more English teachers, changes in school curriculum, on line training, staff to run it who speak English etc or will it be just another media release with no follow through? Maybe the launch is a one shot wonder because there is nothing on the Ministry of Education web site in English about it.

On one reading English is already a mandatory part of the public school curriculum which, if working well, raises the need for this initiative. http://wenr.wes.org/2013/11/education-in-egypt.

[newcastle]

Speaking English sufficiently well to be understood is manageable by many foreigners....in fact far better than the typical English persons mastery of foreign languages.

However when it comes to writing English, foreigners often struggle.

In fact, you don't have to stray far from this forum to find many English people who seem similarly disadvantaged

When I saw this report a few days ago my first reaction was that the criticism was a bit petty. Getting Egyptians, or indeed any foreigners, to speak the international language of business seems a laudable objective....and the occasional grammatical, semantic or spelling horror is unlikely to matter in the greater scheme of things . Moreover, it gives Keefy something to do on a rainy day

Spotting them is also the sole raison d'être of some....eh Brian?

[carrie]

The Ministry of Education web site, well parts of it, can only be accessed if you have the correct password and yes they are pushing the speaking and reading of English. Not that it will do any good since the majority of English teachers need an awful lot of training.