Over a local snack of unhatched chicken embryo called Khaylouk, Panda Panyanouvong sits by the Mekong riverside, pondering her life choices. The masters graduate ofAustralia’s Curtin University has two options: stay in Laos to be with her family and find a job, or return to her US$5300-per-month job in Perth. Just ten metres from her, the pushcart Khaylouk sellers jostle for space by the riverside pier. They will earn no more than $3 an evening.


Photo: English learning student-monks of Luang Prabang Sangha Secondary School. Photo from Global Vision International

Ten years after entering ASEAN, landlocked Laos remains one of Asia’s poorest countries. The government has struggled to provide the education its citizens need to break free from their agrarian lifestyles. But that hasn’t stopped Laotians from privately reaching for English as a way to improve their lot –perhaps even to become as successful and globally connected as their Thai neighbours one day.

Before Laos joined ASEAN in 1997, per capita GDP was a mere US$15. In eight years, that figure multiplied 37 times. Money talks, and it does so in the English language. “It has been fundamental to the economic growth of the country,” says Dr Grant Evans, a sociologist who has spent 30 years studying and writing about Southeast Asia. “The businessmen, if they know English, immediately there are opportunities. It’s the key to the outside world for most people.”

The Lao government appreciates the power of English. It has increased its education budget by 10 percent over the last 10 years while making English compulsory learning from the third grade onwards. It has also been working with many non-governmental organisations such as the World Bank, building scores of schools and training thousands of teachers. Still, “much has to be done,” says Sengsomphone Viravouth, the deputy-director general of the Ministry of Education’s Department of Planning and Cooperation. “We have a target for minimum English literacy. But in reality, we have a disparity of implementation standard,” Viravouth admits. Laos’ education ministry has supplied English teachers enough only to meet urban school’s upper secondary demand. “Teacher availability, audio visual material – these are limited.”But so urgent is the desire to learn English that many Laotians, both youth and adults, have taken on the task themselves.

“I like foreign teacher, because I can practice my pronunciation better,” says Soyphet Thepphitack, 29, a student in a private Vientiane school run by Singaporeans. “When I study with foreign teacher, I don’t speak Lao, I only speak English.”

She is much envied. The rates of international schools – as much as 250 times that of public schools – price out most locals. In the public schools, they are left with local teachers, who seldom engage the language’s intricacies accurately. But there is a silver lining through the presence of international NGOs that provide free classes with the help of young, mostly graduate, volunteers. Given it is a free service, demand often overwhelms supply.

Global Vision International, a U.K.-based NGO, runs one such programme in Luang Prabang, in the country’s north with volunteers, from Europe, Australia and North America.

Barry Dixon is a 25 year old Irish who teaches at the Luang Prabang Sangha Secondary School. Dixon says facilities are extremely stretched – he is the school’s solitary owner of a textbook and conducts 16 classes a week on pronunciation and grammar to more than 800 students.

“My workload is pretty grueling, working 6 days a week,” says the Dublin Trinity College graduate, but adds “With the older children, from 17 onwards, they are more focused on the potential of speaking English.”

The Laotians’ ultimate objective in English-learning is not to appreciate Shakespeare or Orwell, but to survive in an English-speaking environment and
to do business.

This keenness for practical English has aroused anxieties of ‘western’ cultural infiltration. “Many Lao are taught by young people in their 20s, from Australia or wherever, who bring their values and ideas with them,” explains Dr. Evans. “I think it’s had quite a big impact culturally” pointing to the adoption of ‘foreign’ nicknames, like Bee, Oil and Guitar, that’s become very popular among Laotian youth. “With a name like that, it takes you outside of a hierarchical-structured society,” he explains.

Phatsakorn Dejvongsa, a freelance NGO consultant, thinks otherwise. The former university English teacher, has seen firsthand his country’s transition from closed-door communism country to one of Asean’s fledgling members.

“If you know more languages, the more you will know, the better you can perform,” he says. “But it doesn’t mean what you learn will destroy your culture, no, no, no. It is a different thing. I don’t think it will happen.”

Clad in a modern-yet-modest garb of shirt and pants, he is also a realist when it comes to cultural evolution. Dejvongsa says that Laos cannot afford to freeze in a changing world.

“Laos must change, so must the people, to catch up with the world in terms of economics, science, technology,” he insists. “That’s why if Lao people know English, they can know other things about the world, and that is not bad.”

Having spent several years aboard, Panda Panyanouvong is especially sensitive to the manifestations of external influences, picking on their slangs, broken Lao sentence structures, and hip-hop dressing as chief sins. “Having an accent is okay,” Panda says. “But when you speak Lao, speak properly.”

Balancing between old and new, Panyanouvong echoes Dejvongsa’s sentiments that Laos will have to accept the influence of western culture when learning English.

“It is then a matter of the education by parents, government,” she says, “I still understand the Lao way; it is part of the culture when you deal with others.”

Despite her international immersion, Panyanouvong has kept true to her roots. She has delayed her return to Australia to work with The World Bank on a human development project in her home country. Panyanouvong seems to represent the future perfect state of Laos.

By Clarence Chua
Clarence Chua is a Journalism student at Nanyang Technological University’s School of Communication and Information. The article is a result of the school’s GO-FAR programme.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/specialreport/view/1384/1/.html