Student’s full name: Briyith Suaza Méndez

Sheila Candinho de Almeida

Paula Araya Salamanca
Ferney Alberto Castro Castillo

Group: FP-TEFL_2017-10_unini

Date: October 6th,2018

ENGLISH IN THE COMMUNITY

HOW IS INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE CHANGING THE WAY WE
TEACH?
Index

Introduction …………………………………………………… pag. 3

Assignment …………………………………………………… pag. 4
Conclusion ……………………………………………………. pag. 8
References ……………………………………………………. pag. 9
Introduction

English has been considered as an international language due to people from all over
the world are speaking this interesting and important language, through English
language, communication has been possible among cultures from Asia, Europe, Africa,
north, central and south America, now it is easier to travel abroad to know, for example,
the Eiffel tower because surely there will be someone who speaks English to establish
a conversation about the tower and the French culture. The most important reason why
people from all over the world and multicultural countries of the XXI century are
learning English language is “communication”.

Even though communication is the main goal for people who want to learn English
language, there are two relevant factors which make English as a global dialect, the
first one an official status to dominate branches of society such education, government
and so on, and as a complement the first language, this language is known as second
language. The second one is the language as a foreign language, implemented by
countries as a need for globalization. What makes a language international, is not only
the different status it has, but also the number of people who speak it, the economic,
technological and cultural power represented by a native country that speaks it as is
the case of USA or United Kingdom, all those elements have placed English as the
number one language internationally, Crystal (2003).

There is a controversial debate between native speakers and non-native speakers

about the correct use of English, taking into account that there are more people who
used it and they are not native, they are multilinguals, it is on them that the
responsibility of adaptations and linguistic changes of the English language that is
affecting native speakers due to several versions and shapes of language found
around the world, Seidlhofer (2003).

The main issue to be addressed in this essay is precisely the one that involves non-
native speakers of English and the most appropriate language to learn British,
American, Australian, international, any other, to avoid the grammatical and phonetic
alterations that have been presented to this particular language at an international
level.
Assignment

There is a controversial debate about what kind of English is better to teach, if a native
language as British or American or English as second language such as India, South
Africa or any other type of English. The arises due to the concern of certain linguistic
researchers when noticing the variation, modification and transformation of the English
language in different places of the world that this language is spoken like, for example
the English of the United Kingdom and the English of India, both are very different. The
culture, beliefs and context have created changes in the “original” English language,
some phenomenon has emerged as consequence of multilingualism, interlanguage
and pidginization.

Davies (2003) came up the idea of a native speaker concept, he stated “the native
speakers know what the language is and what the language isn't they are the
stakeholders of the language, the control its maintenance and shape its direction”,
namely is the native speaker who knows in depth and has control over the language.
Studying Davies ‘native speakers’ idea, the native speaker would not develop
interlanguage or pidginization since they have the correct essence of the language, a
purer language that omits all kinds of changes, alterations and transformations.

The importance of a genuine language, is its pure and authenticity, for that the need of
the native speaker in this topic, the monolingual speaker from America or Britain the
two more powerful and studied languages. Many linguistics researchers from both
countries have contributed to this situation, some of them suggest a standard language
where native and non-native speakers are involved, Davies (2003), does not accept
that what he calls International English is a separate variety but rather the product of
the use of different standard Englishes. He suggests that we need to give diverse
dialects greater local authority and validity. Kirkpatrick (2002), argues for greater
diversity on the grounds that non-native speakers have a right to culturally appropriate
varieties of English which reflect their own regional uses of the language.

Haugen (1996) identifies the process of standardization as four-stages:

Stage one: Selection – Variation is a particular fact presented in all languages,

standardization is a way to close the language variation gap, to start with the process,
one dialect is chosen as the one to be standardized.
Stage 2: Codification – the creation of norms and rules of grammar, once codified in
writing, then language becomes an object of consciousness in the material world.
Changes to the language are thus more open to regulation and control by its
community of users, especially by the more powerful sections of society.

Stage 3: Elaboration – the chosen dialect is extended and created so that it can
achieve the variety of different functions it is intended to serve. That is, the dialect is
added by adding vocabulary and/or elaborating grammatical structures.

Stage 4: Acceptance by the community – the chosen variety is implemented

throughout a community, through the promotion, spread, establishment and
enforcement of the norms. This is done through educational institutions, agencies,
government, etc.

We think the most important matter here is not what kind of English apply in the
learning-teaching process whether the American, the British, the Australian or any
other, but the way we are forming people in the English foreign language, with all its
variations, for us an standard English is the one that we must implement in our
classrooms, guided by standards of competence established by the European common
framework and adopted by the ministry of education.

To implement this standard English in our classrooms, the role of teachers is important
and even more if we want to teach English as an international language, but should the
non-native teacher imitate native speakers?

McKay (2004:18-19) talks about an appropriate EIL pedagogy, and explains that EIL
does not belong any nation or culture, so she says that the way language is taught,
should not be linked to a particular culturally influenced methodology, but the language
should be taught with local cultural expectations. She adds that local educators
determine what happens in the classroom. She also mentions what Kramsch and
Sullivan (1996) say about it:

“appropriate pedagogy must also be a pedagogy of appropriation. The English

language will enable students of English to do business with native and non-native
speakers of English in the global world market and for that they need to master the
grammar and vocabulary of standard English…” (p.211).
Mckay continues by saying that English educators have to recognize the use of English
as a global language, where English is used for a wide variety of cross-cultural
communicative purposes.
Seidlhofer (2003) explains that non-native speaker teachers do not need to think about
themselves as someone they are not. But they can assert their professional roles,
being competent and authoritative speakers of EIL, not with a borrowed identity but
with an identity of their own as international users of an international language.
With all this information, we can understand that non-native teachers do not need to
imitate any specific accent. On the contrary, teachers have to prepare their students to
be able to understand and communicate with any international English culture.

