Quan điểm của giáo viên và sinh viên khoa Sư Phạm Tiếng Anh, ĐHNN – ĐHQGHN về định hướng bản ngữ và phi bản ngữ trong giảng dạy Tiếng Anh như một ngôn ngữ trung

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐỖ THỊ MINH NGỌC NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE APPROACHES TO TEACHING ENGL

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

ĐỖ THỊ MINH NGỌC

NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE APPROACHES TO TEACHING ENGLISH AS

A GLOBAL LINGUA FRANCA AS PERCEIVED BY TEACHERS AND STUDENTS AT THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER

EDUCATION, ULIS, VNU

QUAN ĐIỂM CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ SINH VIÊN KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH, ĐHNN-ĐHQGHN VỀ ĐỊNH HƯỚNG BẢN NGỮ VÀ PHI BẢN NGỮ TRONG GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH NHƯ MỘT NGÔN NGỮ TRUNG GIAN

TOÀN CẦU

M.A Combined Program Thesis

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 60.14.10

HANOI – 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

ĐỖ THỊ MINH NGỌC

NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE APPROACHES TO TEACHING ENGLISH AS

A GLOBAL LINGUA FRANCA AS PERCEIVED BY TEACHERS AND STUDENTS AT THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER

EDUCATION, ULIS, VNU

QUAN ĐIỂM CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ SINH VIÊN KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH, ĐHNN-ĐHQGHN VỀ ĐỊNH HƯỚNG BẢN NGỮ VÀ PHI BẢN NGỮ TRONG GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH NHƯ MỘT NGÔN NGỮ TRUNG GIAN

TOÀN CẦU

M.A Combined Program Thesis

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 60.14.10

Supervisor: Dr Ngo Huu Hoang

HANOI – 2012

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Figures

Figure 1 Kachru‟s categorization of countries in which English is used 11

Tables

Table 1 Perceived differences in Teaching Behavior between NESTs

Table 4 Students‟ perception of the strengths and weaknesses of

Table 5 Teachers‟ perception of the strengths and weaknesses of

Table 8 Students‟ perceptions of Native and Non-native English 64 Table 9 Students‟ preference of Native and Non-native Pronunciation 65

Table 13 Teachers‟ preference of Native and Non-native Pronunciation 69

Table 17 Teachers‟ perceptions of Students‟ Cultural Preference 73

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v

PART I – INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Previous Studies 3

3 Scope of the study 7

4 Research objectives and research questions 7

5 Significance of the Study 8

6 Design of the study 9

PART II – DEVELOPMENT 10

Chapter 1: Theoretical background 10

1 1 Key concepts in English as a Lingua Franca 10

1 1 1 The worldwide spread of English in the era of globalization 10

1 1 2 Kachru‟s Three Circles Model and English varieties 11

1 1 3 World Englishes, Word Standard English and New Englishes 14

1 1 4 International English and English as a Lingua Franca 15

1 2 Native Model versus Non-Native Model 18

1 2 1 Native Speaker – an ambiguous concept 18

1 2 2 Native Speaker Model or Non-Native Speaker Mode: a controversy 21

1 2 3 Native English Speaking Teachers (NESTs) versus Non-native English Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) 29

1 2 3 1 A discussion of language teaching competence of NESTs and NNESTs 29

1 2 3 2 Attitudes towards NESTs and NNESTs 36

Chapter 2: Research Methodology 41

2 1 Participants 41

2 2 Research approach 42

2 3 Research method 43

2 3 1 Data collection method 43

2 3 1 1 Open-ended questionnaire 43

2 3 1 2 Interviews 44

2 3 2 Data analysis method 45

Chapter 3: Findings Analysis and Discussion 46

3 1 Perceptions of Native and Non-Native English Speaking Teachers 46

3 1 1 Preference over Native and Non-Native English Speaking Teachers 46

3 1 1 1 Discussion of the student results 46

3 1 1 2 Discussion of teacher results 48

3 1 1 3 Comparing the student results and the teacher results 52

3 1 2 Perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of NESTs and NNESTs 53

3 1 2 1 Discussion of student results 53

3 1 2 2 Discussion of teacher results 55

3 1 2 3 Comparing the student results and the teacher results 59

3 2 Perceptions of Native Speaker Model in language teaching/ learning 60

3 2 1 Teaching/ learning goal 60

3 2 1 1 Discussion of student results 60

3 2 1 2 Discussion of teacher results 61

3 2 1 3 Comparing the student results and the teacher results 62

3 2 2 Preferred varieties of English 63

3 2 2 1 Discussion of student results 63

3 2 2 2 Discussion of teacher results 69

3 2 2 3 Comparing the student results and the teacher results 74

3 2 3 Teacher‟s view on the inclusion of different varieties of English in language teaching 76

PART III – CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 78

1 Conclusion 78

2 Recommendations 80

3 Limitations of the study 83

4 Suggestions for further studies 83

BIBLIOGRAPHY 84 APPENDICES ……… I

APPENDIX 1 ……….I APPENDIX 2 ………V APPENDIX 3 ………X

PART I – INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

The world, over the last five decades, has experienced a phenomenal, explosive growth of English on a global scale The unprecedented worldwide spread

of English beyond the boundary of what Kachru (1985) termed “Inner Circle” countries has substantially consolidated the position of English as a Lingua Franca (henceforth ELF), making it the „prestigious‟ language in most international encounters (Crystal, 1997; Graddol, 1997; McKay, 2003) In other words, English has gained the elite global status, becoming the language used “by the world” and

“for the world” (Ngo, 2012)

The globalization of English is not all merits in itself, though One foreseeable effect is that English is being dragged drastically away from the hands of its originators, being modified and hybridized in various aspects The puzzling questions of the ownership of English are thus emerging as a bothersome issue to researchers: Who actually owns English? Whose English should be adopted as the model for international communication? Do language learners need to rigidly adhere

to the native speaker norms to guarantee their communicative competence?

Although recommendations have been made for teachers, learners, and all users of English to move beyond the native-speaker model as the sole target in English language instruction (Jenkins, 2000, 2006; McKay, 2002: Brutt-Griffler, 2002; Seidlhofer, 2001), there exists a fact that the native-speaker model is still mythically “worshipped” in many countries, including Vietnam Obsessed with the native-speaker language competence, learners rush en masse to English language centers which advertise opportunities to work with “native English teachers” and promise the capability of “using English as a native speaker” in the shortest time These catchy phrases are also repeatedly found in a wide range of recruitment advertisements, “Native English Instructors wanted”, “Native speakers, over 22, with university degree only”, to name just a few (cited in Fukumura, 1993) Another

example on this issue is the recent recruitment of 100 Philippine 1 teachers of English

by the Department of Education and Training (DOET) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam This decision provoked two different waves of responses: one is from parents who questioned the recruitment of such teachers whose language competence was thought not to be any better than Vietnamese teachers of English; and the other

is from Vietnamese teachers who felt being discriminated against by their foreign counterparts 2 In quoting these examples, the researcher has no intention of giving any “right-or-wrong” judgments apart from the desire to shift the focus to the following existing situations in Vietnam: (1) the dominant native-orientation manifested in both recruiting strategies, and (2) the common discrimination against NNESTs

Moreover, there is a contradiction that while we tend to be quite tolerant with foreigners learning Vietnamese, we do not have such an attitude towards Vietnamese learners learning English We always assert that communicative success is the priority, but we keep on ignoring, either unintentionally or intentionally, the fact that

in the context when far more interactions are between non-native speakers, any attempt to identify with Inner Circle speakers or to produce the variety of English grounded there is hardly necessary

