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Voices out of the air: World communications year, international broadcasting and foreign language learning
0346-251X183 $3.00+0.00 Pergamon Press Ltd.
Syswm, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 295-302, 1983 Printed in Great Britain.
VOICES OUT OF THE AIR: WORLD COMMUNICATIONS YEAR, INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING DAVID CROOKALL Universitk de Toulon, 83130 La Garde, France of WCY (World Communications Year) 1983, attention is drawn to the potential role of international broadcasting in the promotion and learning of foreign languages.
In the context
Communication is now a vital and ubiquitous resource for the world as a whole, and there is a greater awareness of the importance and scope of the right to communicate. Meanwhile, WCY englobes many fields, including international broadcasting, which is a neglected technology in FLL systems, despite its clear advantages. Reception of external broadcasts is two-fold: good electronic reception is a prerequisite to effective listening. The potential usefulness of these broadcasts is in the broad areas of (mainly oral receptive) language skills, language acquisition and cross-cultural understanding. (Further articles will elaborate on these two reception processes.) ANNEE MONOIALE DES COMMUNICATIONS ~- .--..-_
“Everyone has the right . . . to seek, receive and impart information and ideas . . . through any media.”
WORLD COMMUNICATIONS
YEAR AiiOMUNDIAL DE LAS COMUNICACIONES --.
~~
1983
(A1:t. 19: Universal Declaration of Human Rights) COMMUNICATION It is perhaps not good politics to start an article with a broadside against an area of major concern to the readership of this journal; but I shall take the risk. In the last few years the rise of communicative methodology in FLL has spawned such a plethora of learner materials and journal articles that it is all too easy to get the impression that L2 teachers hold a monopoly over the “communicative”. It is, indeed, rather sobering to explore areas outside FLL and to find that communication is the object of a vast amount of (non-FLL) academic study and heated international debate, and to realize that the analyses and theories revolving round the term carry a weight and sophistication which outstrip what, in contrast, seem at times to be rather petty preoccupations of L2 methodology. Much wrangling over communicative methodology pales into insignificance against the backdrop of the full scope of ‘communication’ as debated elsewhere. 295
296
DAVID CROOKALL
The vital importance and the ubiquity of communication. has been expressed succinctly by Fisher (1982): Life depends on communication. The chemical reactions . . of the simplest cell, the nuclear activity of the atom, the transmission of the life force-ah require some form of communication. . . . Communication is necessary to the individual. . . . Only by inter-relationship-communication-with others does a person know his or her own personality. Communication is also the basis of society. . . . Without it there can be no co-operation, no peace. Community depends on communication. The history of civilisation is the history of communication.
In another vein and/or in the last resort, “Communication is to understand and to be understood” (Jorgensen-, 1983). This, of course, echoes a major concern among L2 teachers. Modern communication and media studies probably started with Shannon and Weaver (1949). Since then, communication has become a vast, key, interdisciplinary field of inquiry, engaging such areas as: mass media, advertising, culture, intercultural communication, human relations, sociology, social-psychology, gaming, telecommunications and-of course-languages and foreign languages. Very useful discussions will be found in: Corner and Hawthorn (1980), Curran et al. (1977), Fiske (1982), Hartley (1982), McQuail(1975), O’Sullivan et al. (in preparation). Communication is also hotly debated in international forums, having been given special impetus by the information technologies explosion and by the realization that information and its transfer not only have become a vital resource in the modern world, but remain, like most resources, unequally divided between developing and developed countries. The concern with a new international information order has been superseded by the need for a new communication order. While the UN and UNESCO were discussing freedoms in the field of information, D’Arcy (in 1%9) wrote a seminal article in which he uncompromisingly said: The time will come when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will have to encompass a more extensive right than man’s right to information, first laid down 21 years ago in Article 19. This is the right of man to communicate.
This concept has been the object of many debates since then and has taken on many shades of meaning. The connection between the ubiquity of communication (as mentioned above) and the right to communicate has been pointed up by Harms and Richstad (1977): Communication is the basic human process not only in each local community but also in the emerging world community. The human communication process flows back and forth through every social institution and is essential to many aspects of human development. Consequently, the realization grows that everyone must have the right to communicate.
The idea was again recently reaffirmed and emphasized in the Conclusions of the International Symposium of Experts on ‘Rights of Solidarity and Peoples’ Rights’ (Republic of San Marino, 4-8 October 1982), as follows: All peoples are, by right, equally entitled to receive and transmit information. . . . To fulfil the principles of international and notably cultural co-operation . . . the right of peoples to communicate should be implemented. . . . People’s access to the most modern communication media . . [and] . . . communication between various cultural or social groups . . should be encouraged.