In Jenkins, J. (2000) research, she analysed interactions between non-native speakers

of English. The aim was to find out which features of British/American English
pronunciation are essential for intelligible pronunciation, and which are not. The
findings have been formed into a pronunciation core for teaching which is known as the
Lingua Franca Core. This is to indicate that it is intended as a guide for lingua franca
interactions, not interactions between a native and non-native speaker of English. The
main features of the Lingua Franca Core are:

● All the consonants are important except for 'th' sounds as in 'thin' and 'this'.
● Consonant clusters are important at the beginning and in the middle of words.
For example, the cluster in the word 'string' cannot be simplified to 'sting' or
'tring' and remain intelligible.
● The contrast between long and short vowels is important. For example, the
difference between the vowel sounds in 'sit' and seat'.
● Nuclear (or tonic) stress is also essential. This is the stress on the most
important word (or syllable) in a group of words. For example, there is a
difference in meaning between 'My son uses a computer' which is a neutral
statement of fact and 'My SON uses a computer', where there is an added
meaning (such as that another person known to the speaker and listener does
not use a computer).

The implications for pronunciation teaching are:

● Students should be given choice. That is, when students are learning English
so that they can use it in international contexts with other non-native speakers
from
different first languages, they should be given the choice of acquiring a
pronunciation that is more relevant to EIL intelligibility than traditional
 pronunciation syllabuses offer. Up to now, the goal of pronunciation teaching
has been to enable students to acquire an accent that is as close as possible to
that of a native speaker. But for EIL communication, this is not the most
intelligible accent and some of the non-core items may even make them less
intelligible to another non-native speaker.

● The non-core items are not only unimportant for intelligibility but also socially
more appropriate. After all, native speakers have different accents depending
on the region where they were born and live. So why should non-native
speakers of an international language not be allowed to do the same?
● Finally, students should be given plenty of exposure in their pronunciation
classrooms to other non-native accents of English so that they can understand
them easily even if a speaker has not yet managed to acquire the core features.
For EIL, this is much more important than having classroom exposure to native
speaker accents.
Conclusion

In the introduction we made the observation about the relevance English Language
has, since it does not only provide multiple possibilities, but English has a very high
position over the world too. Besides, the most important function of a language is to
communicate properly. Hence English language also plays a powerful tool in
communication, on that subject Wideman (2000): states ‘`Communication is like engine
oil: it needs to be applied to the machinery or the machinery will not start or, if it does, it
will quickly falter and grind to a halt’’. Illustrated by the previous example it is evident
that in order to have an effective communication, people should travel by the vehicle
that takes them to the final goal. It is the English Language.

Added to this, we mentioned there are two relevant factors which make English as a
global dialect, the prestige of the language and English as a second language. That is
why Baugh, A. C., & Cable (1993, pg. 4) add ‘’English is one of the most important
languages of the world. Spoken by more than 380 million people in the United
Kingdom, the United States, and the former British Empire, it is the largest of the
Western languages’’. Consequently some of the European Languages are compared to
English. It allows to conclude that speaking English goes further than getting a native
status, on contrary people around the universe through their speeches in English are
helping to categorize it as an international language.

We also found polemic arguments around the correct use of English Language
between native and not native English speakers, however it is possible to say that
there exist multiple elements that indeed represent more than a code, and those are
cultural particularities that permit learners not only to be different but enrich the learning
process too. (Shohamy, 2007:5) encompasses the rich complexities of communication.
``Language is not a thing to be studied but a way of seeing, understanding and
communicating’’.

At least but not less important our biggest conclusion is not just an inclination to a
specific ‘’English variety’’ on the contrary it is the inclusion of a big look of
backgrounds, local and external cultural knowledge without omitting grammatical and
phonetic transformations.
 References

1. Baugh, A. C., & Cable, T. (1993). A history of the English language. Routledge.
2. Crystal, D. (2003). English as Global a Language (second edition). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
3. Davies, A. (2003). The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality.. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters.
4. Haugen, E (1966) Dialect, language. American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol.
68, No. 4, pp. 922-935. Retrieved from. http://www.jstor.org/stable/670407
5. Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as an International Language.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
6. Kirkpatrick, A. (2002). ASEAN and Asian culture and models: Implications for
the ELT curriculum and for teacher selection. In A. Kirkpatrick (Ed.). Englishes
in Asia. Melbourne: Language Australia.
7. Kramsch, C., & Sullivan, P. (1996). Appropriate pedagogy. ELT Journal, 50,
199-212. In Mckay, S. (2004).Teaching English as an International Language.
The Role of Culture in Asian Contexts. THE JOURNAL OF ASIA TEFL Vol. 1,
N°1, pp.1-22.
8. McKay, S. (2004). Teaching English as an International Language: The Role of
Culture in Asian Contexts. THE JOURNAL OF ASIA TEFL Vol. 1, N°1, pp.1-22.
9. Seidlhofer, B. (2003). A Concept of International English and Related Issues:
From ‘Real English’ to ‘Realistic English’?. Council of Europe.