In Vietnamese context, the teaching and learning of English has been immensely influenced by Inner Circle countries This influence, under the form of funding and training programs, makes English nearly impossible to be “a neutral medium unlinked with Western cultural and ideological values,” (Pham, 2011) As a result, almost all pedagogical activities in Vietnam are quite native speaker-oriented (e.g learning materials are stubbornly Anglo-centrically designed; other varieties of English are marginally reflected in ELT curricula and teaching materials; assessment tends to focus on how closely learners conform to the native norms, mostly

that the Philippine are not “native speakers of English”, but just bilinguals

2

The information was retrieved from

American and British, and so on) Fortunately, due to the country‟s endeavor to further its integration into international and regional communities, a part of Vietnamese people are becoming more aware of the necessity of a linguistic repertoire which can cater to the communicative needs with not only Americans or Britons or Australians, but also with people from neighboring countries such as Singapore and the Philippines In this way, the pluralistic standard approach, albeit still dim and weak, has started to make inroads into the ELT stream

All the aforementioned features reflect the intersection between two main approaches to Vietnamese language education, that can be termed shortly Native Approach and Non-native Approach While the former clings to the traditional loyalty to Inner Circle countries‟ norms, the latter presents an effort to curtail the native- speaker dominance and to encourage the incorporation of more varieties, or New Englishes, into practice The issue of accepting and adapting New Englishes has been raised in Vietnam, but whether this proposal can offer a plausible alternative to the traditional version still generates a heated debate What we need now is serious research on both theoretical and practical feasibility of each approach within the Vietnamese current context Nevertheless, seemingly up to date not much has been done except for quite few related studies like Do‟s research (2010), Pham‟s review (2001), and Ton & Pham‟s investigation (2010) This research gap sparks the researcher‟s special interest and serves as the first and foremost impetus for the

implementation of this research on “Native and Non-native approaches to teaching

English as a global lingua franca as perceived by teachers and students at FELTE, ULIS, VNU.” Hopefully, this attempt can narrow the gap and bring new perspectives

to the field

2 Previous Studies

There is a growing body of publications and research concerning the global status of English Back in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, World Englishes (WEs) and English as an International Language (EIL) were topics notable for their absence in most of linguistic forums and conferences Up to present, many

linguistic journals have been published to exclusively focus on WEs and EI (e.g

World Englishes, English Today, and Asian Englishes)

World English, International English, World Englishes, New Englishes, English as an International Language, English as a Global Lingua Franca, etc., these terms are all recurring in growing availability of corpora that include Outer Circle and Expanding Englishes One typical instance is Seidlhofer‟s corpus projects (2001)

Vienna Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE) that draws exclusively on

the Expanding Circle The acceptance of EIL/ ELF is also manifested in the increase

in dictionaries and grammars of different Englishes, such as The Macquarie

Dictionary (1997), which incorporates words from a range of Southeast Asian

Englishes More and more scholarly books in the field, additionally, are published, giving book-length treatments of WEs and EIL Some earlier volumes to be named include Kachru (e.g 1982, 1986), and Platt, Weber, and Ho (1984) Other important

publications in this vein have followed, including Phillipson‟s Linguistic Imperialism

(1992) and Pennycook (1994) (these two authors are commented by Bolton ( 2002, p.385) as “together having been influential in establishing the agenda for the critical discussion of World English(es)” All linguists with the research interest in ELF can

be divided into anti-imperialists such as Phillipson, who would prefer English(es)

not to be the most widely used world language, and those such as Kachru, Canagarajah and Parakrama, whose concern is more with resisting the hegemony of native speaker standards and appropriating English for their own local use

The recent studies deal more with Englishes in the Outer and Expanding Circle, especially the Asian context We can lists some works such as: Pennington (1998), Bolton (2002) and Groves (2009) on Hong Kong English; Bolton (2003) and Adamson (2004) on China English; Stanlaw (2004) on Japanese English; Pakir (1992), Brown, Deterding, and Ee Ling (2000), and Deterding, Brown, and Ee Ling (2005) on Singapore English; and the most groundbreaking Kachru‟s research (2005)

on “the Asianess in Asian Englihes” and a number of edited collections (e.g Ho & Ward, 2000; Kirkpatrick, 2002) cover a range of Asian Englishes along with implications for their teaching and learning

The dramatic increase in the number of publications concerning the rising role

of WEs and ELF provide evidence for the conclusion that the “WEs seeds sown by Kachru and others in the 1980s have blossomed and flourished…, and that ELF, too, has more recently become a vibrant area of study” (Jenkins, 2004) It is critical to highlight that the advocates of ELF perspectives are not only those coming from the Outer and Expanding Circle, the non-Anglo Saxons (e.g Kachru, David Nunan, Canaharajah, Parakrama, etc.) but also those with Anglo-Saxon origins (McArthur, McKay, David Crystal, Larry Smith, Kirkpatrick, etc.) It indicates that ELF is not a desperate desire of a group of non-native speakers aspiring to a equal status with the native; rather, it is a natural trend realized by the whole world in the demand for successful international or intercultural communication

Under this perspective, many studies have been conducted, providing a comparison between Native Speaker Model and Non-Native Speaker Model (e.g

The Native Speaker is Dead! of Paikeday, 1985; Native and Non-native: who’s worth more of Peter Medgyes, 1992; Native English - Speaking Teachers versus Non- Native English-Speaking Teachers of Merino, 1997; Native and Non-native: What can they offer? of Tajino & Tajino, 2000; Insights towards Native and Non-Native ELT Educators of Ulate, 2011; etc.) Many of these reject the native speaker fallacy

and attach great importance to the role of Non-native English-speaking Teachers in the instruction of ELF (Cook, 1999; Braine, 1999; Medgyes, 1999, 2001; Moussu & Llurda, 2008) In the same vein, many studies are dedicated to investigating the differences between native and non-native speaking ESL/EFL teachers (NESTs and NNESTs) Some of the first reflections came in the 1980s (e.g Kachru, 1981; Pride, 1981; Nickel, 1985; Coppieters, 1987; Kresovich, 1988, Edge, 1988) Other dedicated contributions that appeared during the 1990s and the early 20th century include Medgyes 1992, 1994, Canagarajah 1999, Barratt & Kontra 2000, McKay

etc.) A variety of studies on NNESTs‟ self-perception reported a common case of insecurity, self-doubt and inferiority complex to native counterpart (Reves & Medgyes, 1994, Samimy & Brutt-Griffler, 1999; Braine, 2004; Morita, 2004) Whereas, quite a significant number of research on learners‟ perceptions reveal an unbiased opinions Cook‟s research (2000), for example, led to a conclusion that there is no overwhelming preference for NS teachers among his Belgian, English, and Polish informants; “being an NS is only one among many factors that influence students‟ view of teaching” (Cook, 2000:331) In another study, Mahboob (2004) found that ESL students in his study (based in the United States) also do not express

a clear preference for either NESTs or NNESTs; rather, they feel that both types of teachers have unique attributes Mahboob, based on that result, proceeded to conclude that both NESTs and NNESTs working collaboratively can provide a better learning environment to ESL students

Another aspect of investigations is the teachers‟ and learners‟ perceptions towards the conformity to the Native Speaker norms (e.g Canagarajah, 1999; Timis, 2002) Timmis‟s research (2002), for instance, which was conducted in Pakistan, Indian, and South African settings, found out that the majority of students and teachers still showed a strong favor of native speaker model in terms of both pronunciation and grammar use and considered it as “a benchmark of perfection and achievement” and “as the long term goal”

