Jennifer Jenkins

Current Perspectives on Teaching World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca

The purpose of this article is to explore recent research into World Englishes (henceforth WEs) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), focusing on its implications for TESOL, and the extent to which it is being taken into account by English language teachers, linguists, and second language acquisition researchers. After a brief introduction comparing the current situation with that of 15 years ago, I look more closely at definitions of WEs and ELF. Then follows an overview of relevant developments in WEs and ELF research during the past 15 years, along with a more detailed discussion of some key research projects and any controversies they have aroused. I then address the implications of WEs/ELF research for TESOL vis-a-vis English language standards and standard English, and the longstanding native versus nonnative teacher debate. Finally, I assess the consensus on WEs and ELF that is emerging both among researchers and between researchers and language teaching professionals. The article concludes by raising a number of questions that remain to be investigated in future research.

Review of developments in research into English as a lingua franca

We begin by considering how the recent phenomenon of English as a Lingua Franca (henceforth ELF) fits in with the older notion of lingua francas in general as well as with older versions of ELF. We then explore the beginnings of ELF in its modern manifestation, including the earliest ELF research, and tackle the thorny issue of defining ELF. After discussing the main locations and domains in which ELF research has been carried out to date, we move on to examining research into three linguistic levels, lexicogrammar, phonology and pragmatics, concluding with a discussion of very recent findings revealing ELFs linguistic fluidity. Next, we discuss research into two domains where ELF has proved especially prevalent: business English and academic English. This is followed by a consideration of ELF as a globalized and globalizing practice. We end the article by exploring the implications of ELF research for ELF-oriented English teaching and the role that attitudes are likely to play in this. We conclude that while the relaxed attitudes towards ELF of younger people are promising, strong resistance is still felt by many others, and that the major challenge remains in convincing the examination boards that they should take account of ELF.

Implementing an International Approach to English Pronunciation: The Role of Teacher Attitudes and Identity

TESOL Quarterly invites commentary on current trends or practices in the TESOL profession. It also welcomes responses or rebuttals to any articles or remarks published here in the Forum or elsewhere in the Quarterly.

5. RESEARCH IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION AND INTONATION

For several decades of the 20th century, the main interest of pronunciation teaching research was in applying contrastive analysis techniques to the sound segments of the L1 and L2 to identify differences between them and so, it was assumed, to highlight areas where L1 transfer errors were likely to occur. Later in the century, pronunciation teaching research began to move on both by embracing more sophisticated approaches to interlanguage phonology, taking universal, developmental, and other processes into account as well as transfer (see, e.g., the range of research interests documented in Ioup & Weinberger, 1987), and by focusing increasingly on suprasegmental features along with segmental. Still more recently and radically, a number of researchers have ceased treating pronunciation as a somewhat isolated, self-contained linguistic and pedagogic phenomenon, but are forging links with research into other aspects of language and language teaching and also maximizing the opportunities offered by technological advances. This chapter will outline these latest developments in pronunciation research and explore the extent of their influence on pedagogy.

Repositioning English and multilingualism in English as a Lingua Franca

Abstract In the relatively few years since empirical research into English as a Lingua Franca began being conducted more widely, the field has developed and expanded remarkably, and in myriad ways. In particular, researchers have explored ELF from the perspective of a range of linguistic levels and in an ever-increasing number of sociolinguistic contexts, as well as its synergies with the field of Intercultural Communication and its meaning for the fields of Second Language Acquisition and English as a Foreign Language. The original orientation to ELF communication focused heavily, if not exclusively, on form. In light of increasing empirical evidence, this gave way some years later to an understanding that it is the processes underlying these forms that are paramount, and hence to a focus on ELF users and ELF as social practice. It is argued in this article, however, that ELF is in need of further retheorisation in respect of its essentially multilingual nature: a nature that has always been present in ELF theory and empirical work, but which, I believe, has not so far been sufficiently foregrounded. This article therefore attempts to redress the balance by taking ELF theorisation a small step further in its evolution.

Global Englishes in Asian contexts: Current and future debates

This volume explores the current issues in World Englishes/ELF specifically in relation to the Asian context. The international contributors are all prominent names in the field, taking on a wide variety of issues both in applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, and address not only the current state of affairs, but the future to

State-of-the-art review article

This article is organised in five main sections. It begins by outlining the scope of pronunciation teaching and the role of pronunciation in our personal and social lives. The second section surveys the background to pronunciation teaching from its origins in the early twentieth century to the present day, and includes a discussion of pronunciation models and of the role of the first language (L1) in the acquisition of second language (L2) pronunciation. Then a third section explores recent research into a range of aspects involved in the process: the effects of L1 and L2 similarities and differences; the role of intelligibility, accent attitudes, identity and motivation; the part played by listening; and the place of pronunciation within discourse. This section concludes with a discussion of a number of controversies that have arisen from recent pronunciation research and of research into the potential for using computer-based technology in pronunciation teaching. The fourth section explores a range of socio-political issues that affect pronunciation teaching when the L2 is learnt as an international rather than a foreign language, and the fifth section moves on to consider the implications of all this for teaching.

Exploring Attitudes towards English as a Lingua Franca in the East Asian Context

It is a well-established fact that during the past four centuries, the English language has spread around the world, and that as a result, it is used for a wide range of purposes by many millions of people for whom it is not a mother tongue in the traditional sense of the term. This means that there are more English users nowadays in the Outer Circle (i.e. in the countries colonized by the British in the ‘second diaspora’, see B. Kachru 1992) than there are English users in the Inner Circle (i.e. in Britain and the mother tongue English countries colonized by the British in the ‘first diaspora’). English in the individual countries of the Outer Circle, meanwhile, has become Englishes: nativized varieties of English each with its own flavour and characteristics appropriate to its speakers’ local social and professional uses and to local institutionalized functions. Thus, we can talk of Indian English, Malaysian English, Singapore English, Nigerian English, and so on.

Stigma, Tensions, and Apprehension: The Academic Writing Experience of International Students.

Purpose – This paper examines the experiences of engaging with academic writing of international doctoral students in the schools of humanities and education at a UK university. The purpose of this paper is to uncover the real accounts of international students whose cultural and language backgrounds are often marginalised and considered, not as facilitators, but as barriers to academic writing in the western context of universities. Design/methodology/approach – Developed broadly within an interpretive post-positivistic paradigm, the study utilised Harre and van Lagenhove, 1999 Positioning theory and Goffman’s theory of Stigma to interrogate accounts of 12 students from the two schools in a year-long project involving three focus group discussions, questionnaire responses and personal reflective summaries by the students. Findings – The paper highlights the notions of stigma associated with their foreign writing conventions and how students experience tensions and apprehensions about their ability as the...

English for Academic Purposes: a need for remodelling

Abstract English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is an established domain of research, teaching, and assessment within additional/second language education. In this article we examine the conceptualisation of English that underpins much of its current thinking and pedagogic practice, and raise questions of validity and claims of ‘fit-for-purpose’. In particular we explore issues underpinning EAP assessment and argue that there is a need to reconceptualise the basis of the language model. We propose that given the complex and changing practices in academic communication, there is a good case for broadening the established understanding of Academic English to better reflect target language use. The principles and arguments underlying this discussion are relevant to assessment as well as to EAP more broadly.