Teaching English as an International Language

The Historical Development of Language Teaching Methodology

Situational Approach

TPR

1880 1900 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990

Cooperative Learning

Content-Based Learning

Task-Based Learning

Pre-Method Methods Era Post Method Era

Based on Richards & Rodgers,

Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching 2001

Grammar

Translation

Audio-lingual

The Direct Method

The Oral Approach

Communicative Language Teaching

The Lexical Approach

T P R

Suggestopedia

The Silent Way

Community Lang. Learning

Situational Lang.Learning

The Development of the English Language

• How does English reach the status as the language for global communication?

• Would English keeps its status as the lingua franca or be replaced by another language?

Possible Terms

• English as an International Language • English as a global language • English as a world language • English as a lingua franca • English as a medium of intercultural

communication

(Seidlhofer, 2003: 9)

Kachru’s Circle Classification (1985)• Inner Circle:

English as a Native language the United Kingdom, the United States, English Canada and South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Malta, and some of Caribbean territories.

• Outer Circle: English as a Second languageIndia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia, Tanzania, Kenya, non-Anglophone South Africa and Canada, etc.

• Expanding Circle: English as a Foreign language China, Russia, Japan, most of Europe, Korea, Egypt, Indonesia, etc.

Linguistic Imperialism (Philipson, 1992)

• Core Countries

English as an intra-national communication language

• Periphery Countries

English as an international link language

‘Linguistic Imperialism’ 10 Years on (2005)

• SK (Sohail Karmani): But what about the many thousands of parents in the developing world who are very eager for their children to have an English-medium education in the belief that it will somehow improve the quality of their lives?

• Don’t you think there’s a risk that your work might be construed as suggesting that these parents are possibly lackeys of the English-speaking countries of the West?

RP: …A lot of my analysis has been of British and American government policies particularly in the 50s and 60s in the pioneer phase of the global expansion of English language teaching; that obviously has to do with the supply. It has to do with the motives of the West in pushing funding into English teaching in post-colonial educational systems, and trying to influence the way English could maintain its eminence locally as well as globally…

David Crystal adds:

As English becomes the chief means of communication between nations, it is crucial to ensure that it is taught accurately and efficiently, ... (1997: 3)

Teaching EIL

• "the teaching and learning of an international language must be based on an entirely different set of assumptions than the teaching and learning of any other second or foreign language. The purpose of this book is to clarify these assumptions and advocate that they be considered in the design of English as an international language (EIL) teaching methods and materials." (McKay, 2002: 1)

Standard English: Whose English?

• The debate over standard in the British Council 15th Anniversary– Randolph Quirk

• A need to uphold standards in the use of English in both Inner and Outside circles.

– Braj Kachru • Be flexible to allow global diffusion: “what we need now

is are new paradigms and perspectives for linguistic creativity in multilingual situation across cultures.”

• Whose English is the standard? • Whose norms are to be followed?

(Philipson, 1992; Pennycook, 1998)

References• Crystal, David. English as a Global Language. Cambridge, UK:

Cambridge University Press, 1997 • Kachru, Braj. “Standards, codification, and sociolinguistic

realism: The English language in the Outer Circle”, in R. Quirk and H.G. Widdowson English in the world: Teaching and learning the language and literatures, eds.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

• McKay, Sandra Lee. Teaching English As An International Language: Rethinking Goals and Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press: 2002.

• Phillipson, Robert. Linguistic imperialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

• Phillipson, Robert. ‘Linguistic imperialism’ 10 years on: an Interview with Robert Phillips. ELT Journal 50(3): 244-249, 2005.