The right to commumcate is now conceived as encompassing many other more specific rights, as is demonstrated by the Final Report of the MacBride Commission (1980): Communication needs . . . should be met by the extension of specific rights such as the right to be informed, the right to inform, the right to privacy, the right to participate in public communication-all elements of a new concept, the right to communicate.
Fisher (1977, 1982) argues for a hierarchical differentiation
between fundamental and less
VOICES OUT OF THE AIR
297
important, sub-rights. I would suggest that one of these sub-rights must inevitably be the specific one of the right to learn a foreign language. Indeed natural languages are one of the major means of communication. Just as the world as we know it would not exist without communication, much communication would hardly be possible without language. Inter-cultural/national communication has very often to be carried out via a foreign language for at least one of the parties to the communicative act. This idea of the right to learn a foreign language is implicit in the Final Report of the MacBride Commission (1980): The multiplicity of languages . . . is an expression of the world’s cultural richness and diversity. . . . This does not mean that there are no problems arising from multiplicity. . . . The multiplicity of languages presents obvious barriers to communication, gives rise to cultural problems, and can hamper scientific and technical development. The world-wide use of a small number of languages leads to a certain discrimination against other languages . . . . Plurilingualism is an attractive solution, probably the only realistic one in most countries . . . . Again, improved teaching of foreign languages . . . offers broad pofenriul. All these possibilities are meaningful only if one basic principle is respected: that all languages are regarded as equal in dignity and as instruments of communication. . . . Language policy should be an intrinsic part of communication policy . . . . The use of a few so-called world languages is essential in international communications, yet this poses sensitive questions . . . (my emphasis)
The Final Report of the Commission also contains the following recommendation: “Developing nations and multilingual societies need to evolve language policies that promote all national languages even while selecting some, where necessary, for more widespread use in communication, higher education and administration. There is also a need in certain situations for . . . modernized systems of language learning . . .”
WCY
In the wake of this debate, on 19 November 1981, the U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution A/RES/36/40. In this, the General Assembly, among other things: “proclaims the year 1983 World Communications Year . . . ; invites non-governmental organizations and users of communications services to participate actively in the WCY . . . ; appeals to . . . organizations to make circuits available for reporting on the activities of the WCY through existing means of information . . .” The ITU (International Telecommunication Union) is serving as the lead agency for WCY, and at its Plenipotentiary Conference (Nairobi, 1982), drew up Resolution No. 73 (PLEN./8), which, among other things: “urges . . . non-governmental organizations . . . universities and educational institutions, to co-operate . . . in the implementation of the programme for the Year . . .” There is a triangular interrelationship between WCY, education and FLL. The growing role of communication in education has been nicely put by M’Bow (1983): With the added value conferred upon it as a medium of education, communication creates an international environment that complements if not competes with schooling, and deprives the educational system of the monopoly it has long held over education, while itself becoming a subject to be taught and studied. A reciprocal relationship is thus emerging between communication and education . . .
An increasingly large proportion of education throughout the world is being given over to FLL, as a result of heightened awareness of the vital role of L2 in world-wide communication. Moreover, more people than even before are learning L2 in non-school, or informal, settings, the most prominent one being via the mass media, mainly radio and TV. I have read somewhere that more people in the world learn English ‘via the airwaves’ than do in classrooms.
298
DAVID CROOKALL
It is therefore fitting that WCY should be marked by a journal like Sysfem, devoted as it is “to the applications of educational technology and systems thinking in a broad sense to problems of foreign language teaching and learning.” It is all the more fitting as the journal is concerned with all languages and aims to cover the interests of developing countries. World communication englobes a whole panoply of technologies and systems, including: postal services, telephones, telex, satellites, marine/air services, optical fibres, microelectronics and computers, monitoring services, mass media. International or external broadcast services are therefore only a very small part of the field covered by WCY.
