Let’s put the language back in language teaching!

19th IATEFL-Hungary conference 2009

Illés ÉvaEötvös Loránd University Department of English Applied Linguistics

Experience as teacher

Pre-CLT era:

Focus on language (grammar & vocabulary)

Communicative Language Teaching:

Focus on communicative competence: knowing when andhow to say what to whom (Larsen-Freeman 2000: 121)

Focus on the learner; learner needs

Humanistic approach:

• Effective teaching and learning engages the whole person –the mind, the body and the heart

• The learner is the central person in the act of learning

• Creativity, involvement and enjoyment are the essential elements for lifelong learning.

(Kerr, P. 2007 http://www.hltmag.co.uk/may07/mart04.htm)

Experience as learner

- Native speaker language

- Native speaker appropriateness

- Native speaker culture

Beneke (1991) estimates that about 80 percent of verbalexchanges in which English is used as a second or foreignlanguage do not involve any native speakers of English.(Seidlhofer, B. Research perspectives on teaching English as aLingua Franca 2004: 209)

English as an international language (EIL)English as a lingua franca (ELF)

In essence, a lingua franca is a contact language used among people who do not share a first language, and is commonly understood to mean a second (or subsequent) language of its speakers. (Jenkins, J. English as a Lingua Franca: attitude andidentity 2007: 1)

Being a native speaker does not seem to be as important [for Intelligibility, Comprehensibility and Interpretability] as being fluent in English and familiar with several different national varieties.

(Smith 1992 quoted in Kachru and Smith 2009: 6, my emphasis)

Expanding Circle

Outer Circle

Innercircle

(Based on Kachru 1992)

Varieties of English

1. User-related

2. Use-related: registerse.g., digital English; slang;

… many children and adolescents now grow up with aglobal consciousness. […] … in addition to their local identity, young people developa global identity that gives them a sense of belongingto a worldwide culture and includes an awareness of events,practices, styles, and information that are part of the global culture. (Arnett, J. J. The Psychology of Globalization 2002: 777)

The language associated with the global culture is Englishand, therefore, for a growing number of learners English nowrepresents the language of the ‘world at large’ rather than thelanguage of any specific English-speaking country. (Dörnyei, Z., Csizér, K., & Németh, N. Motivation, Language Attitudes andGlobalisation 2006: 145)

Mini survey

Radnóti Miklós Gyakorlóiskola, BudapestYear 12 students (26)

Time: 1-2 hours a week 6 hours a dayaverage: 1-2 hours a day

Films: all watch films (DVD, TV, cinema)no subtitles (only in cinema or English subtitles)‘I can only watch movies in English. Dubbed filmsmake me crazy.’

TV: ‘not really’ (4 no TV at all) BBC, CNN, HBOElectronic media: all students (YouTube, Facebook, emails,

chat, games, research, etc.)

English outside the classroom: Different: 15; Little different: 4; Not different: 2

‘less proper’; ‘informal’; ‘colloquial’; ‘slang’; ‘moreeasier’‘more formal’; ‘more sophisticated’; ‘more academic’‘language with other rules’; ‘we’re not controlling it’

‘nobody corrects my mistakes’‘I don’t do grammar outside the school “that way”;‘I can do things which I am interested in’

Teaching varieties in school:Yes: 8It would be (very) interesting/great; ‘It’d be cool.’‘I think we should learn English of all kinds – slang as wellas academic language.’No: 3‘I don’t want to because I see slang and swearing is only different and we don’t need this kind of English in the classroom.’‘I think not because its not an English of an educated personand not sophisticated enough.’

Lack of teaching materials (exception: listening, pronunciation)

English as a lingua franca (ELF)

Pragmatically, it involves the use of certain communicationstrategies, particularly accommodation and code-switching.This is because ELF forms depend crucially on the specificcommunication context rather than being an ‘all-purpose’English. (Jenkins, J. World Englishes (2nd ed.) 2009: 145)

The currant bun was shining Now he wasn’t a holy friar.So I went for a ball and chalk. I could tell this wasn’t a joke.I met a china plate of mine. So I gave him some of my sausageWe started to rabbit and pork. and mash

Because he was hearts of oak.He told me a Daily Mail.He was in a two-and-eight. He put it in his Lucy Locket.Could he have some bees and honey He said he’d pay back what he owedFrom his very best china plate? And with a smile all over his boat race

He went off down the frog and toad.

(From The Poetry Processor Book 1 by Paul Higgins 1989 p.12)

Hearts of Oak (Paul Higgins)

I woke up and rubbed my mince pies. I got up

and went to the bathroom for a bubble and squash.

I brushed my Hampstead Heath and combed my

Barnet Fair. I went down the apples and pears

and made myself a cup of Rosy Lea …

(From The Poetry Processor Book 1 by Paul Higgins 1989 p. 13)

A Day in the Life of a Cockney

quik hurry up & txt me

tell me u luv me

tell me how much u want me

tell me im da 1

oops wrong prsn

i sent it 2 my mum

(Crystal, D. 2008 txtng the gr8 db8 p.75)

txt commandments

1. u shall luv ur mobil fone with all ur hart2. u & ur fone shall neva b apart3. u shall nt lust aftr ur neibrs fone nor thiev4. u shall b prepard @ all times 2 tXt & 2 recv5. u shall use LOL & othr acronyms in conversatns6. u shall be zappy with ur ast*r*sks & exc!matns!!7. u shall abbrevu8 & rite words like theyr sed8. u shall nt speak 2 sum1 face2face if u cn msg em

instead9. u shall nt shout with capitls XEPT IN DIRE

EMERGNCY +10. u shall nt consult a ninglish dictnry(Text-poet Norman Silver in Crystal, D. 2008 txtng the gr8 db8 p.83)

Generally speaking, the language of young peopleis dynamic, vivid, and rich in creativity: most peoplecan hardly deny that email expressions like “f2f”(‘face-to-face’) are more forceful, colorful, and original than their equivalents in full spelling. Such a dynamicvariety of English is contagious, and it is no surprisethat young people lead in language change: “The youngare usually in the vanguard of most [language]changes”.

