More than language: the work of an English training centre in Delhi

English language training centres (ETCs) have become increasingly ubiquitous in urban India over the last two decades. Such centres promise individuals not just fluency in the language but also professional ‘success’ in the urban job market, particularly in the retail and service sectors. ETCs seek to reconceptualise the English language as a workplace ‘skill’ and primarily target individuals who did not have access to an education in English. However, the refashioning of English as a skill intersects with the power of English as socio-cultural capital, just as the work of such centres intersects with the aspirations of its learners and the expectations of employers. Teaching English as a ‘skill’ is therefore embedded both in the wider discourse of urban skill-training that aims to produce a desirable labour force, and in the dynamics of language power, cultural capital, class mobility and ideas of desirable personhood. The present ethnographic case study of an ETC in Delhi analyses this convergence and examines whether the reconceptualisation of English as skill democratises access to the language or, conversely, engenders newer registers of inequality.