RADIO The uses of the media as a technology in FLL systems have expanded in parallel with the explosion in communications and telecommunications. The following table gives an idea of the range and type of media and of their potential/actual use in FLL. ‘X’s mark the relevant and most common forms. The receptive/productive skills are indicated by “-” / “ + ” respectively. (“--” = major or primary receptive uses; “ + ” = possible productive uses in certain activities.) Broadcast media Vision Sound FLL media Published materials and courses CALL Internal L2 radio and TV programmes External L2 radio programmes Non-FLL media Books, journals, magazines Video Internal LI radio and TV programmes External Ll radio programmes Amateur radio Other radio telecommunications
Narrowcast media Sound Vision X
X X
--+ --+
+ + +
X
X X X X
X X
Reception (-) Production ( + )
X X X
X X
+ + + --+ --+ + -+
Internal radio and TV programmes for FLL have been considerably developed in recent years (cf. e.g. Clift 1979; Dyson 1980). External radio programmes for FLL have also received attention (cf. e.g. Howse 1979 and the recently launched bi-monthly ‘BBC English’); Radio Moscow broadcasts Russian lessons in 16 languages; the BBC broadcasts English lessons in 14 languages; Radio Australia has made arrangements with the Peking Government to broadcast lessons from studios in Melbourne. Amateur radio has also been used on a small scale (cf. Richmond 1978), though there are special problems here, including the need for an amateur radio licence. Non-FLL external radio programmes or international broadcasting-of the BBC World Service kind-appears to be an underrated and neglected technology in the FLL community, and this despite certain clear advantages: it is relatively cheap (for the listener) and therefore particularly well suited to developing countries; it is widely accessible, i.e. transmissions can be received in
VOICES OUT OF THE AIR
299
almost all parts of the world; it is potentially very useful in FLL (especially for intermediate to advanced learners); and a great variety of languages are broadcast. A few figures will give some idea if how widespread radio is. In general, radio is by far the most widely used mass medium in the world today. There are over 1 billion receivers, i.e. an average of one for every four people in the world. In developing countries, radio is the only medium that can really be labelled ‘mass’, where a large proportion of the population can be reached by radio broadcasts and possess the means to receive them. No other medium now has the potential to reach so many people so efficiently for information, educational, cultural and entertainment purposes. (MacBride Commission, 1980)
As for international radio-which, for propagation reasons, mainly uses the SW (shortwave) bands-the expansion has been considerable: in the last 25 years, it has increased six-fold; in 1950 there were 385 SW transmitters in the world, today there are over 2000. The U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. have the highest number of transmission hours (2010 and 1815 hours/week in 1978); China broadcast for more than 1400 hours/week; Germany, the U.K., Korea, Albania and Egypt each had more than 500 hours/week in 1978. Radio Moscow broadcasts in about 45 languages and for 24 hours/day in English to Europe; the BBC in 36 languages and for 24 hours/day in English to many parts of the world. And probably over 100 countries are engaged in international broadcasting today. (cf. Bumpus 1978.) Audience figures are also impressive, especially for the BBC, which has over 100 million regular listeners (i.e. once a week or more) round the world, excluding China, and 200 million irregular listeners. What all these figures demonstrate is that there is a huge amount of spoken material in almost every (national) language just waiting to be “picked up”. This material, moreover, covers all sorts of topics and comes in a variety of text-types and language variations. Similarly the motives for international broadcasting are many and varied.
RECEPTION In order to exploit these broadcasts, they have in the first place to be picked up. The language skill for which these broadcasts will be the most used is obviously the oral receptive skill, but to use them for this, the transmissions have to be received. Everyone can tune into a local or national radio station and get good (spoken) sound Unfortunately internal broadcasting services do not quality from a cheap “transistor”. broadcast in the L2 one wishes to learn (except, of course, for sporadic language learning programmes). International radio stations are not so easy to pick up. To receive many of these stations, especially the more “difficult” ones, two major conditions have to be fulfilled. Firstly, the prospective (regular and serious) listener needs a basic knowledge of radio transmission, which includes: frequency/wavelength, radio propagation, transmission modes, atmospheric variation, etc. Secondly, he needs access to electronic reception equipment, which requires a minimum of a SW receiver and an effective antenna. In articles to appear in future issues of System, I shall be examining these aspects; with practical advice on buying equipment (particularly suited to FLL exploitation), examples of programme schedules, station addresses to write to, tips on improving reception, sources of further information and-last but not least-suggestions for exploring these
300
DAVID CROOKALL
transmissions for FLL purposes. Meanwhile, one important word of advice here must be not to rush out and buy the first radio set that presents itself. Potential buyers should wait until the discussion on this in the next article, as there is a huge number of portable and table-top receivers to choose from, with prices ranging from f20 to over f1000, and some receivers cost 3 or 4 times more than others that perform better.
FLL POTENTIAL I should perhaps outline here what I have claimed to be the potential of international broadcasts for FLL. Two main areas should be mentioned: language skills and acquisition. As I have said above, international broadcasts will be used mainly for receptive skills, either in or outside the classroom. Activities range from the usual L2 classroom “contrivances” (Widdowson, 1978) or “tricks”, such as jigsaw listening or filling in tables, to out-of-class or at-home listening by individual students. Other activities based on these broadcasts will exercise other skills-mainly speaking, but also reading and writing. The distinction, drawn by Krashen and others, between L2 acquisition and learning, is relevant here. There is no room here to explain L2 Acquisition Theory, except to summarize the ways in which international broadcasts may fulfil (some of) the requirements of “optimal input” necessary for acquisition (as opposed to learning). For (upper) intermediate to advanced students, these broadcasts should be relatively comprehensible, on condition, of course, that electronic reception is good; many programmes are very interesting and often deal with topics relevant to students; they are by definition not grammatically sequenced; the available quantities are huge; the affective filter should be fairly low if classroom activities and programmes are engaging; and conversational management can be provided to some extent through an imaginative exploitation in the classroom. Krashen’s (1982) discussion on ‘pleasure reading’ (p. 164 ef seq.) can be applied mufatis mutandis to SW listening, but for higher level students, as mentioned.
