In both of these speeches the planned spreading of English throughout the world is directly linked to rosy political objectives of an unabashedly colonial kind. This viewpoint was supported by Hindmarsh (1978) who on the reason English has become so widespread remarked: ”the world has opted for English, and the world knows what it wants , what will satisfy its needs.” Pennycook begins his book by explaining the traditional view that the dominant discourse on English as an international language shows the spread to be “natural, neutral and beneficial” and this is certainly supported by a number of academics.

However the perspective I would like to examine is that of the school of thought which believes that colonialism has not come to an end but is today largely prosecuted by non-military means. Most notably the work of Phillipson in his 1992 book entitled “Linguistic Imperialism”. It has been said since of Phillipson’s work that it’s most original feature is that it provides “the first systematic examination of the enormous significance of language to most neo-colonial enterprises” (Daly, 1995). In his work Phillipson considers the role of language to be important enough to merit the development of a new concept “linguicism” which he sees as being akin to racism. Linguicism for Phillipson, is an assembly of “ideologies, structures and practices which are used to legitimate, effectuate and reproduce an unequal division of power and resources (both material and immaterial) between groups which are defined on the basis of language”.

One important aspect of linguicism is the teaching of English as a foreign and second language and its maintenance as a “national” language in communities whose mother tongue is something other than English. Attempts to make English a global language have both a complex economic and political history, Phillipson and his followers would like to change the state of affairs as they see them, they point out the cultural, social, and psychological damage which can be inflicted by the fallacies of the English language teaching profession.. They speculate that the main problem is the monolingual emphasis with which English is often taught. There are definite disadvantages to teaching any language in this fashion. Language is often considered to be a sensitive indicator of the relationship between an individual and any given social group. It is an integral part of ourselves, it permeates our very thinking, the way we view the world, morality and social behaviour. For this very reason it becomes clear that language teaching is a matter which should be handled sensitively.