Is Language Teaching a Profession?

Sydney January, 2001

David Nunan. The English Centre, University of Hong Kong

1. Introduction

On a recent flight to the United States, I was leafing through a magazine with a wide circulation, when my eye was arrested by the following headline:

“Abolishing bilingual education: a good idea”.

I read on:

Another of the myths propagated by the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association is being exploded. Many will recall the prophesies of doom circulated two years ago, when California voters approved Proposition 227.

That measure ended bilingual education, requiring the state’s more than 1 million Spanish-speaking pupils to learn and be taught in English.

“What happened in the wake of this revolutionary vote?” the article asks, and goes on to provide the following answer,

”Those students are improving in reading and in other subjects at often striking rates, according to standardized test scores,” reports the New York Times. Second-graders classified as limited in English have posted major g

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