Wow! eBook
Principles and Practices of Teaching English as an International Language
Author(s): Aya Matsuda
- Publisher: Multilingual Matters
- Publication Date: 15 Mar. 2012
- Edition: Illustrated
- Language: English
- Print length: 264 pages
- ISBN-10: 184769702X
- ISBN-13: 9781847697028
Book Description
This book critically examines current ELT practices vis-à-vis the use of English as an international lingua franca. It bridges the gap between theoretical discussion and the practical concerns of teaching English as an international language (EIL), and presents diverse approaches for preparing competent users of English in international contexts. Part 1 examines how the linguistic and functional varieties of English today complicate ELT, and suggests ways to address them effectively in an English language classroom. Part 2 showcases English courses and programs that are specifically based on the EIL perspective, illustrating how the issues addressed in Part 1 are realized in a real context. This section also presents a collection of EIL pedagogical ideas that have been developed and used successfully by English teachers across the world.
Editorial Reviews
Review
For anyone interested in English as an International Language, and every ELT professional should be, Aya Matsuda has done us a great service with this collection of excellent work by scholars who are unafraid to address tough questions about theory and practice in the English language classroom and to suggest diverse approaches to the practical challenges we face there when teaching EIL.
In Principles and Practices of Teaching English as an International Language, Matsuda has put together a worthwhile collection of pieces from sixteen contributors, offering a variety of individual perspectives on a range of aspects of English as an international language (EIL), from the rationale behind and background(s) to the development of EIL, through descriptions of current working EIL programmes, to samples of actual lesson plans with advice for the practicing teacher. This book will be of particular value to teachers who have an interest in implementing EIL materials or practices in their own classrooms but who do not yet have a firm idea of how to go about this. It will also be of value to those who already deploy EIL principles in their teaching context, in that it presents a window into other EIL environments and EIL solutions. Finally, it will provide helpful background reading for other educators and educational administrators who seek to understand the rationale behind EIL.
Overall, this volume is informative for both researchers and practitioners seeking to understand current theoretical and conceptual issues in the area of teaching English for international communication. In addition, it provides concrete models and examples of the practical application of ElL/ELF/WE perspectives to courses and programs. It paves the way for considering irregularities between learners' English and standard varieties as differences rather than deficiencies: a compelling shift with the force to empower learners with a sense of their own identity and place in the diverse contexts of international communication.
This volume offers chapters by an impressive array of geographically diverse authors, who truly explain the principles and practices of teaching English as an international language. Each chapter provides a substantial reference list and presents solid information that teachers and program administrators can actually use in developing courses, materials and lesson plans.
This work is undoubtedly interesting, persuasive and worth reading as it manages to bring together the theory and practice of teaching EIL.
About the Author
Aya Matsuda is Assistant Professor of English at Arizona State University. Her primary research focus has been the global spread of English, its use as an international language, and its implications for pedagogy, and her work on these topics has appeared in several leading journals as well as a number of edited collections. She currently services on the editorial boards of TESOL Quarterly and World Englishes, and co-edited the 'World Englishes' and 'Language Ideology' sections of The Encyclopedia for Applied Linguistics.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Principles and Practices of Teaching English as an International Language
By Aya Matsuda
Multilingual Matters
Copyright © 2012 Aya Matsuda and the authors of individual chapters
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84769-702-8
Contents
Contributors,
Introduction: Teaching English as an International Language Aya Matsuda,
Part 1: Principles in Teaching English as an International Language,
1 Selecting an Instructional Variety for an EIL Curriculum Aya Matsuda and Patricia Friedrich,
2 Endonormative Models of EIL for the Expanding Circle Nobuyuki Hino,
3 ELF, Intercultural Communication and the Strategic Aspect of Communicative Competence Patricia Friedrich,
4 The Politics of EIL: Toward Border-crossing Communication in and beyond English Ryuko Kubota,
5 Teaching Materials for English as an International Language Sandra Lee McKay,
6 Assessing Proficiency in EIL Peter Lowenberg,
7 Teacher Education for EIL: Working toward a Situated Meta-praxis Seran Dogancay-Aktuna and Joel Hardman,
Part 2: Showcase of EIL Programs, Courses and Pedagogical Ideas,
8 WE-Informed EIL Curriculum at Chukyo: Towards a Functional, Educated, Multilingual Outcome James D'Angelo,
9 English as an International Language (EIL): An Innovative Academic Program Farzad Sharifian and Roby Marlina,
10 World Englishes in a High School English Class: A Case from Japan Hyewon Lee,
11 A WE-based English Communication Skills Course at a Turkish University Yasemin Bayyurt and Derya Altinmakas,
12 Participating in the Community of EIL Users Through Real-Time News: Integrated Practice in Teaching English as an International Language (IPTEIL) Nobuyuki Hino,
13 EIL Activities and Tasks for Traditional English Classrooms Aya Matsuda and Chatwara Suwannamai Duran,
Epilogue Cecil L. Nelson,
CHAPTER 1
Selecting an Instructional Variety for an EIL Curriculum
Aya Matsuda and Patricia Friedrich
The linguistic, cultural and functional diversity associated with English today challenges some of the fundamental assumptions of English Language Teaching (ELT) and requires that we revisit our pedagogical practices, especially in classrooms where English is taught as an international language (EIL). One of the first questions teachers and program administrators are confronted with is which instructional variety to use. What options are available and how to arrive at the decision are common follow-up concerns. There are also other important decisions that need to be made in an EIL curriculum, as illustrated in other chapters in this volume; the selection of the instructional variety, however, is one of the most significant ones because it affects other aspects of the curriculum as well, including material selection and assessment.