CROSS-CULTURAL
UNDERSTANDING’
It is also worth mentioning that, over and above FLL in a narrow sense, listening in to other countries’ media may contribute a little to greater awareness of the fact that different peoples perceive and interpret the world in different ways. Cross-cultural communication is an area of much study and of increasing concern among L2 teachers. Manzel (1983) recommends that: Each country should operate short-wave facilities of sufficient power to permit countrie_s, which could thus be interested in following its cultural and economic programmes should be conceived as to widely interest people of other countries international co-operation.
The Secretary General of the ITU and Co-ordinator
reception in other development. The and thus to foster
of WCY, has emphasized that:
for more active and effective solidarity by The World Year . . . can create the necessary atmosphere mobilizing the international community as a whole. In many countries, moreover, it should mark a starting point, the consequence and repercussions of which will make themselves felt long after 1983. (Butler, 1983)
301
VOICES OUT OF THE AIR
I think that the L2 profession, by its very nature, is probably-or at least should beone of the most internationally oriented, and can perhaps justifiably claim to be part of this “international community”. Perhaps then, one of the long-term consequences or objectives of our professional pursuits should be to contribute in some small way to a greater international understanding between the language communities of the world. The use of international broadcasts for FLL fits in here, both with this general objective and with the scope of WCY.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE I should like to end with a few quotes from the keynote address, given by that distinguished engineer and writer, Arthur C. Clarke, at the UN on World Telecommunications Day, 17 May 1983. Clarke had already shown in 1945 that communications and broadcast satellites were perfectly feasible, some 20 years before the first one was sent up. It is little over 100 years since the invention of the telephone. The importance of a new invention is not always easy to assess, as Clarke points out: When news of A. G. Bell’s invention reached the U.K. the chief engineer of the British Post Office failed to be impressed. ‘The Americans’, he said loftily, ‘have needed the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.’ . . In contrast to the British engineer, the mayor of a certain American city was wildly enthusiastic. He thought the telephone was a marvellous device and ventured this stunning prediction: ‘I can see the time’, he said solemnly, ‘when every city will have one’. . . . Miracles of electronics that would have been beyond belief, even 20 years ago, the symbols that flicker across those digital displays, now merely give time and date. When the zeros flash up at the end of the century they will do far more than that. They will give you direct access to most of the human race, to the invisible networks girdling our planet. The long-heralded global village is almost upon us, but it will last for only a flickering moment in the history of mankind. Before we even realize that it has come, it’ll be superseded by the global family.
REFERENCES BUMPUS, B. (1978) InfernafionaiRroadcasfing.
CIC Document No. 60.
BUTLER, R. E. (1983) Guide to World Communications Year 1983. ITU. CLIFT, M. (1979) The Use of Media in English Language Teaching. (ELT Documents-105.) CORNER, J. and Hawthorn, J. (eds) (1980) Communication
S&dies.
The British Council.
Arnold.
CURRAN, J., Gurevitch, M. and Wollacott, J. (eds) (1977) Mass CommunicafionsandSocief_v.
Arnold.
D’ARCY, J. (1969) ‘The Right of Man to Communicate’ in EBUReview, 118. DYSON, A. P. (1980) The Use of Broadcast Maferiai in Language Teaching. (Special edition of Vol. 18, Nos. 2 and 3 of BJLT.) BALT. FISHER, D. (1977) ‘The Right to Communicate: Richstad (1977). FISHER, D. (1982) The Right to Communicafe: FISKE, J. (1982) Introducrion
IO Communication
A philosophical
A Sfatus Report. Studies.
HARMS, L. S. and Richstad, J. (eds) (1977) Evolving of Hawaii.
framework for the debate.’ In Harms and
UNESCO.
Methuen.
Perspectives
HARTLEY, J. (1982) Understanding News. Methuen. HARMS, L. S. and Richstad, J. (eds) (1982) Evolving Perspectives Hawaii. HOWSE, H. (1979) BBC English by Radio and Television-an
on the Righr IO Communicare.
on the Righr ro Communicare.
outline history. In Clift (1979).
University
University of
302
DAVID CROOKALL
JBRGENSEN, K. (1983) Undersfanding Through Communication. Paper given at the International Media Institute’s Fourth European Area Convention, Oslo, l-3 July 1983. KRASHEN, S. D. (1982) Principles and Pracfice in Second Language Acquisifion. Pergamon. MACBRIDE COMMISSION (International Commission for the Study of Communication Many Voices, One World. Kogan Page, Unipub, UNESCO. MANZEL, W. (1983) ‘World Communications
Mass
Problems). (1980)
Year and Broadcasting.’ In Combroad, March 1983.
