English in India's Tibet

Lately my favorite thing is when people ask me, "What will you do in India?!" and I boldly proclaim my excitement at the prospects of being in India's Tibet.  Me, the American, them, the Tibetans, us, there in India and the exciting prospects of navigating cultures.

I tell my questioning friends, (and critics), about trying to better understand how a strong Tibetan cultural preservation is taking place - in India - one of the boldest cultures I know, and my question of why it is they want to learn English, a strong and dominant language of the world with much culture attached to it, and what that does for them amidst it all - or do they want to?

This is what I ask myself every day.  Do they want to?  What part can I take, and will they let me, in this process of cultural navigation? I am told they do, however, and so the truly interesting question for me has been why exactly they want to learn English, and how that differs among groups, age, position etc., and then the question I am beginning to roll around in my head is, "how?"

As my research continues both here and there I hope to solve some of the questions of how to approach teaching language to meet the needs and desires of this particular people, and even the different groups among the people according to these why's.  All the while it will be important to me to navigate and preserve desires, values, needs, knowledge, in short - their culture.

To give a little background, I happened upon the filed studies program when trying to find a way to do my English as a second language teaching internship internationally.  I wanted to combine my interests in international affairs, (which has also lead to me choosing to minor in international development), while completing this teaching internship requirement to graduate.  Field studies felt like the perfect approach to combine my interests and expand my education and abilities.

As I've progressed it hasn't always seemed like the easiest way to complete the internship, (thus the stretching), or that my need to have the English teaching as a significant part of my overall project was going to work out well with this program. My excitement has grown, however, and the possibilities continue to open up a little more for me as we go along. I'm coming into this preparation class and going forward with many of my questions above with the excitement to work through them and improve and adjust my plans and questions in order to work towards making this the worthwhile experience I know it can be.