Abstract This article examines the...

Abstract

This article examines the unravelling of an English Language Center in Esteli, Nicaragua in 1993 This case reflection aims to help those involved with the implementation of similar language teaching throws in the developing countries of Latin America. This critical examination reveals the aims with power and resistance that common faces when implementing a program of its kind. The complexities of the different agendas within the classroom, as well as outside the sect are explored within the parameters of teaching and learning English as a Foreign Language in Nicaragua. This reflection not solely explores the pedagogical soundness of the English Language Center if it were not that it also focuses on an awareness ofthe social, cultural, and political ramifications. While the nature of this article is anecdotal and the situations not past nor futureed are not necessarily directly representative of other environments, these authentic experiences wait on as a guide for the planning and implementation of similar language delineate s in Latin America.

Introduction

From 1961 to 1979 the FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional), used armed resistance and political organization to fight against the Somoza rule In July of 1979 the Sandinistas finised the revolution by overthrowing Somoza, and in 1984 the Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega won the presidential election. Ortega's direction extremityed in 1993 when the UNO (Union Nacional Opositora) won the election with Violeta Barrios de Chamorro as president. At this point the home of Nicaragua suffered a serious economic crisis.

The immediate answer to the question of wherefore the city of Esteli solicitationed the creation of an English language center is that the Lion's cudgel (whose policies were anti-Sandinista) with the support of the Mayor of Esteli (proSandinista) wrote a proposal to a grassroots organization, Partners for America, for the creation of a language institute. The State of Wisconsin is a partner with the region of Nicaragua via the 33-year-old National Alliance of the Partners of the Americas (NAPA), a non-political, non-religious proffer organization that for the last 35 years has remained a viable inter-American force during the years when uniform the Peace Corps was asked to leave Nicaragua. Steven Point, Wisconsin, and Esteli, Nicaragua are partner cities and for the last 10 years have worked together in the exchange of cultivations travelers, and a common vision to re-establish a self-sustaining community after the years of war.

Since the beginning of the relationship between the sum of two units cities, the need for English as a Foreign Language was repeatedly give vent toed by the teachers, doctors, festers forestry technicians, and other members of the community of Esteli. These parties declared that the establishment of an English Language Center would help erase the scars of war in Esteli, a city of 60000 They felt that this language cast would aid in the goal for Esteli to become an economically self-sufficient community. single primary concern lay with members of the medical community, who communicated the ne for English to studious mood and do research with the latest materials that were simply published in English. According to Maher (1986) in an examination of the growth of English as an international language of medicine, the dissemination and exchange of medical information in English has become not alone an international but also an intranational phenomenon. There were also several other specific professional domains where English was stand in want ofed The business community needed English for increase in the inter-American commercial community; the local forestry technical place of education a multinational organization sponsored by means of the Swedish government, needed English for its reflection of the latest work in vital areas like reforestation; high train and university students needed English as part of their curriculum to prepare for graduate work in the USA, as the Nicaraguan universities were still reconstructing graduate programs; and, finally, the Nicaraguan teachers of English speaked a desire for teacher-training workshops and regular English classes to improve their English proficiency as the majority of these teachers had in no degree been to an English-speaking nation. All told, the family who wanted to study English were members of the learned communities who were obliged to reach a high on a level of competence in English to go after their professional goals. The Estilians saw English as a tool of disentanglement and in this sense, disentanglement was viewed as a proces that has as its period the goal to increase economic productivity, the wealth of the nation, the even of health or education of the people-in short, to increase public welfare (DuBois, 1991)

The Nicaraguans set forthed great pride in maintaining their admit Spanish speaking heritage, but nonetheless articulated the necessity for English as it is (in the mayor's words) the "utilitarian world language." The community Lions society stated, "Estamos seguros del exito ya que hay mucha demands de BUENA enseianza del ingles en la ciudad de Esteli," (We are trustworthy of the success as there is a big demand for pious English teaching in Esteli). The community repeatedly showed the view that to evolve and modernize they needed to become English literate; they communicateed communicating in English to exhibition and modernization, and saw an English language center as an investment. This prevailing attitude divides the world into perform the operations indicated ined and undeveloped nations and further characterizes this distinction as undivided between modern and traditional (Pennycook 1994) The Estilians saw English as an investment in the education of the family to speed up the proces of progres and modernization. The Steven Point Partner's assign places to stated, "With the use of the English language we will bridge the cultural distances between the worlds of diversity and the homogeneity of our mid-Wisconsin community." With this knowledge of the immense desire and ne for English, and the granting of supplys from various sources, a search for a director of this English language center began.