M’BOW, A-M. (1983) ‘Communication in the Service of Man.’ In The UNESCO Courier, No. 3. MCQUAIL, D. (1975) Communication. Longman. O’SULLIVAN, T., Hartley, J., Saunders, D. and Fiske, J. (forthcoming) Studies. Methuen. RICHMOND, Annals, 1l/3.
Key Concepfs in Communicafion
E. B. (1978) ‘Amateur Radio as an Aid to Foreign Language Learning.’ In Foreign Language
Right to Communicate Working Group (1980) Report. (Meeting in Ottawa, 1l-12 September 1980.) UNESCO. SHANNON, C. and Weaver, W. (1949) The Mafhemafical Theory of Communicafion. University of Illinois Press. WIDDOWSON, H. G. (1978) Teaching Languageas Communication. Oxford University Press.
Syswm, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 295-302, 1983 Printed in Great Britain.
VOICES OUT OF THE AIR: WORLD COMMUNICATIONS YEAR, INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING DAVID CROOKALL Universitk de Toulon, 83130 La Garde, France of WCY (World Communications Year) 1983, attention is drawn to the potential role of international broadcasting in the promotion and learning of foreign languages.
In the context
Communication is now a vital and ubiquitous resource for the world as a whole, and there is a greater awareness of the importance and scope of the right to communicate. Meanwhile, WCY englobes many fields, including international broadcasting, which is a neglected technology in FLL systems, despite its clear advantages. Reception of external broadcasts is two-fold: good electronic reception is a prerequisite to effective listening. The potential usefulness of these broadcasts is in the broad areas of (mainly oral receptive) language skills, language acquisition and cross-cultural understanding. (Further articles will elaborate on these two reception processes.) ANNEE MONOIALE DES COMMUNICATIONS ~- .--..-_
“Everyone has the right . . . to seek, receive and impart information and ideas . . . through any media.”
WORLD COMMUNICATIONS
YEAR AiiOMUNDIAL DE LAS COMUNICACIONES --.
~~
1983
(A1:t. 19: Universal Declaration of Human Rights) COMMUNICATION It is perhaps not good politics to start an article with a broadside against an area of major concern to the readership of this journal; but I shall take the risk. In the last few years the rise of communicative methodology in FLL has spawned such a plethora of learner materials and journal articles that it is all too easy to get the impression that L2 teachers hold a monopoly over the “communicative”. It is, indeed, rather sobering to explore areas outside FLL and to find that communication is the object of a vast amount of (non-FLL) academic study and heated international debate, and to realize that the analyses and theories revolving round the term carry a weight and sophistication which outstrip what, in contrast, seem at times to be rather petty preoccupations of L2 methodology. Much wrangling over communicative methodology pales into insignificance against the backdrop of the full scope of ‘communication’ as debated elsewhere. 295
296
DAVID CROOKALL
The vital importance and the ubiquity of communication. has been expressed succinctly by Fisher (1982): Life depends on communication. The chemical reactions . . of the simplest cell, the nuclear activity of the atom, the transmission of the life force-ah require some form of communication. . . . Communication is necessary to the individual. . . . Only by inter-relationship-communication-with others does a person know his or her own personality. Communication is also the basis of society. . . . Without it there can be no co-operation, no peace. Community depends on communication. The history of civilisation is the history of communication.
In another vein and/or in the last resort, “Communication is to understand and to be understood” (Jorgensen-, 1983). This, of course, echoes a major concern among L2 teachers. Modern communication and media studies probably started with Shannon and Weaver (1949). Since then, communication has become a vast, key, interdisciplinary field of inquiry, engaging such areas as: mass media, advertising, culture, intercultural communication, human relations, sociology, social-psychology, gaming, telecommunications and-of course-languages and foreign languages. Very useful discussions will be found in: Corner and Hawthorn (1980), Curran et al. (1977), Fiske (1982), Hartley (1982), McQuail(1975), O’Sullivan et al. (in preparation). Communication is also hotly debated in international forums, having been given special impetus by the information technologies explosion and by the realization that information and its transfer not only have become a vital resource in the modern world, but remain, like most resources, unequally divided between developing and developed countries. The concern with a new international information order has been superseded by the need for a new communication order. While the UN and UNESCO were discussing freedoms in the field of information, D’Arcy (in 1%9) wrote a seminal article in which he uncompromisingly said: The time will come when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will have to encompass a more extensive right than man’s right to information, first laid down 21 years ago in Article 19. This is the right of man to communicate.
This concept has been the object of many debates since then and has taken on many shades of meaning. The connection between the ubiquity of communication (as mentioned above) and the right to communicate has been pointed up by Harms and Richstad (1977): Communication is the basic human process not only in each local community but also in the emerging world community. The human communication process flows back and forth through every social institution and is essential to many aspects of human development. Consequently, the realization grows that everyone must have the right to communicate.