In Vietnamese context, studies on ELF teaching approaches also make some significant contributions to the issue (Do, H T, 2000; Pham, H.H., 2001; Tran, L., 2002; Ton, N.N.H & Pham, H.H., 2010; Ngo, H.H., 2012) The significance of incorporating World Englishes has been seriously considered and voices have been collected towards the introduction of various varieties of English into ELT Do (2000) and Ton & Pham (2010), for example, conducted survey studies to discover the preferred varieties of English from the Vietnamese teachers‟ and learner‟s point

of view Pham (2001) and Ngo (2012) step further from these findings by asserting that English used as a global language needs to be diversified and to become “a truly international language which people around the globe can use equally to serve their own varying purposes” (Pham, 2001) In this sense, different varieties of English

must be accepted and the approach of following the native speaker model should be proven “outdated and unreasonable” as well as “too hard to succeed” (Ngo, 2012) Overall, to date, Vietnamese studies focus much on what particular varieties should

be adopted, and less on the the role of language teachers in providing an appropriate language model, and thus leaving a research gap for further exploration

3 Scope of the study

The issues of English as a Global Lingua Franca has sparked the interest of many researchers for over three decades As Kachru (2005:157) pointed out,

“researchers […] are interested in all aspects of the emergence, grammars, sociolinguistics, ideological issues, creative literature, and teaching and learning.” In pedagogical respect only, there are also a lot to be taken into consideration TESOL practitioners have enthusiastically discussed over the “competitive edge” of native teachers and non-native teachers, over what community‟s norms should be adopted,

or what method is appropriate to teach English as a lingua franca, so on and so forth All of these issues are worthy of an investigation However, within the scope of a Master thesis, the researcher could not cover all the ELF-related issues but put an emphasis on the questionable importance of the native-speaker model in terms of language use in Vietnamese ELT context and the role of language teachers (either NESTs or NNESTs) in directing students‟ attention to appropriate language model The research presents itself as an attempt to bring in a classroom perspective (i.e common attitude and beliefs of learners and teachers - the two major agents involved

in ELT - towards the two approaches, namely Native and Non-Native) The research population is also restricted to a group of teachers and learners at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS, VNU with no ambition to generalize the results into a massive community of Vietnamese teachers and learners

4 Research objectives and research questions

Overall, the research aims at exploring FELTE teachers‟ and learner‟s preference towards the native and non-native English-speaking teachers of English as well as their perception of the native model in English language teaching and learning The researcher would like to see to what extent FELTE teachers and

learners “worship” the native-speaker model and to what extent their teaching and learning is governed by this concept The results of this investigation gave clue to the kind of approach strongly advocated at FELTE

In brief, the research is a quest for the answers to the following questions:

1 Who do FELTE teachers and students perceive as better teachers of English, a Native English Speaking Teacher or a Non-Native English Speaking Teachers? Are NESTs always better than NNESTS when English is taught as

a global lingua franca?

2 What varieties of English do FELTE teachers and students perceive as useful? And in the same light, how significant is it to conform to Native Speaker Model when English is increasingly taught as a lingua franca?

3 To what extent do FELTE teachers‟ and learners‟ perceptions influence their real teaching/learning practice?

5 Significance of the Study

Once the research has been completed, it will significantly contribute to the development of English language teaching in FELTE, ULIS - VNU both theoretically and practically

In terms of theoretical contribution, the research will hopefully provide an insight into FELTE teachers‟ and learners‟ beliefs in the new role of a language teacher when English is being globalized Their opinions about their strengths and weaknesses in comparison with Native English Speaking Teachers will also be examined to reveal their readiness to teach and learn English as a Global Lingua Franca Added to this, voices from FELTE teachers and learners will also be collected in relation to the significance of conformity to Native Speakers model and norms as a standard or the backbone of the teaching and learning process The role of Native Speaker Model and its influence on every dimension of language teaching in

a country where English is taught as a foreign language will be then reconsidered and probably redefined with the aim of bringing out positive changes in attitudes and perceptions toward ELT pedagogy

In terms of practical benefit, the research findings will hopefully help FELTE teachers realize the pitfalls in their instruction (if any), which will then lay the foundation for adequate adjustments They will also set a reference framework for the development of new teaching approaches, new teaching goals, new teaching methods, and a more appropriate selection of teaching materials so that English language teaching in FELTE in particular and across Vietnam in general can fit into the global trend, being able to fulfill the mission challenged by the globalization era

6 Design of the study

The paper is developed into three main parts:

PART I is Introduction This part includes general details that serve as the

research background leading to the formation of research needs The impetus for the study and a brief review of some key studies in the field were discussed prior to the introduction of research objectives, research questions, the scope and its significance

PART II – Development is divided into three chapters

Chapter 1 - Theoretical background is devoted to the clarification of

important theoretical issues It is comprised of two sub-sections: (1) Key concepts in

ELF (providing the definition of some key terms in ELF) and (2) Native model versus Non-native model (reviewing current research and controversies related to

NESTs and NNESTs, the native-speaker Model and non-native speaker Model)

Chapter 2 is Research Methodologies, which explains the context, the

selection of participants, the research approach as well as specific methods used in data collection and data analysis

Chapter 3 is Findings Analysis and Discussion The findings from the

questionnaire and interview are presented, described and interpreted

PART III is Conclusion and Recommendations This part includes the

summary of key points developed throughout the paper, the pedagogical recommendations, the explanation of study limitations, and finally some suggestions for further studies to all of those who share the similar interest in the issue

PART II – DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical background

1 1 Key concepts in English as a Lingua Franca

1 1 1 The worldwide spread of English in the era of globalization

There is, unsurprisingly, a unanimous agreement among both linguistic researchers and language users that English, in the era of globalization, has become

“a prerequisite for participation” in a vast number of activities (Phillipson, 1992; Crystal, 1997; Graddol, 1997; Modiano, 2005; McKay, 2003; etc.), ranging from diplomatic transactions, economic negotiations, international discussions, to many kinds of casual contacts and entertainment The demand for the acquisition of English in a wide range of social and professional domains has elevated its significance to such a level that the learning or not learning the language can determine who is capable or incapable of keeping pace with the “international movement” (Modiano, 2003) In other words, those who do not want to lag behind the world have no other option but, naturally, pick up the language Take Singaporean case as a typical example Singaporeans view the acquisition of English

as the key to their economic survival or gateway to better future Singaporean parents maintain that:

“A lack of a command in English would mean the continued marginalization of their children in a world that would continue to use the language to a greater degree It would also deny them access to the extensive resources available in English – resources which have developed as a consequence of globalization.” (Chew, 1999)

Hence, it is easy to realize that postmodern citizens‟ current interest in English learning is not a consequence of coercion as it used to be in the colonization era Rather, it is “being fueled by a belief in the power of English” (McKay, 2003) That means, English learning is “a conscious choice” of all the individuals “who believe it is to their benefit to acquire English as an additional language” (McKay, 2003) As the number of these individuals sours drastically, the world sees a tremendous growth in the use of English This entire process of English

“macroacquisition” (a term coined by Brutt-Griffler, 2002), “has gained so much momentum that at the moment nothing seems to be able to stop it in the foreseeable future,” argued Schneider (2011)

1 1 2 Kachru’s Three Circles Model and English varieties

So far, it has been made clear that the spread of English today does not base its root either in the increase in the native speaker‟s population or in speaker migration Precisely speaking, it is primarily due to the “macro- acquisition” of the language For better visualization of the tongue‟s historical expansion, Kachru‟s (1985) well-known three concentric circles should be applied:

Figure 1: Kachru’s categorization of countries in which English is used

(from Crystal, 1997:54)

(a) The Inner Circle: where English is the primary language of the country –

where the ownership of English was claimed and norms originated;

(b) The Outer Circle: where English serves as a second language in a

multilingual countries;

