The Place of English as an International Language in English Language Teaching

Teachers' Reflections

Ngan Le Hai Phan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429862946
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Enseignement des arts du langage

This book aims to contribute to the discipline of teaching English as an international language by exploring teachers' reflections on the recent changes within the English language for their teaching profession.

It presents a comprehensive and thorough examination of the place of English as an international language in English language teaching, especially in an Asia-Pacific context, looking at Vietnam and countries in which the context of ELT is similar. It examines and revisits the relevance of teaching implications, teaching of cultures and teaching materials currently employed in an EFL context. The author investigates a range of critical issues in teaching English in today's EFL context as well as challenges in implementing new teaching ideas to meet learners' demands to communicate with speakers from various backgrounds. Finally, the book presents a number of research-informed implications for pedagogy, theory and research in teaching EIL in ELT.

1 English as an international language

An overview

1.0 Introduction

The existence of English as an international language has been widely documented in the literature. Indeed, the recent few decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the use of English as an international language as well as in the users of this language, as Crystal (1999, p. 95) observes:

No one can avoid being part of the current linguistic change or – to extend the metaphor – can avoid bathing in the sea of linguistic variety.

These changes call for a critical examination of the established pedagogical practices. To that end, this chapter is devoted to providing an overview of the background information about the current status of English in the world and its relevance in teaching the English language today. The emerging paradigm of English as an international language (EIL) has been briefly discussed with a focus on EIL in the literature. Key issues such as EIL, ELT, and pedagogical implications are also identified in the chapter.

1.1 English in the world

Starting from the fifth century AD, with some of the Germanic tribes who travelled from the North Sea to settle on what is known as Great Britain today, the English language has experienced an amazing history. Since then, English has ‘incorporated many structural properties from other languages that make it difficult to recognise its Germanic origin’ (Siemund, Davydora & Maier, 2012, p. 1). Not only that, English has reached the status in which it is at home almost everywhere in the world. As a result, the English language is ‘one of the most widely distributed languages’ pertaining to its speakers (Siemund, Davydora & Maier, 2012, p. 1).

Since English has become the common language for international communication in almost all fields, the world is experiencing a tremendous spread of the language around the globe (Graddol, 2006). As a result of the influence of the British colonial empire and its successor the Commonwealth of Nations, and in particular post-World War II globalisation under American sway, English has gained a truly global or international status (Galloway & Rose, 2015). Its international status can be illustrated by the following facts and observations.

• Eighty-eight countries (60 sovereign and 28 non-sovereign states) give English an official status (British Council, 2014).
• More than 80 per cent of interactions in English take place between non-native speakers (Crystal, 1997).
• English is the language of international diplomacy and plays an official or working role in the proceedings of most major political gatherings, including the United Nations, the Association of South East Nations (ASEAN), and the European Union (EU).
• English is used as the working language in many international organisations. In Asia and the Pacific, about 90 per cent of international bodies carry out their proceedings entirely in English. ‘The overriding assumption is that, wherever in the world an organisation is based, English is the chief auxiliary language’ (Crystal, 2003, p. 89).
• English radio programmes are received by 150 million people in over 120 countries, and 100 million receive programmes from the BBC World Service (Crystal, 2003, p. 99).
• Some 75 per cent of the world’s mail and the world’s electronically stored information is in English (McArthur, 2002, p. 3).
• English dominates popular culture and the entertainment industry, and in 2002, over 80 per cent of feature films released in cinemas were in English (Crystal, 2003, p. 99).
• English is the lingua franca of air traffic control, airports and civil aviation, and hotels and shipping lanes.
• English is more widely taught as a foreign language than any other and is the foremost language of international scholarship (Coulmas, 2005).
• English is involved in more language-contact situations than any other language.
• Seventy-four per cent of tourists travelling in non-English-speaking countries employ English for communication, a statistic which highlights the role of English as the most important language for the increasingly mobile international world (Graddol, 2006).
• With the development of social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube, the internet now serves as another important medium for the dissemination of English, enabling language learners to interact in English with other speakers from all over the world.

(Adapted from Galloway & Rose, 2015, pp. 11–12)

These statements show that English is used for a wide range of activities across a wide range of contexts ‘where people from diverse linguistic, cultural and national backgrounds interact and communicate with each other’ (Matsuda, 2012, p. 2).

As the spread of English progresses, the English language has changed extensively both structurally and pragmatically. Widdowson (2003) observes that English does not travel around the world as a product but has an unstable nature that gets transformed during this journey. Indeed, non-native speakers (NNSs) not only alter the sounds of English through their particular accents, but also import elements of their native language and culture into their usage of English (Honna, 2008; Galloway & Rose, 2015). For instance, ‘to shake legs’ (from Malay idiom) means ‘to be idle’ in Singaporean English (Jenkins, 2003). This expression therefore has the opposite meaning of a similar sounding idiomatic expression of ‘standard’ English: ‘to shake a leg’, meaning ‘to make a start’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2019).