The idea was again recently reaffirmed and emphasized in the Conclusions of the International Symposium of Experts on ‘Rights of Solidarity and Peoples’ Rights’ (Republic of San Marino, 4-8 October 1982), as follows: All peoples are, by right, equally entitled to receive and transmit information. . . . To fulfil the principles of international and notably cultural co-operation . . . the right of peoples to communicate should be implemented. . . . People’s access to the most modern communication media . . [and] . . . communication between various cultural or social groups . . should be encouraged.
The right to commumcate is now conceived as encompassing many other more specific rights, as is demonstrated by the Final Report of the MacBride Commission (1980): Communication needs . . . should be met by the extension of specific rights such as the right to be informed, the right to inform, the right to privacy, the right to participate in public communication-all elements of a new concept, the right to communicate.
Fisher (1977, 1982) argues for a hierarchical differentiation
between fundamental and less
VOICES OUT OF THE AIR
297
important, sub-rights. I would suggest that one of these sub-rights must inevitably be the specific one of the right to learn a foreign language. Indeed natural languages are one of the major means of communication. Just as the world as we know it would not exist without communication, much communication would hardly be possible without language. Inter-cultural/national communication has very often to be carried out via a foreign language for at least one of the parties to the communicative act. This idea of the right to learn a foreign language is implicit in the Final Report of the MacBride Commission (1980): The multiplicity of languages . . . is an expression of the world’s cultural richness and diversity. . . . This does not mean that there are no problems arising from multiplicity. . . . The multiplicity of languages presents obvious barriers to communication, gives rise to cultural problems, and can hamper scientific and technical development. The world-wide use of a small number of languages leads to a certain discrimination against other languages . . . . Plurilingualism is an attractive solution, probably the only realistic one in most countries . . . . Again, improved teaching of foreign languages . . . offers broad pofenriul. All these possibilities are meaningful only if one basic principle is respected: that all languages are regarded as equal in dignity and as instruments of communication. . . . Language policy should be an intrinsic part of communication policy . . . . The use of a few so-called world languages is essential in international communications, yet this poses sensitive questions . . . (my emphasis)
The Final Report of the Commission also contains the following recommendation: “Developing nations and multilingual societies need to evolve language policies that promote all national languages even while selecting some, where necessary, for more widespread use in communication, higher education and administration. There is also a need in certain situations for . . . modernized systems of language learning . . .”
WCY
In the wake of this debate, on 19 November 1981, the U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution A/RES/36/40. In this, the General Assembly, among other things: “proclaims the year 1983 World Communications Year . . . ; invites non-governmental organizations and users of communications services to participate actively in the WCY . . . ; appeals to . . . organizations to make circuits available for reporting on the activities of the WCY through existing means of information . . .” The ITU (International Telecommunication Union) is serving as the lead agency for WCY, and at its Plenipotentiary Conference (Nairobi, 1982), drew up Resolution No. 73 (PLEN./8), which, among other things: “urges . . . non-governmental organizations . . . universities and educational institutions, to co-operate . . . in the implementation of the programme for the Year . . .” There is a triangular interrelationship between WCY, education and FLL. The growing role of communication in education has been nicely put by M’Bow (1983): With the added value conferred upon it as a medium of education, communication creates an international environment that complements if not competes with schooling, and deprives the educational system of the monopoly it has long held over education, while itself becoming a subject to be taught and studied. A reciprocal relationship is thus emerging between communication and education . . .
An increasingly large proportion of education throughout the world is being given over to FLL, as a result of heightened awareness of the vital role of L2 in world-wide communication. Moreover, more people than even before are learning L2 in non-school, or informal, settings, the most prominent one being via the mass media, mainly radio and TV. I have read somewhere that more people in the world learn English ‘via the airwaves’ than do in classrooms.
298
DAVID CROOKALL
It is therefore fitting that WCY should be marked by a journal like Sysfem, devoted as it is “to the applications of educational technology and systems thinking in a broad sense to problems of foreign language teaching and learning.” It is all the more fitting as the journal is concerned with all languages and aims to cover the interests of developing countries. World communication englobes a whole panoply of technologies and systems, including: postal services, telephones, telex, satellites, marine/air services, optical fibres, microelectronics and computers, monitoring services, mass media. International or external broadcast services are therefore only a very small part of the field covered by WCY.