Inner Circle

e.g USA, UK, Australia 320-380 million

Outer Circle

e.g India, the Philippines, Singapore 150-300 million

Expanding Circle

e.g China, Japan, Germany 100-1000 million

(c) The Expanding Circle: where English is widely studied as a foreign

language;

On proposing this model, Kachru should be credited for his attempt to demonstrate the diversity and pluralistic reality of English The most noticeable drawback of the model, however, is that there remains the connotation of linguistic superiority in the model‟s core The Inner Circle communities are regarded by Kachru as norm-providing, possessing their own well-established varieties of English; the Outer Circles communities, by contrast, are still in the process of developing their own varieties, the „New Englishes‟, and thus are seen as norm-developing Finally, the Expanding Circle communities are deemed as norm-dependent, void of the right to their own variety-development This distinction

“locates the native speakers and native-speaking countries at the centre of the global use of English, and, by implication, the sources of models of correctness” (Graddol, 1997) The standard-orientation perspective and the treatment of Inner Circle English

as the “model of correctness” is seemingly no longer rational, especially when English use in Outer and Expanding Circles is developing at a rocketing speed:

“Based solely on expected population changes, the number of people using English as their second language will grow from 235 million to around 462 million during the next 50 years This indicates that the balance between L1 and L2 speakers will critically change, with L2 speakers eventually overtaking L1 speakers” (Graddol, 1999:62)

These figures suggest that English today is used not exclusively “in homogeneous contexts of monolingual speakers”, but more widely in “multilingual contexts by multilingual speakers” (Graddol, 1997; Smith, 1981; Widdowson, 1994)

In fact, most of verbal exchanges (80 % as estimated by Gnutzman (2000)) in which English is used involve no native speakers and are between non-native users of English This fact adds to the confusion of the Kachru‟s model in that the model does not appear to take into account the new dominant function of English worldwide: English has become the means of „wider communication‟ (McKay, 2002; Seidlhofer, 2005) within the three circles, but especially within the Expanding Circle

As a consequence of its international use, commented Seidlhofer (2005),

“English is being shaped at least as much by its non-native speakers as by its native speakers.” In so saying, she suggested that English today is not just “one language” but it comes in many different shapes and sizes, as it were It is quite different in the many countries and localities where it has been adopted The appearance of these varieties of English facilitates the remark that English is no longer the possession of its originators (the British and the Americans) (Halliday, MacIntosh and Strevens, 1964; Shaw, 1983), but has become the “property of the world” (Shaw, 1983; Modiano, 2001), belonging to those who use it, irrespective of whether they use it as their first language or as an additional language, and regardless of the language forms they use (standard form or localized form) (Kachru and Smith, 1985)

Unlike French, Chinese or any other language, which continue to be based upon and controlled by one metropolitan culture, English is no longer centered in the hands of a few The language, in many of its aspects, is being adopted and adapted

by increasing number of people for at least some of their purposes, and is integrated with their local forms, which leads to the codification of many new versions The co-existence of a number of world varieties of English (British, American, Australian, Indian, East African, South-east Asian, to name just a few) with all of their distinctive features of pronunciation and usage demands a re-conceptualization of the relationship between them (Canagarajah, 2006) In order to fulfill that demand, Canagarajah and Said (2009) suggest we move closer towards the notion of English

as “a heterogeneous language with multiple norms and diverse grammars”, as well as towards Crystal (2004) notion of English as „a family of languages‟ or McArthur‟s (1987) egalitarian model where the different varieties relate to each other on a single level (and not hierarchically as in Kachru‟s).” The adoption of this new perspective,

on the one hand, brings in a much more tolerant view of regional varieties, but on the other hand, complicates our notions of forms and proficiency which are so important

in pedagogical contexts

1 1 3 World Englishes, Word Standard English and New Englishes

As Seidlhofer (2004) pointed out, “wherever English is referred to as the preferred option for communication among people from different first language

background, the denomination English tends to get modified by the addition as a(n)

x” A plethora of terminology, including „English as an international language‟ (EIL)

(e.g Jenkins, 2000; McKay, 2002), „English as a lingua franca‟ (ELF) (e.g Gnutzmann, 2000; Seidlhofer, 2001), „English as a global language‟ (e.g Crystal, 1997; Gnutzmann, 1999), „English as a world language‟ (e.g Mair, 2003), „English

as a medium of intercultural communication‟ (e.g Meierkord, 1996), etc is currently

in circulation They are even used interchangeably to indicate the same phenomenon that English today is used internationally as a means of wider communication for a variety of purposes and in a variety of contexts

No matter what terms are selected, then, it is obvious that the uses of English internationally are not restricted to the native language with all of its dialects in the Inner Circle, but also associated with the New Englishes, or indigenized varieties developed in the Outer Circle, and with the kind of language characterized by its fluidity in the Expanding Circle All these contribute to the phenomenon captured by

the term World Englishes, which is currently enjoying its increasing popularity

What is the most interesting about this term is that for the first time a language is

expressed in the plural form In one article in the journal World Englishes (1985),

Kachru and Smith explained that because World Englishes embodies “a new idea, a new credo”, symbolizing “the functional and formal variation in the language and in its international acculturation”, the plural “Englishes” is of significance

According to Bolton (2004), there are three possible interpretations of the

expression World Englishes Jenkins (2004) rephrased these three interpretations as

the follows:

“Firstly, it serves as an “umbrella label” covering all varieties of English worldwide and the different approaches used to describe and analyze them Secondly, it is used in a narrower sense to refer to the so-called new Englishes in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean … Thirdly, it is used to represent the pluricentric approach to the study of English …” (Jenkins, 2004: p.159)

Despite the range of interpretations of the term World Englishes, Jenkins (2004) maintained that “the link between them are so strong” that “there seems to be little confusion over the intended reference.” Although many tend to exclude the varieties of English used in Inner Circle out of the definition of World Englishes, in this paper, the researcher would like to propose the following formula for the understanding of World Englishes:

World Englishes = World English + New Englishes

in which:

 World English refers to the “idealized norm of an internationally

propagated and internationally intelligible variety of the language”, associated with the Inner Circle‟s (especially American and British) print and electronic media (Bolton, 2003)

 New Englishes generally refers to the recently emerging and increasing

autonomous, localized and/or nativized varieties of English found in a non-western setting such as the Caribbean, West and East of Africa, and parts of Asia (Bolton, 2002a; Bolton 2003 ; McArthur, 1992)

Another term which also attracts a lot of attention is World Standard English

If World Englishes approach takes all varieties of English into account, then World

Standard English is a “hypothetical, monolithic form of English” (Jenkin, 2004) The

contrast between World English and World Standard English is the contrast between

a common core of international “English”, and geographically dispersed and distinctive Englishes This form recalls Quirk‟s (1985) “single monochrome standard form” that is based on the native speaker English advocated for non-native speakers

of English regardless of their communicative context This concept of English is crucially different from the concept of English as a lingua franca, which is the focus

of this paper Thus, it will not be subject to further analysis

1 1 4 International English and English as a Lingua Franca

In recent years, the term „English as a lingua franca‟ (ELF) has emerged as a preferred way of referring to communication in English between speakers with different first languages EFL is said to be a part of a more general phenomenon of

„English as an international language‟ (EIL) or International English as its shortened name These terms are often used interchangeably as general cover terms for uses of English spanning Inner Circle, Outer Circle, and Expanding Circle contexts (Kachru, 1992)