Apparently, Asians, Africans or Europeans speaking English with their own national and cultural features are contributing to the emergence of multiple varieties of English. For instance, a number of varieties of English take root in America, Australia, and Britain; and its diversification is attributed to the existence of established varieties of English such as Indian English, Malaysian English, Singaporean English, and Philippine English. There are also more recently emerging varieties of English such as Chinese English, Japanese English, and Korean English. Indeed, the global spread of English is predicted to continue, making the roles and grammatical and pragmatic rules of English much more complex. As Sharifian (2014, p. 37) contends:

The development of these new varieties of English is not just based on the consideration of accent and few lexical borrowings, but on the use of English by communities of speakers to express their cultural conceptualisations.

(Emphasis as in original)

The literature uses various terms to refer to these changes in English in the last 20 years: ‘English as a global language’ (Crystal, 1997), ‘English as a lingua franca (ELF) versus English as a native language (ENL)’ (Jenkins, 2000; Seidlhofer, 2001), ‘English as a world language’ (Nunan, 2003), ‘World Englishes’ (Brutt-Griffler, 2002; Jenkins, 2003; Kachru, 1992; Kachru & Nelson, 1996; Kirkpatrick, 2007), ‘English as a multicultural language in Asian contexts’ (Honna, 2008) and ‘Global Englishes’ (Pennycook, 2007). The intention is not to discuss these terms in detail but to reflect upon the changing contemporary sociolinguistic reality of English in the world that yields a number of implications for the field of English language teaching.

1.2 Pedagogical implications for English language teaching (ELT) and learning

One implication for the teaching of the English language is the question of what the major goal(s) of ELT should be and what teaching model(s) should be taught. For a long time, it has been strongly believed that achieving native-like competence is the utmost goal for English language learners, as this would enable them to communicate with native English speakers (NESs) effectively (McKay, 2002). Traditional ELT pedagogy has used American and British English as its major models. The adoption of this NS model is most beneficial to those who wish to learn English in order to interact with NESs (Kirkpatrick, 2006). It is worth noting, however, that the number of these learners is relatively small compared to those who are learning English to converse with NNSs of English (Kirkpatrick, 2006), which indicates that it is not necessary for learners to have native-like competence to use English effectively. Indeed, many academics have discussed the shortcomings of this NS teaching model of ELT, particularly in terms of the changing status of English as an international language (EIL) (Kirkpatrick, 2006; Matsuda, 2006, 2012; McKay, 2002, 2012; Marlina, 2014; Sharifian, 2009) (to be explained in depth in Chapter 3).

When American and British English are mainly taught in classrooms, students of English may end up believing that these two varieties are the only correct forms for them to learn (Matsuda, 2006). This may be misleading and result in the formation of negative attitudes towards other varieties of English (Chiba, Matusuura & Yamamoto, 1995; Smith, 1992, as cited in Matsuda, 2006). In Korea, for instance, although the concept of EIL was adopted in the 2008 Revised National Curriculum, the NS model has been mainly used in ELT (Park & Kim, 2014). Teachers and students still hold negative attitudes towards other varieties of English. Consequently, the authors have called for a rise in the awareness of World Englishes and the application of a Korean model based on Korean learner-specific needs in learning EIL. As Saraceni (2015, p. 187) concludes:

Learning English need not to be seen as a strenuous journey whose ultimate destination is the achievement of ‘native-like’ status or a linguistic ‘visa’ into a special ‘inner circle’. Learning English means, above all, making it easier to take part, actively and critically, in the practices and discourses that (re-)present, (re-)construct and (re-)shape the global and local worlds we live in.

1.3 The paradigm of EIL

The paradigm of EIL has emerged as a response to the geographic, demographic and structural changes within the English language (Matsuda, 2012; McKay 2002, 2003; Sharifian, 2009; Smith, 1976, 1983; Strevens, 1980). It has been considered a paradigm shift in the field of English teaching and learning. It has also affected the applied linguistics of English, since it examines the complexities related to the recently global spread of English (Sharifian, 2009). It is necessary here to clarify exactly what is meant by the concept of EIL.

EIL has been extensively explored and defined by scholars worldwide. Smith (1976, p. vi) first defines EIL as ‘functions of English, not to any given form of the language. It is the use of English by people of different nations and different cultures in order to communicate with one another. It is not a new form of BASIC English’. Similarly, Matsuda and Friedrich (2012, p. 20) use the term EIL to refer to ‘a function that English performs in multilingual contexts’ (italics as in original). On the other hand, Holliday (2009) considers EIL as a synonym for English for speakers of other languages (ESOL). According to Seidlhofer (2011), however, EIL comprises ‘localised EIL, which includes World Englishes and nation-based varieties, and globalised EIL, involving international communication characterised by hybrid ways of speaking and de-territorialized speech events’ (as cited in Galloway & Rose, 2015, p. xii). For the scope of this book, EIL is conceptualised as ‘a paradigm for thinking, research, and practice’ (Sharifian, 2009, p. 2). It includes the recognition of the international functions of English language and its international use in a wide range of cultural and economic contexts by speakers of English coming from diverse cultural backgrounds (Marlina, 2014). As a paradigm, EIL calls for the need to:

• revisit and reconsider ways of conceptualising English by scholars, researchers, and educators,
• re-assess their analytical tools and the approaches they adopt i...