Teaching English as a Lingua Teaching English as a Lingua Franca: Franca:

Dilemmas and DirectionsDilemmas and Directions

LE Van CanhUniversity of Languages & International

StudiesNGUYEN Thi Thuy Minh

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

The 8th Asia TEFL International Conference, August 2010 Hanoi

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Now you’re family

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Kachru’s circles (from Crystal Kachru’s circles (from Crystal 1997)1997)

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NS-NNS or High-Low Proficiency?

(Graddol 2006: 110)

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Global English may mean the end of English as a Foreign LanguageAsia may determine the future of Global English

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The diversity of Englishes owes much to the ongoing contact among diverse users of Englishes with users of other Englishes and languages. … To prepare students adequately in the era of globalization, we as teachers need to fully embrace the complexity of English and facilitate the development of global literacy (A. Matsuda & P. Matsuda, 2010).

However, this development [of ELF] has not so far had much impact on English language attitudes, let alone English language teaching: users of English, NNS and NS, teacher, learner, applied linguist, world English scholar, and general public alike, are finding it difficult to make the conceptual leap needed in order to allow ELF a legitimate place alongside the Englishes of the inner and outer circles (Jenkins, 2007, p. xi)

 

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Far too often, we publish for the attention of our colleagues and to advance knowledge but do not care much about the fate of English in schools (Bamgbose, 2001, p. 361).

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ELF research

Teaching EFL

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TEACHING ELF: DILEMMAS

EFL vs. ESL & EILTaught largely in the classroom by non-native speaker teachers who are responsible not only for the delivery of the mandated syllabus, for the students’ successes at high-stakes examinations but also for being an active role model for the learners.

What is an appropriate English variety for pedagogical purposes?What variety(ies) of English should be

considered as the basis for syllabuses, textbooks and assessments?

The language for pedagogical purposes tends to be static, norm-based.

World Englishes have evolved out of standard English varieties. Therefore, native-like norms seem to provide common linguistic ground for a wide range of non-native varieties. Native-like norms should be the starting point.

To do justice to our students’ needs and aspirations we should try to empower them to cope with the variety of Englishes, both non-native and native, which they will encounter in the world outside their classroom walls. (Prodromou, 2006, p. 58

The Challenges Teaching ELFThe Challenges Teaching ELFEnglish no longer a monolithic entityLack of an official status for English in

many EFL contexts.Examination-oriented education system.Lack of exposure and opportunity for

English use in the community.Sense of security. No such ELF variety? The necessity for acquiring basic NS rule-

governed forms.

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Pedagogical implications of ELF is complex. Which variety to be taught in the expanding

(EFL) circle contexts? Intelligibility and comprehensibility as goals

(Smith, 1992)Teach a variety appropriate for the local

context (Matsuda, 2006)Teach the dominant codes and conventions

(in writing) plus awareness- raising of deviations (A. Matsuda & P. Matsuda, 2010).

Choose an exonormative nativised model (Kirkpatrict, 2007)

Choose a lingua franca model/ approach (Kirkpatrict, 2007)

“To stand any chance of widespread adoption as a teaching norm, ELF needs to be accepted in educational circles” (Maley, 2009, p.194).

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ATTITUDES TOWARDS ELF

“Although the spread of English implies a deemphasis of NS [native speaker] norms, our study has shown that NS norms are still dominant in Greek teachers’ beliefs about their own pronunciation and teaching” (respondents. Sewell (2009) reports that in Hong Kong the public acceptance or awareness of a local model of English is limited while “ a strong exonormative view” of standard native-speaker varieties of English remains predominant (p.37) (Sifakis, 2005, pp. 483-484).

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We can accept that a non-native speaker may make mistakes, but it would be foolish to try to incorporate all the different types of mistakes of all nationalities to create a new lingua franca. Most foreign learners don’t want that ….When they hand over the money to the language teacher, they don’t want to be taught Spanish English or European English or World English: they want to learn real English, even if they know they’ll fall short of perfection.

(Observer newspaper, 20 July 2008)30

Mollin (2006): compliance with the NS model was viewed as a must in a pedagogical setting.

Sewell (2009): public acceptance or awareness of Hongkong model of English is limited while standard NS varieties are preferred.

Timmis (2002): learners are highly oriented towards a NS standard and want to approximate this standard as closely as possible.

Dalton-Puffer et al. (1997): negative attitude among advanced learners towards their own NNS accent, valuing NS accents more highly.

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Speakers stick to native speaker standard usage and make individual ‘errors’, if one wishes to name them so, depending on mother tongue and English competence generally. There were hardly any common features that united lingua franca speakers, even in a context such as the EU, where speakers use English frequently to interact with each other and do have the opportunity to negotiate a common standard (Mollin (2007, p.48).

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Directions for EFL Directions for EFL contextscontexts

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“[A model is] an idealisation, from which one can diverge. In this sense, the primary function of a model is to offer orientation for the learners and not to act as a frame of reference to signal errors (Gnutzmann, 2005, p. 117).

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More than one communicative competence?

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The capacity of individuals to be aware of the differences that exist between their own system of beliefs and values and that of their interlocutors and the capacity to negotiate these differences such that common understanding is achieved and solidarity is established (Crawford 2006; Nguyen, 2008).

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“[I]n our present world learners of an FL will find themselves more and more often in situations where they have to understand the relationships between different cultures and will have to make sense of different behaviours and attitudes, they will have to become mediators trying to interpret and connect two or several ways of understanding the world" (Byram, 1995, p. 63)

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CONCLUSIONWe should choose an intercultural

approach with clear awareness of the linguistic complexity of English as a global language. While students’ linguistic competence can be based on native speaker norms, they also need sociolinguistic and strategic competence to enable them to negotiate cultural differences in the light of their understanding of both other cultures and their own.

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