In fact, international language, in this case English, is a complex concept to define To some people, it must be a language with a large number of speakers Viewed in this sense, English can hardly gain its position as a dominant international language as it is today Its position might have been taken over by Chinese Some others argue that a language is deemed as international when it serves as a means of wider communication Crystal (1997) maintained that “a language achieves global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country,” and that this special status can be achieved either by making it an official language of the country or by a country giving special priority to English by requiring its study as a foreign language In short, it is obvious that the sheer number of speakers is not the defining characteristic of an international language Other features need to be taken into account as well According to Smith (1976), these features include:

a) learners do not need to internalize the cultural norms of native speakers of the language,

b) the ownership of an international language becomes „de-nationalized‟, c) the educational goal of learning the language is to enable learners to communicate their ideas and culture to others

The expression “International language”, by itself, indicates a lot of confusion Seidlhofer (2004:211) pointed out that the term “international language” can be misleading as “it suggests that there is one clearly distinguishable, codified, and unitary variety called International English, which is certainly not the case.” Thus, in one sense, international English is used to refer to the local Englishes of those non-mother tongue countries where it has an intranational institutionalized role In another sense, it is used to refer to the use of English within and across Kachru‟s „Circles‟, for intra-national as well as international communication It is because of this confusion that „English as a lingua franca‟ become the preferred term

instead of „English as an international language‟, although both are currently in use and deemed as “complementary distribution” (Seidlhofer, 2004:210)

The term lingua franca is usually used to refer to “any lingual medium of

communication between people of different mother tongues, for whom it is a second language” (Samarin, 1987) A lingua franca, as shown by this definition, has no native speakers This feature is carried over into the definition of English as a lingua franca, as the following:

[ELF is] a “contact language” between persons who share neither a common native tongue nor a common (national) culture, and for whom English is the chosen foreign language of communication (Firth, 1996)

[ELF is] a vehicular language spoken by people who do not share a native language (Mauranen, 2003)

ELF interactions are defined as interactions between members of two or more different linguacultures in English, for none of whom English is the mother tongue (House, 1999)

Defined in this way, ELF is seemingly interpreted in “its purest form” (Seidlhofer, 2004:211) However, both Maurenen (2003) and Seidlhofer (2004) pointed out that ELF is unlike other contact languages It is not, as many misunderstand, a reduced version to allow more straightforward exchange of information, “the end result of the gradual abandonment, avoidance or alteration of non-native speakers” (Sowden, 2011) It is also not an artificial language with a monolithic construct and a uniform set of norm Instead, it should be seen as “a set of linguistic resources which, while sharing common ground, is typically more variable than other language varieties” (Dewey, 2007)

Although more ELF interactions take place among non-native speakers of English, it is necessary to remember that they also “often include interlocutors from the Inner and Outer Circles” (Seidlhofer, 2004) However, what makes ELF interactions distinguishable from any other kind of interactions (such as those between native speakers or between native and non-native speakers) is that the use of language is directed towards practical purposes among those people varied in their cultural norms and levels of proficiency “Many interactions […] are between participants who do not control standard grammar and whose lexis and pronunciation

do not conform to any recognized norm” (Seidlhofer, 2004:212) Nonstandard, unedited English is becoming more and more visible (Melcher & Shaw, 2003:195) Seidlhofer (2004) called this “the process of internationalization and destandardization,” which is being accelerated by the dramatic expansion of electronic communication through the Internet In this process, ELF users are “not just at the receiving end”, but they also “contribute to the shaping of the language and the function it fulfills and so, as speech communities, take possession of the language” (Seidlhofer, 2004:214)

Overall, it can be observed that today English exemplifies most of the features that warrant it being considered as a lingua franca, or an international language in the global sense The use of ELF is thus widely encouraged The main reason for this encouragement is that the notion of English as a lingua franca is deemed to have arisen and fostered from an attempt to “neutralize English, to sheer it of its cultural baggage, to remove it from the hands of its Anglo-Saxon native speakers, and to emphasize its role as a value-free means of international communication belonging equally to all who speak it as a first or second language” (Sowden, 2011) As a consequence of the restriction of Anglo-Saxon cultures, ELF helps to ease the process of communication and curb the authority of native speakers Another crucial reason is that it closely resembles the versions of English actually spoken by a massive number of non-native speakers in most of international exchanges ELF is, therefore, considered “a more achievable and relevant target for the majority of learners” (Sowden, 2011)

1 2 Native Model versus Non-Native Model

1 2 1 Native Speaker – an ambiguous concept

According to McKay (2002), the term “native speaker of English” has been subjected to a great variety of interpretations Some people argue that the essential feature of a native speaker is that English must be the first language learned “The first language a human being learns to speak is his native language; he is a native speaker of this language” (Bloomfield, 1933) However, this definition seems to be too restricting In fact, the first learned language can be replaced by a language that

is acquired later (although may not be completely forgotten) through the more frequent and fluent use of the later-acquired language where the first language is “no longer useful, no longer generative or creative and therefore no longer „first‟” (Davies, 1991:16) Some others contend that “to be a native speaker involves the continued use of English in that person‟s life” For some still others, being a native speaker assumes a high level of competence in English The native speaker is the authority of the grammar of his or her native language (Chomsky, 1965) who “knows what the language is […] and what the language isn‟t […]” (Davies, 1991:1) According to this logic, a native speaker is an individual who is infallible and has perfect command of his or her language

Arriving at a clear definition of a native speaker is a challenging and irritating task to do Thus, for a quick understanding of the term and in order to get a clearer picture of what a native speaker is, the researcher would like to list out six defining features of a native speaker that numerous scholars in the field of Second Language Acquisition and language teaching support and agree upon These features are:

(1) The individual acquired the language in early childhood (Davies, 1991; McArthur, 1992; Phillipson, 1992) and maintains the use of the language (Kubota, 2002; McArthur, 1992),

(2) The individual has intuitive knowledge of the language (Davies, 1991; Stern, 1983),

(3) The individual is able to produce fluent, spontaneous discourse (Davies, 1991; Maum, 2002; Medgyes, 1992),

(4) The individual is communicatively competent (Davies, 1991; Liu, 1999; Medgyes, 1992), able to communicate within different social settings (Stern, 1983),

(5) The individual identifies with or is identified by a language community (Davies, 1991; Johnson & Johnson, 1998; Nayar, 1994)

(6) The individual does not have a foreign accent (Coulmas, 1981; Medgyes, 1992; Scovel, 1969, 1988)

Despite all these efforts to characterize “native speakers”, it remains such an ambiguous concept The diversity of English speaking communities itself makes “an

inclusive and comprehensive definition or description bewildering and even impossible” (Aliakbari, 2002) Kramsch (1993) argues that “the notion of a generic native speaker has become so diversified that it has lost its meaning.” She further asserts that the concept of native speaker must be put in question from both linguistic and pragmatic perspectives

Generally, according to Aliakbari (2002), the concept of „native speaker‟ appears “abstract, subjective, unrealistic and simplistic:

“It is abstract because it implies an idealized native speaker with perfect mastery of English It is unrealistic in that it ignores the linguistic and cultural heterogeneity of native speaker communities…It is subjective because in undermining the differences it creates an imaginary perception of the concept….It is simplistic since it translates the growing tendency to learn English as a wish to be integrated to the native speaking communities.” (Aliakbari, 2002)

Native speakers, simply speaking, can be any of those from Core English

Speaking Countries (Phillipson, 1992), including Britain, the USA, Canada,

Australia, and New Zealand Such diversified native speaking population naturally has led to an ambiguity in selecting a language model as the core In other words, it

is their linguistic and cultural differences that restrict the possibility of such selection In terms of linguistic features, it is obvious that “all varieties are codified and emerge as legitimate standard languages within their own national/regional boundaries” (Kachru, 2003) and neither of them (even Received Pronunciation or Oxford English or Elaborated Code, etc.) has been officially accepted superior to the others Consequently, the acceptance of one dialect as the core will mean the devaluation of the others and this will directly force a good number of native speakers to learn that variety It would be illogical, for example, if American schools were coerced to teach Standard British English and vice versa In terms of cultural features, there also exists no unique common culture among all native speakers, let alone the fact that every country is multicultural itself Therefore, the possibility of finding out who is the most representative to be taken as a model for non-native speakers is quite faint