RADIO The uses of the media as a technology in FLL systems have expanded in parallel with the explosion in communications and telecommunications. The following table gives an idea of the range and type of media and of their potential/actual use in FLL. ‘X’s mark the relevant and most common forms. The receptive/productive skills are indicated by “-” / “ + ” respectively. (“--” = major or primary receptive uses; “ + ” = possible productive uses in certain activities.) Broadcast media Vision Sound FLL media Published materials and courses CALL Internal L2 radio and TV programmes External L2 radio programmes Non-FLL media Books, journals, magazines Video Internal LI radio and TV programmes External Ll radio programmes Amateur radio Other radio telecommunications
Narrowcast media Sound Vision X
X X
--+ --+
+ + +
X
X X X X
X X
Reception (-) Production ( + )
X X X
X X
+ + + --+ --+ + -+
Internal radio and TV programmes for FLL have been considerably developed in recent years (cf. e.g. Clift 1979; Dyson 1980). External radio programmes for FLL have also received attention (cf. e.g. Howse 1979 and the recently launched bi-monthly ‘BBC English’); Radio Moscow broadcasts Russian lessons in 16 languages; the BBC broadcasts English lessons in 14 languages; Radio Australia has made arrangements with the Peking Government to broadcast lessons from studios in Melbourne. Amateur radio has also been used on a small scale (cf. Richmond 1978), though there are special problems here, including the need for an amateur radio licence. Non-FLL external radio programmes or international broadcasting-of the BBC World Service kind-appears to be an underrated and neglected technology in the FLL community, and this despite certain clear advantages: it is relatively cheap (for the listener) and therefore particularly well suited to developing countries; it is widely accessible, i.e. transmissions can be received in
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almost all parts of the world; it is potentially very useful in FLL (especially for intermediate to advanced learners); and a great variety of languages are broadcast. A few figures will give some idea if how widespread radio is. In general, radio is by far the most widely used mass medium in the world today. There are over 1 billion receivers, i.e. an average of one for every four people in the world. In developing countries, radio is the only medium that can really be labelled ‘mass’, where a large proportion of the population can be reached by radio broadcasts and possess the means to receive them. No other medium now has the potential to reach so many people so efficiently for information, educational, cultural and entertainment purposes. (MacBride Commission, 1980)
As for international radio-which, for propagation reasons, mainly uses the SW (shortwave) bands-the expansion has been considerable: in the last 25 years, it has increased six-fold; in 1950 there were 385 SW transmitters in the world, today there are over 2000. The U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. have the highest number of transmission hours (2010 and 1815 hours/week in 1978); China broadcast for more than 1400 hours/week; Germany, the U.K., Korea, Albania and Egypt each had more than 500 hours/week in 1978. Radio Moscow broadcasts in about 45 languages and for 24 hours/day in English to Europe; the BBC in 36 languages and for 24 hours/day in English to many parts of the world. And probably over 100 countries are engaged in international broadcasting today. (cf. Bumpus 1978.) Audience figures are also impressive, especially for the BBC, which has over 100 million regular listeners (i.e. once a week or more) round the world, excluding China, and 200 million irregular listeners. What all these figures demonstrate is that there is a huge amount of spoken material in almost every (national) language just waiting to be “picked up”. This material, moreover, covers all sorts of topics and comes in a variety of text-types and language variations. Similarly the motives for international broadcasting are many and varied.
RECEPTION In order to exploit these broadcasts, they have in the first place to be picked up. The language skill for which these broadcasts will be the most used is obviously the oral receptive skill, but to use them for this, the transmissions have to be received. Everyone can tune into a local or national radio station and get good (spoken) sound Unfortunately internal broadcasting services do not quality from a cheap “transistor”. broadcast in the L2 one wishes to learn (except, of course, for sporadic language learning programmes). International radio stations are not so easy to pick up. To receive many of these stations, especially the more “difficult” ones, two major conditions have to be fulfilled. Firstly, the prospective (regular and serious) listener needs a basic knowledge of radio transmission, which includes: frequency/wavelength, radio propagation, transmission modes, atmospheric variation, etc. Secondly, he needs access to electronic reception equipment, which requires a minimum of a SW receiver and an effective antenna. In articles to appear in future issues of System, I shall be examining these aspects; with practical advice on buying equipment (particularly suited to FLL exploitation), examples of programme schedules, station addresses to write to, tips on improving reception, sources of further information and-last but not least-suggestions for exploring these
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transmissions for FLL purposes. Meanwhile, one important word of advice here must be not to rush out and buy the first radio set that presents itself. Potential buyers should wait until the discussion on this in the next article, as there is a huge number of portable and table-top receivers to choose from, with prices ranging from f20 to over f1000, and some receivers cost 3 or 4 times more than others that perform better.
