Whoa, cultural imperialism! I thought the cold war was over, sheesh! Get agrip man, or woman!
We are there, usually at a cost to ourselves in one form, or another, to bring English to those who want or need to learn it.
Many schools have social studies programs where they study other cultures etc and many schools also have American or British culture studies groups. I was in a school that had Canadian studies. Does this constitute cultural imperialism, nope! It constitutes a desire to bring understanding amongst cultures so we can all learn that we're actually all the same under the skin and the world is a vastly smaller place now, a global community. I agree that it's the parents job to bring up the kids but this is an imperfect world and many parents are busy these days just trying to make ends meet so it falls to us, and other teachers, to try and instill some form of discipline on the students. This was evident where I worked in Guangzhou, where we were no more than overpriced baby sitters to a bunch of under performing teenagers. There was a rule in my campus that English must, must be spoken at all times. If this wasn't done, I enforced the rule with a bit of exercise, like jogging! The kids soon learned that I was serious and they started obeying the rules.... Result.... no more Chinese spoken there!
Maybe we should be enlightened rather than wallow in some cave that is a remnant of the old cold war rhetoric huh?
Just a thought there folks.
My 2 cents again.