1 2 2 Native Speaker Model or Non-Native Speaker Model: a controversy

The current dominance of non-native use of English has made ELT professionals revisit and approach critically to some of so-called traditional issues, one of which is the importance of Native Speaker Model in teaching and learning English

Native Speaker Model was traditionally praised as the “elite model” to follow

by many EFL teachers, especially those in the Expanding Circle Without any localized model of English usage, what they adhere to is nothing but a fixed patterns

of language use and language teaching attributed to native speakers This reliance is manifested through a strong inner-circle orientation in the choice of linguistic samples and the representation of English uses Take Japanese context as a case in point Matsuda‟s research (2002) came to a finding that both Japanese EFL teachers and learners privilege inner-circle Englishes (Chiba, Matsuura, & Yamamoto, 1995; Matsuda, 2002; Matsuura, Chiba & Yamamoto, 1994) She described:

“When asked which variety of English should be taught in Japanese high schools, one teacher whom I interviewed responded immediately that it was American English, although he occasional talked about different pronunciation and vocabulary found in British and Australian English Varieties from other parts of the world, such as Indian English or Singaporean English were not mentioned during this interview.” (Matsuda, 2002)

The support of Native Speaker norms is not only found in Japan or South-east Asian countries, but in many other parts of the world The advocates of Native Speaker Model might question why these well-established models of English teaching – normally the British and American norms – should not continue After all, they are well-established, with a tradition of codification in grammars and a wealth

of educational resources In many aspects, native speakers are the original creator of the language Though the ownership of the language is now not completely in their hands, they still possess the basic core for what is acceptable and unacceptable in terms of language use

Studies on the attitudes towards the conformity to the Native Speaker norms are not few and their results have reflected the „fossilized‟ belief of both students and teachers towards the role of Native Speaker Model In Timmis‟s investigation

(2002), which he conducted in some classes in Pakistan, India, and South Africa, the majority of students and teachers showed an aspiration for native-like competence in terms of both pronunciation and grammar use As regards pronunciation features, most teachers stressed the Native Speaker Pronunciation Model as “a benchmark for perfection and achievement” and thus regarded it as essentially “the long term goal” The similar result is found in grammar aspect, both written and spoken grammar, when they aspire to native-speaker norms as idealized notion of what these norms should be

Another voice supportive of the native speaker model is from Kuo (2006) as

he claimed that the native speaker model is, though, a controversial model, “it is more appropriate and appealing in second language pedagogy than the description of English which is somewhat reduced and incomplete” (Kuo, 2006:220)

In response to their arguments, Norton (1997) suggested that it would be better if we consider English as belonging to the people who speak it, whether native

or non-native, whether ESL or EFL, whether standard or non-standard Medgyes (1992) explained that linguistic imperialism has seen its heyday and it had to be displaced and replaced by linguistic liberalism:

“…liberalism entails the rejection of any kind of discrimination, whether on grounds of race, sex, religion, education, intelligence, or mother tongue We all are equal, liberals contend No one is more equal than anyone else There are as many equal varieties of English as there are countries where English is spoken as a first or second language – and a lot more, if dialects and sociolects are also taken into account.” (Medgyes, 1992)

Some researchers even go further to suggest that non-native varieties should also be proclaimed as equal One consequence of global-scaled spread of English is the emergence of many English varieties These varieties do not restrict their operation within the local context but “leak outside their national borders” (Canagarajah & Said, 2008) That means Indian English, for example, is no longer relevant only for Indians It is the body of knowledge that anyone from outside the country who comes to transact with Indians needs to know In fact, “native speakers need as much help as non-native speakers when using English […] to interact internationally” (Smith, 1983) As a result, an American businessman may find himself incompetent in communicating with the local people This way, Indian

English is vital for the Americans as well Moreover, many innovations in English established by regular use in the Outer Circle are now accepted in international encounters, since the focus of using English is gradually less on the achievement of native-like fluency and proficiency, but more on the intelligibility and comprehensibility of communication Standard English has been redefined, not rigidly referring to the Inner Circle English Such „New Englishes‟ used in the Outer Circle on a regular basis, as some argue, therefore should also be considered as standard for that particular context (McKay, 2002: 52)

More critically, Kachru asserted that native speakers of English “seem to have lost the exclusive prerogative to control its standardization; in fact, if current statistics are any indication, they have become a minority” (Kachru, 1985:29) Additionally, researchers into ELF pointed out that non-native/non-native and native/non-native interactions by far outnumber those between native speakers, and

in these interactions, speakers in the Outer and Expanding Circles are totally able to

“negotiate their differences in their own terms and accomplish their communicative needs effectively” without having to defer to Inner Circle norms (Jenkins, 2006; Seidlhofer, 2004) Therefore, slavish adherence to Native Speaker Model in language teaching, apparently, becomes questionable

“As far as the teaching of English is concerned, it seems more and more important that

… training and development should help us escape from the essentially nationalistic view

of native speaker/ non-native speaker and get us involved in furthering an internationalist perspective in which users of English are simply more or less accomplished communicators.” (Edge, 1988:156)

The discussion so far, more or less, leads to a fact that a change in ELT practices is vital in the context English is becoming more and more global Cook (1999) argued that it it essential to “avoid comparing bilingual speakers of English to native speakers, and rather to recognize the many strengths of bilingual users of English who have a rich linguistic repertoire to serve their communication needs” (cited in McKay, 2003) Erling (2005) also suggested that ELT professionals around the world should move their focus away from Inner Circle varieties, and approach English as a means of intercultural communication involving speakers from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds

Researchers also clarified some dimensions in which ELF teaching is different from teaching English as a second/ foreign language

For example, in terms of ELF lexicogrammar aspect, Seidlhofer‟s corpus research in 2004 pointed out that “typical errors that most English teachers would consider in urgent need of correction and remediation, and that consequently often get allotted a great deal of time and effort in English lessons, appear to be generally unproblematic and no obstacle to communicative success” (Seidlhofer, 2004:220) The following are some of the potential salient features of ELF lexicogrammar that Seidlhofer (2004) identified:

 non-use of the third person present tense –s (“She look very sad”)

 interchangeable use of the relative pronouns who and which (“a book

who”, “a person which”)

 omission of the definite and indefinite articles where they are obligatory in native speaker English and insertion where they do not occur in native speaker English

 use of an all-purpose question tag such as isn’t it? or no? instead of

shouldn’t they? (“They should arrive soon, isn‟t it?”)

 increasing of redundancy by adding prepositions (“We have to study about…” and “we discuss about…”), or by increasing explicitness (“black colour” vs “black” and “How long time?” vs “How long”)

 heavy reliance on certain verbs of high semantic generality, such as do,

have, make, put, take

 pluralisation of nouns which are considered uncountable in native speaker English (“informations”, “staffs”, “advices”)

 use of that-clause instead of infinitive constructions (“I want that we discuss about my dissertation”)

As regards sociocultural dimension of ELF, the intimate correlation between the English language and the cultures of the traditional Inner Circle countries (as in the language-culture relation hypothesis of Whorf, 1939; Geertz, 1973; Brown,1994) should be open to review Risager (2006) explained for this proposition that all

languages, especially international languages such as English, while operating along intercultural communication, can take on new cultural meanings, or „languacultures‟

as she called it (Risager, 2006:110) The link between language and culture is not totally reciprocal, but “is created in every new communicative event” (Risager, 2006; Meierkoord, 2002), depending on the users and the context Therefore, she concluded, a language such as English will have as many languacultures as there are speakers of the language, and in this sense there is no identifiable culture to which a language is inseparably tied (i.e the English language is unnecessarily closely associated with English speaking cultures)