FLL POTENTIAL I should perhaps outline here what I have claimed to be the potential of international broadcasts for FLL. Two main areas should be mentioned: language skills and acquisition. As I have said above, international broadcasts will be used mainly for receptive skills, either in or outside the classroom. Activities range from the usual L2 classroom “contrivances” (Widdowson, 1978) or “tricks”, such as jigsaw listening or filling in tables, to out-of-class or at-home listening by individual students. Other activities based on these broadcasts will exercise other skills-mainly speaking, but also reading and writing. The distinction, drawn by Krashen and others, between L2 acquisition and learning, is relevant here. There is no room here to explain L2 Acquisition Theory, except to summarize the ways in which international broadcasts may fulfil (some of) the requirements of “optimal input” necessary for acquisition (as opposed to learning). For (upper) intermediate to advanced students, these broadcasts should be relatively comprehensible, on condition, of course, that electronic reception is good; many programmes are very interesting and often deal with topics relevant to students; they are by definition not grammatically sequenced; the available quantities are huge; the affective filter should be fairly low if classroom activities and programmes are engaging; and conversational management can be provided to some extent through an imaginative exploitation in the classroom. Krashen’s (1982) discussion on ‘pleasure reading’ (p. 164 ef seq.) can be applied mufatis mutandis to SW listening, but for higher level students, as mentioned.
CROSS-CULTURAL
UNDERSTANDING’
It is also worth mentioning that, over and above FLL in a narrow sense, listening in to other countries’ media may contribute a little to greater awareness of the fact that different peoples perceive and interpret the world in different ways. Cross-cultural communication is an area of much study and of increasing concern among L2 teachers. Manzel (1983) recommends that: Each country should operate short-wave facilities of sufficient power to permit countrie_s, which could thus be interested in following its cultural and economic programmes should be conceived as to widely interest people of other countries international co-operation.
The Secretary General of the ITU and Co-ordinator
reception in other development. The and thus to foster
of WCY, has emphasized that:
for more active and effective solidarity by The World Year . . . can create the necessary atmosphere mobilizing the international community as a whole. In many countries, moreover, it should mark a starting point, the consequence and repercussions of which will make themselves felt long after 1983. (Butler, 1983)
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I think that the L2 profession, by its very nature, is probably-or at least should beone of the most internationally oriented, and can perhaps justifiably claim to be part of this “international community”. Perhaps then, one of the long-term consequences or objectives of our professional pursuits should be to contribute in some small way to a greater international understanding between the language communities of the world. The use of international broadcasts for FLL fits in here, both with this general objective and with the scope of WCY.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE I should like to end with a few quotes from the keynote address, given by that distinguished engineer and writer, Arthur C. Clarke, at the UN on World Telecommunications Day, 17 May 1983. Clarke had already shown in 1945 that communications and broadcast satellites were perfectly feasible, some 20 years before the first one was sent up. It is little over 100 years since the invention of the telephone. The importance of a new invention is not always easy to assess, as Clarke points out: When news of A. G. Bell’s invention reached the U.K. the chief engineer of the British Post Office failed to be impressed. ‘The Americans’, he said loftily, ‘have needed the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.’ . . In contrast to the British engineer, the mayor of a certain American city was wildly enthusiastic. He thought the telephone was a marvellous device and ventured this stunning prediction: ‘I can see the time’, he said solemnly, ‘when every city will have one’. . . . Miracles of electronics that would have been beyond belief, even 20 years ago, the symbols that flicker across those digital displays, now merely give time and date. When the zeros flash up at the end of the century they will do far more than that. They will give you direct access to most of the human race, to the invisible networks girdling our planet. The long-heralded global village is almost upon us, but it will last for only a flickering moment in the history of mankind. Before we even realize that it has come, it’ll be superseded by the global family.
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D’ARCY, J. (1969) ‘The Right of Man to Communicate’ in EBUReview, 118. DYSON, A. P. (1980) The Use of Broadcast Maferiai in Language Teaching. (Special edition of Vol. 18, Nos. 2 and 3 of BJLT.) BALT. FISHER, D. (1977) ‘The Right to Communicate: Richstad (1977). FISHER, D. (1982) The Right to Communicafe: FISKE, J. (1982) Introducrion
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JBRGENSEN, K. (1983) Undersfanding Through Communication. Paper given at the International Media Institute’s Fourth European Area Convention, Oslo, l-3 July 1983. KRASHEN, S. D. (1982) Principles and Pracfice in Second Language Acquisifion. Pergamon. MACBRIDE COMMISSION (International Commission for the Study of Communication Many Voices, One World. Kogan Page, Unipub, UNESCO. MANZEL, W. (1983) ‘World Communications
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Key Concepfs in Communicafion
E. B. (1978) ‘Amateur Radio as an Aid to Foreign Language Learning.’ In Foreign Language
Right to Communicate Working Group (1980) Report. (Meeting in Ottawa, 1l-12 September 1980.) UNESCO. SHANNON, C. and Weaver, W. (1949) The Mafhemafical Theory of Communicafion. University of Illinois Press. WIDDOWSON, H. G. (1978) Teaching Languageas Communication. Oxford University Press.