Three Options
In most English language courses, instructors or administrators are expected to select a particular variety of English as the instructional variety to guide various aspects of a curriculum. Such decisions are often made quickly and without much deliberation, based on the prior practices and status quo, but they ideally should be based on factors such as students' goals and needs, teachers' expertise and availability of materials and resources. In considering instructional varieties vis-à-vis the needs of EIL classes that prepare learners for future international use of English, three possibilities usually surface immediately: an international variety of English, the speakers' own variety of English and an established variety of English. Advantages and disadvantages of each option are examined below.
The International Variety of English
One possibility is to teach a particular variety of English, or a set of characteristics of English, that would be intelligible and effective in all international communication. The adoption of 'World Standard English' as proposed by McArthur (1987: 11) fits the description. In his model of 'The circle of World English', McArthur 'highlight[ed] the broad three-part spectrum that ranges from the "innumerable" popular Englishes through the various national and regional standards to the remarkably homogeneous but negotiable "common core" of World Standard English'. Unlike national and regional varieties of English that demonstrate a wide range of personal and situational variations, World Standard English is 'a more or less "monolithic" core, a text-linked World Standard negotiated among a variety of more or less established national standards' (McArthur, 1987: 11). It is indeed an attractive idea to have a set of static rules that we can teach and be assured that our students will be successful in all future encounters with other English users. The adoption of such a variety, in theory, would mainstream the materials, simplify the assessment and allow teachers to overpass the recognition of the messy reality of multiple Englishes found in the world.
Some scholars, such as Jenkins and Seidlhofer, have attempted to capture the characteristics of this elusive variety. Jenkins (2000, 2002) identified the Lingua Franca Core, or a set of pronunciation characteristics found among NNS-NNS interactions that she 'found to be essential to mutual intelligibility in ELF [English as a lingua franca] across a wide range of L1s' (Jenkins, 2006: 37). Similarly, the VOICE project (n.d.), directed by Barbara Seidlhofer, has resulted in a number of publications that describe various linguistic characteristics of ELF in a similar way. While both Jenkins (2006) and Seidlhofer (2006) have stated that their attempt is descriptive rather than prescriptive (or even pedagogical), their suggestions are likely to serve as the basis for the establishment of a 'teachable' international English variety to be used in classrooms in the future.
However, several problems exist with this approach to the variety selection. First, suggesting one or a limited set of specialized varieties of English for international use does not reflect the reality of international communication and the use of EIL. In most communicative exchanges that involve language users from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, which variety of English (or even which language, as discussed by Kubota in this volume) is used depends on the speakers involved and is thus unpredictable. Furthermore, once it is (tacitly) decided that English is used, more than one variety of English is often represented in such situations because each speaker brings a variety that he or she is most familiar with. For instance, if a Chilean, an Indian and an American attend a business meeting in Hong Kong, each participant may use a variety of English that they are most fluent in – e.g. Chilean English, Indian English and American English, respectively. They are also likely to employ various strategies to negotiate linguistic and other differences to make themselves mutually intelligible and to communicate effectively (see Friedrich's chapter in this book for more discussion on this matter). While a new international variety of English may develop in a particular, stable international community, there is no one variety that is or can be used successfully in all situations of international communication. It is so because the selection of an English variety is context-dependent, and thus it cannot be expected that one unique international variety of English should emerge in all EIL situations, especially when those situations do not necessarily overlap. As Canagarajah (2007: 925–926) eloquently phrases:
The form of this English...
