How To Waste 87 million dollars: English Villages
Via EFL Geek and Scott Sommers comes a rather odd news story that I have never heard of before: English Villages (Accessed Friday, April 21, 2006)
Both EFL Geek and Sommers point to a very interesting letter by Steven Krashen located here: Taipei Times - English Villages and Hype
Krashen makes some interesting points about the English Village:
1. The village is not real. It’s a glorified role-play.
2. How can you tell progress in learning English is being made?
3. It’s an expensive spot to go to.
Intrigued by the whole idea, I delved a little deeper and found this scary video over at Reuters (Accessed today: Friday, April 21 2006) The title alone got my attention, because as I was reading the articles EFL Geek pointed to, I began thinking of Disney World.
While the idea is interesting, I think the English Village concept is totally off. The place is fake. It looks (watch the video) like a movie set from Universal Studios, and if you listen to the "immigration officer" she sounds totally…unreal - just like the listening activities you can get with most ESL material these days.
The real thing, in general, is a whole other animal. The officers are usually far more….direct and to the point. While they MAY be friendly, most immigration officers I’ve come into contact with are harried, suspicious of everything (and they should be), and just not an easy experience…especially if your a nervous EFL student.
I applaud the attempt at making language learning more authentic, but I think the English Village, as is, has missed the boat big time.
