Plenty of Arab friends of mine used to feel the same way and bemoan the fact that they themselves tended to be the western educated, or English speaking middle class elites and apparently a world away from many of their countrymen who were turning towards Islam or anti-Americanism as a kind of salve.
English speaking and writing classes are offered through the Duke Graduate School.
One student explained, "The most challenge here for me is the English speaking, while doing class presentations and projects".
What he meant was its extension through the English-speaking classes in India.
The ELC offers English-speaking classes and support for international students and also teaches applied linguistics.
Or perhaps future research will show that immersing immigrants in English-speaking classes has benefits that have yet been undetected.
While bilingual education is often blamed for the persistence of Spanish in the United States, most such programs are designed to shift the child into English-speaking classes within three or four years.
In Vikram Chandra's new novel, "Sacred Games" (HarperCollins; $27.95), Ganesh Gaitonde, a sort of Bombay Al Capone, expresses his contempt for the English-speaking classes, people oblivious of the rampant criminality underpinning their serene existence: "These Englishwallahs were always superior, as if the world they lived in was some other one, far from my barrack, my streets, my home".
Ajit Balakrishnan, the founder of Rediff, an early and successful Indian portal and e-commerce site, sees the focus on government corruption as a dodge by the wealthier, English-speaking classes to avoid issues of real substance, like primary education and health care.
In East L.A. last year, several hundred parents, all Spanish-speaking, walked out of the elementary school and boycotted it for two weeks, until they were able to get their children into English-speaking classes.
