Clarifying the "No English Spoken Here" Policy During the Summer

Author: Robert J. Keren

In his column "Summer Workers Demand Respect from Language Schools," (The Middlebury Campus, Sept. 13, 2002) Vinay Jawahar '03 asks the question "…why is it so much worse to hear English than any of the seven languages the student is not studying?" On the chance that this is not a rhetorical question, please permit me to respond.
While it's a fact that the Language Pledge — "a formal commitment to speak, listen, read, and write the language of study as the only means of communication for the entire session"— does not specifically address the use of English, it's also true that English is the native language of more than three-quarters of Language Schools students. Moreover, English is the most commonly understood language among Language Schools students; safe to say that at least 95 percent of them possess at least an intermediate level of proficiency in English.
Thus, a conversation in English is more distracting to a group of, say, French School students than a conversation in Chinese, Spanish or Russian. Nearly every one of those French School students has to shut out the familiar sound of English, while I'll bet a "No English Spoken Here" T-shirt that only one or two of those same students (if any) has to consciously ignore the sound of Chinese, Spanish or Russian to maintain the Language Pledge.

Robert J. Keren is Director of Marketing and Communications for the Language Schools and Schools Abroad.