(Wardhaugh quoted in Gao Liwei 2001‘Digital age, digital English’ in English Today Vol.17, No.3 pp. 17-23)

Well, frankly, the problem as I see it at this moment in time is whether I should just lie down under all this hassle andlet them walk all over me, or whether I should just say OK,I get the message, and do myself in.I mean, let’s face it, I’m in a no-win situation, and quite honestly, I’m so stuffed up to here with the whole stupid messthat I can tell you I’ve just got a good mind to take the easy way out. That’s the bottom line. The only problem is, whathappens if I find, when I’ve bumped myself off, there’s somekind of … ah, you know, all that mystical stuff about when youyou die, you might find you’re still – know what I mean?(Prince of Wales quoted in Manchester Guardian Weekly, 7 January 1990;also in Cameron, D. Verbal Hygiene. p. 108)

- Awright, Nina?- Aye. It’s a shame aboot Uncle Andy.- Aye. Whit kin ye say? Geoff shrugged his shoulders.

He was twenty-one and Nina thought that was ancient.- So when dae ye finish school? he asked her.- Next year. Ah wanted tae go now but ma Ma hassled us tae stey.- Takin O Grades? - Aye. - Which yins?- English, Maths, Arithmetic, Art, Accounts, Physics, Modern Studies.- Guannae pass them?- Aye. It’s no hard. Cept Maths.- Then whit?- Git a job. Or git oan an scheme.”

(From Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh Vintage 1999 p. 38)

The bus terminus – which is also the market, with pale dirty tuckhops, dark and dingy inside, which we call magrosa, and women under the massa trees selling hard-boiled eggs, vegetables, seasonal fruit, boiledchicken which is sometimes curried and sometimes not, and anythingelse that the villagers or travellers might like to buy – is at least two milesdistance from our homestead. Had a bus been hired or not my brotherwould still have had to walk the two miles home. This walk was anotheraspect of his homeward journey that my brother wished not to have to endure.

(Dangaremba, T. Nervous Conditions 1988 p. 2)

“This is only your kindness. I will do the best I can,” said Buta Singh.The visitors also got up and slipped their feet back into their shoes. “When shall we present ourselves?”“Come and see me sometime tomorrow – at the law courts.”“Sardar Sahib,” spoke another. “We have pinned all our hopes on you. You do this for us and we will sing your praise the rest of our lives.”“We will remain very grateful,” exclaimed the others.“Accaji Namastey … some water or something?” asked Buta Singh mechanically and, without waiting for a reply, dismissed them: “Namastey.”“This is like our home. We would ask for anything we want. Sat Sri Akal.”

(Khushwant Singh cited in Kirkpatrick, A. World Englishes 2007: 87)

SENSE OUTA NANSENSE

di innocent an di fool could paas fi twinbut like a likean love a lovea pidgin is a pidginan a dove is a doveyet di two a dem in common share sometingdem is awftin anticipated an laywateddem is awftin patronised an penaliseddem is awftin paccified an isolateddem is awftin castigated an implicated

(Linton Kwesi Johnson)

The facilities for the five hundred elderly residents who lived in these compounds, spread over a hundred acres, included tennis courts, a large common garden with a potting shed, a workout center, a postal station, a social center with meetingrooms, a ceramics studio, a woodworking shop, a small library, acomputer room with three terminals and a common printer, and a big room for lectures and performances and for the slide showsthat were offered by couples who had just returned from their travels abroad. There was a heated Olympic-sized outdoor swimming pool in the heart of the village as well as a smaller indoor pool, and there was a decent restaurant in the modest mall at the end of the main village street, along with a bookstore, aliquor store, a gift shop, a bank, a brokerage office, a realtor, a lawyer’s office, and a gas station.

(from Everyman by Philip Roth Vintage 2006: 63-64)

The facilities for the five hundred elderly residents who lived in these compounds, spread over a hundred acres, included tennis courts, a large common garden with a potting shed, a workout center, a postal station, a social center with meeting rooms, a ceramics studio, a woodworking shop, a small library, a computer room with three terminals and a common printer, and a big room for lectures and performances and for the slide showsthat were offered by couples who had just returned from their travels abroad. There was a heated Olympic-sized outdoor swimming pool in the heart of the village as well as a smaller indoor pool, and there was a decent restaurant in the modest mallat the end of the main village street, along with a bookstore, a liquor store, a gift shop, a bank, a brokerage office, a realtor, a lawyer’s office, and a gas station. (from Everyman by Philip Roth Vintage 2006: 63-64)

Implications for language teaching

* Education rather than training: ‘to provide learnerswith a general capacity to enable them to cope with undefined eventualities’(Widdowson, H. G. Learning Purpose and Language Use 1983: 6)

* Strategies

* Problem solving

* Lifelong language learning