In the same vein with Risager‟s perspective, Pennycook‟s (2007) notion of

transcultural flows is introduced for the purpose of examining “the ways in which

cultural forms move, change and are reused to fashion new identities in diverse contexts” (Pennycook, 2007:6) In his study of English language and global hip-hop cultures, Pennycook attempted to elucidate the ways in which global languages and cultures offer alternative identities and forms of expression, while at the same time being reshaped to meet local needs, and then being sent back out again with new forms and meanings in a circular or flowing process The study results brought him evidence to believe that the relationship between culture and language is not stable:

“Caught between fluidity and fixity, then cultural and linguistic forms are always in a state of flux, always changing, always part of a process of the refashioning of identity” (Pennycook, 2007:8)

The discussion over the relationship between culture and language so far has led to a consensus that linguistic and cultural forms expressed through ELF are not rigidly tied to a specific language community; they are likely to be hybrid, dynamic, and continuously adapted to local needs, global influences, and the demands of communicating across cultures

Most of social scientists these days have moved away from the idea of portraying only one culture in language teaching due to their belief that one culture leads students to a “unified, monolithic view” (Cortazzi & Jin, 1999) Risager (1998) also emphasized that the focus on one culture that is associated with specific people,

a specific language, and normally with a specific territory should be replaced by an

intercultural approach depending on more complex and expanding target cultures They criticize the western orientation in many of current textbooks that is draw up on

a western vision of the world in which western lifestyles are to be admired, envied, and desired while other cultures are belittled (Phillipson, 1992) In their objection to cultural monocentrism, the importance of cultural variation is highlighted

Another debatable issue on the cultural component of English language teaching is whether Inner Circle‟s norms (the target culture) or local norms (the native culture) should be primarily targeted at in language learning In view of the inextricable tie between language and culture as it is often claimed, not few researchers thought that it is virtually impossible to teach a foreign language without its culture base (Steward, 1982; Valdes, 1986; Byram, 1998) They regarded the target language culture as an essential feature of every stage of foreign language learning, and asserted that teaching the formal aspects of the foreign language while referring to the native culture of the learner is virtually useless (Steward, 1982) Byram (1988) added that if a language is taught separately from its culture, it would lead to “a denial of a purported fundamental purpose of language learning”, namely, giving learners opportunity to cope with experience in a different way

On the contrary, to all scientists concerned with English used for international communication (Canagarajah, 2005, 2007; Firth & Wagner, 1997, 2007; Kachru, 1989; Baker, 2009), who have considered English-native-speaker pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary choice inappropriate in lingua franca settings, native-speaker cultural assumptions and frames of references, as a result, should be equally out of place (Meierkord, 2002; Polzl & Seidlhfer, 2006; Baker, 2009) Brumfit (1980) contributed an opinion to this argument by questioning why in foreign language teaching, learners should be forced to express a culture of which they have scarcely any experience while in mother-tongue teaching, the clarity of children‟s ability to express themselves is emphasized This „otherness‟ (a term coined by Byram, 1989), a result of sudden exposure to the target-language culture, can lead to

a split between experience and though, which is presumably the cause for learners‟ reluctance or resistance to learning (Alptekin, 1993)

All things considered, another question comes into being that whether the devaluation of native-speaker norms means the shift to indigenous cultural features

of the local setting

In his study on cultural content of English course books in Turkey, Coskun (2010) found out a lack of interest in the Inner Circle features and an increasing focus on the Turkish He quoted in his paper the same notice from Hinkel (1999) about the books designed within a World Englishes perspective:

“When the textbook characters travel, they travel exclusively inside Turkey although some characters are English speaking visitors to Turkey The implication is that students learn English to talk to visitors who come to their country, but they are not expected to travel to target countries or learn about target cultures If they talk to visitors, they can only do from within Turkish cultural framework because they have not encountered cultural alternatives and are therefore likely to carry their home culture with them in their use of English Thus, paradoxically unless an English-speaking visitor is already familiar with Turkish culture, the visitor may not understand; visitor and host will speak English but communicate on different cultural wavelengths, unaware of the other‟s cultural view – a classic setup for miscommunication.” (Coskun, 2010)

Although such instructional materials whose cultural content mainly comes from familiar and indigenous features of the local context hold some evident benefits (i.e motivating students and enhancing their language learning experience), they are said to be not enough in a world where English is taught as a lingua franca “whose culture becomes the world itself, not only the home culture” (Coskun, 2009) In this sense, the exclusion of the target culture to focus on native one is also scarcely ever

an appropriate approach

The appropriate approach is, then, suggested to be the inclusion of the international culture (McKay, 2003) McKay (2003) showed that intercultural culture can be acquired by integrating into the learning materials the texts in which bilingual users of English interact with other speakers of English in cross-cultural encounters for a variety of purposes She was adamant that such texts exemplify the manner in which English is used effectively internationally They can also “include examples of lexical, grammatical, and phonological variation in the present-day use of English”, “ illustrate cross-cultural pragmatics in which bilingual users of English, while using English, nevertheless, draw on their own rules of appropriateness”, and thus “provide

a basis for students to gain a fuller understanding of how English today serves a great variety of international purposes in a broad range of contexts” (McKay, 2003)

The researcher‟s conclusion, up to this point, is that because English is increasingly taught as a lingua franca or an international language, teachers of English in all circles should not teach their students only Anglo-American culture (i.e the culture sphere shared by the United Kingdom and the United States) Instead,

it is essential to encourage students‟ reflection on their own culture, incorporate the elements of international culture, and not abandon the target culture at the same time The familiarity with the cultural norms associated with the emerging globalized world is definitely vital for them to carry out effective intercultural communication mostly with non-native speakers of English especially in the Expanding Circle countries Through a real representation of cultural variation, and by means of comparison and contrast between different cultures, it is anticipated that students will become more open-minded and will be able to develop their critical cultural awareness (Aguilar, 2007:73)

Taking all these arguments into consideration, it can drawn out that as a requirement of increasingly globalized world, the 21st century speakers and learners

of English need far more than one standardized type of English and the knowledge of one specific culture they need to be linguistically, sociolinguistically and pragmatically competent to “be able to communicate with Native and Non-native speakers of English from various regional, social and cultural backgrounds” (Bieswanger, 2007:205) The sheer reliance on native speaker model, therefore, does not guarantee one‟s communicative competence or his success in intercultural encounters Tarone (2005) suggest that the ideal language model for language learners should not be assumed to be the native speakers of English but rather should

be the expert member of the target discourse community In the world of English as a lingua franca, the wonder of whether language models are native or non-native is irrelevant

1 2 3 Native English Speaking Teachers (NESTs) versus Non-native English Speaking Teachers (NNESTs)

In her influential work, McKay (2003) identifies a widespread phenomenon that the comparative fallacy is commonly applied to so-called non-native English-speaking professionals In the following parts, this NESTs myth will be explored in two main aspects, language competence and teaching efficiency, followed by a review of various research on teachers‟, learners‟ and administrators‟ attitudes towards NESTs and NNESTs

1 2 3 1 A discussion of language teaching competence of NESTs and NNESTs

A lot of efforts have been made so far for a comparison between NESTs and NNESTs In this research, I would like to restrict the comparison to two aspects: language competence and teaching efficiency

a) Language competence

Many researchers cast doubt on the ability of NNESTs to ever acquire a native command of English This assertion can be better understood within Selinker‟s (1972) Interlanguage continuum which explains the development of L2 students:

Figure 2 Selinker’s interlanguage continuum

According to Selinker, the language learning process involves going from one extreme to the other and L2 learners are just somewhere along the continuum, unable

to reach the native end Medgyes (1992) afterwards contributed a more realistic schema as the following:

Figure 3 Medgyes’s version of interlanguage continuum

In adding the modification to the schema, Medgyes implied that a non-native speaker‟s competence is limited, and that quite a small number of non-native speakers can reach near-native speaker‟s competence He justified his stance by pointing out that non-native speakers are by nature norm-dependent, which means their use of English is just an imitation of a native model Medgyes‟s view confronts strong objections from other authors, such as Greenbaum (cited in Kachru, 1985) who argued that “there is no doubt that non-native speakers can acquire native-like proficiency in English as an additional language, whether they belong to the Outer Circle or the Expanding Circle” Being neither “optimistic” like Greenbaum nor

“pessimistic” like Medgyes, Coppieters (1987) seemed comparatively flexible On the one hand, she admitted that there are many people whose L2 has become their L1 These speakers are at about 90% to 95% in their acquisition along the interlanguage continuum, and therefore, native speakers find it nearly impossible to distinguish them from themselves On the other hand, she contended that “there are differences in both groups‟ intuitions even when some of the near-native speakers did not have a foreign accent” The reason she gave for this proposition is that adult learners cannot go through the same stages as children do when acquiring their L1

“After all, a speaker of a given language is a speaker who is accepted by the speech community as such, not someone who is endowed with a specific underlying linguistic system” (Merino, 1997) The goal of non-native speakers to achieve a native command of English is, as a result, unreachable No matter how excellent their use of English is, NNESTS should better regard themselves simply as “more advanced learners of English” (Medgyes, 1992)

Every NNEST has his or her own problems when using English Medgyes (1992) compiled a list of main burdening aspects to NNESTs, including (from the most to the least frequent): vocabulary together with idiomatic and appropriate use of English, speaking and fluency, pronunciation, listening comprehension, grammar, intonation, and preposition He gave the following analysis of some areas of difficulties:

different contexts, hidden connotation, idioms, slangs, synonyms, etc

(ii) Fluency: NNESTs‟ speech tends to be redundant and clumsy due to the

difficulty in finding the right structure and right words at the right time

(iii) Pronunciation: NNESTs are marked by a foreign accent which can

interfere with other people‟s understanding

In Merino‟s review (1997), he added one more aspect, namely cultural knowledge which Medgyes failed to mention, and gave it a special and careful treatment Basing his stance on Medgyes‟s arguments, Merino came to a conclusion that non-native speakers commonly use structures that native speakers would not use

in the same situations due to the differences in the way they view the world and due

to the unfamiliarity to some cultural topics This cultural aspects cannot be separated from language, and thus often leads to pragmatic failures

b) Teaching efficiency

So far, the language proficiency of NESTs and NNESTs has been discussed and it is generally admitted that NNESTS impossibly reach the language competence possessed by NESTs Many NNESTs aware of the defects in their English-language proficiency and some kind of cognitive dissonance due to the double role they play

as both teachers and learners of the same subject have developed a state of inferiority complex This states make them usually fell unsafe using the language they have to teach Medgyes (1992) pointed out that due to this insecurity, NNESTS tend to adopt two kinds of attitudes: pessimistic and aggressive The former is the most common type who is claimed to be obsessed with grammar and pay little attention to pronunciation and vocabulary, and almost none to linguistic appropriateness The latter is the worst kind of teachers, as Merino (1997) commented Those belonging to this group operate on mistaken beliefs and prejudices about how language works These false assumptions will turn into errors of all kinds, which are afterwards transmitted to their students Moreover, they often try to hide their deficiencies by restricting the students‟ opportunities of exposure to alternative sources such as radio, video, cassette recorder, etc

NESTs and NNESTs differ in their language competence, their attitudes to the language, leading to the differences in their teaching practices This idea is well presented within Reves and Medgyes‟ s (1994) three hypotheses:

(i) NESTs and NNESTs differ in their teaching behavior;

(ii) These differences in teaching behavior are largely due to divergent levels

In response to these questions, Medgyes said that although language competence is a point at which NNESTS are inevitably handicapped, any generalization that all NNESTs are deficient users of English is unreasonable He added that NESTs are only potentially superior, and that in some cases, NNESTs do better in certain areas of language use Moreover, if language competence were the only variable involved in the teaching skill, then NESTs would always be better than NNESTs However, it is not the case in reality, as many other variables are present and do impose their influences on the teaching process, including: experience, age, sex, aptitude, charisma, motivation, training, and so on If all these factors are taken into account, “native and non-natives stand an equal chance of achieving professional success” (Medgyes, 1992:346)

Once language competence has been proven not to be the overriding factor which determines the teaching quality and professional success, others aspects of teaching behaviors must be taken into consideration In his research in 1994, Medgyes, after collecting the ideas from 325 teachers from 11 countries, piled up the following table in relation to the differences in teaching behavior between NESTs and NNESTs:

Table 1 Perceived differences in Teaching Behavior between NESTs and NNESTs

own use of English

speak better English

use real language

use English more confidently

speak poorer English use “bookish” language use English less confidently

general attitude

adopt a more flexible approach

are more innovative

are less empathetic

attend to perceived needs

have far-fetched expectations

are more casual

are less committed

adopt a more guided approach are more cautious

are more empathetic attend to real needs have realistic expectations are stricter

are more committed

attitude to teaching the language

are less insightful

teach items in context

prefer free activities

favor group work/ pair work

use a variety of materials

tolerate errors

set fewer tests

use no/ less L1

resort to no/less translation

assign less homework

are more insightful focus on:

use a single textbook correct/ punish for errors set more tests

use more L1 resort to more translation assign more homework

attitude to teaching culture

supply more cultural information supply less cultural information

(from Medgyes, 1994:435)

From the table, we can see that NNEST‟s insecurity of their language competence are reflected by their behavior For example, because many NNESTs lack fluency, have a limited insight into the intricacies of meaning and uncertainty of appropriate language use, have poor listening and speaking skills, they shift the focus

to form, accuracy, and grammar – those aspects of the language, to them, are more easily to grasp Furthermore, obsessed with their own language difficulties, they are reluctant to utilize group work and pair work which often create a source of unpredictable situations full of linguistic traps leading to unwanted embarrassment

These analyses head us back to the central question: Are NNESTs always in disadvantaged position in comparison with their native counterparts? Rampton (1990) answered this question by asserting that being born into a language does not mean that one inherently speaks it well Seidlhofer (1999) complemented this view via the following metaphorical image: “native speakers know the destination, but not the terrain that has to be crossed to get there; they themselves have not travelled the same route” Under the same perspective, Medgyes (1994) elaborated on six points at which NNESTs are better than NESTs:

(Medgyes, 1994; Lee, 2000; Cook, 2005): Medgyes claimed that in the two model roles of a language teacher, namely language model and learner model, the former is definitely better given by NESTs while the latter is of NNESTs‟ strength NESTs can hardly be a good learner model as they did not have to learn English as a second language Meanwhile, as they themselves have been, and still are, language learners, NNESTs can use their learning experience in a reflective way As a result, they are greatly admired by their students and become their motivation (Lee, 2000)

above, NNESTs are teachers and learners at the same time, so the strategies they have developed for the learning process of themselves may be beneficial to the learners later on

With the language acquisition being largely unconscious, NESTs are less aware of the internal mechanisms directing the language use Unlike NESTs, NNESTs have