Assignment - EIC

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT:
ENGLISH IN THE COMMUNITY

GENERAL INFORMATION:

This assignment must be done in groups and has to fulfil the following conditions:

- Length: between 6 to 8 pages (without including cover, index or appendices –if

there are any).
- Font type: Arial or Times New Roman.
- Font size: 11.
- Spacing: 1.5.
- Alignment: Justified.

The assignment must be written in this Word template and has to follow the instructions
on quotes and references detailed in the Study Guide.

Also, the assignment has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the
document: “Subject Evaluation”. Sending it to the tutor’s e-mail is not allowed.

It is strongly recommended to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in the
document “Subject Evaluation”.

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 Assignment - EIC

Assignment instructions:

Read Barbara Seidlhofer’s article (available here and also in recommended

readings before writing your insights. Bear in mind also Graddol (2006) – course
materials.

After the readings, discuss the following questions in essay form:

 Whose English should we teach? American, British, Australian - or an

International English which belongs to nobody and everybody?
 Should the pronunciation of English by non-native teachers attempt to
imitate native speakers or should teachers put their own accent and
personal identity into their pronunciation of English?
 Should the pronunciation of English by non-native speakers attempt to
imitate native speakers or should teachers allow their learners to put their
own accent and personal identity into their pronunciation of English?

Do not forget to:

a) Provide a title for the essay.

b) Link the three issues. Don’t write three separate mini-essays.
c) Quote Graddol and Seidlofer if you need to, but express your opinions on these
issues and clarify how you reach such opinions.

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Student’s full name:

Group:

Date:

INTRODUCTION

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The English language has become a global matter. Its uses have expanded to cover
virtually anything from the language of international relations to the language of
science; from the language of international business to the language of tourism and
popular culture. The presence of English can be felt in all existing media. Thus, today,
English represents an unparalleled lingua franca, with its “enormous functional
flexibility” (House 2002: 243). An essential reason for this expansion has been the role
of nonnative speakers of English and their ready acceptance of the language. In fact,
the overall majority of English speakers worldwide are nonnative speakers who often
use the language in influential networks, and the proportion of those speakers is
growing rapidly.
The concept of English as a lingua franca (ELF) has been a disputed matter among
linguists for some time now, particularly in the fields of second language acquisition
(SLA) and English language teaching (ELT). In these fields, the ultimate goal or
standard has been the (unrealistic) ideal of a native speaker, and words such as
interlanguage and fossilization have been used to describe the speech of learners on
their way towards that target. Foreign accents have indeed been something to get rid of
by training. However, the emergence of ELF has given reason to reconsider the
traditional native speaker models. Instead of those, ELF gives priority to efficiency and
relevance in ELT, and in language use in general (Seidlhofer 2001: 141). ELF has
been shifting the focus from native speakers to nonnative speakers, and suggests that
the model in ELT could be based on the proficient, international speaker of English.
Apart from those, ELF provides another, more appealing identity option to nonnative
teachers: instead of perpetual learners of English, they can now regard themselves as
legitimate English users in the international world, without the pressure of mastering
some irrelevant aspects of native speaker competency.
Apart from this, the interest in accent, in turn, draws from the fact that it is such a
pertinent part of speech, each English speaker possessing a unique accent.
Consequently, accents easily invoke strong opinions, both positive and negative. In
some cases, the teachers feel that native accents are both personally more pleasing
and more suitable for teaching than nonnative accents. On the other hand, teachers
probably relatively satisfied with their own nonnative accents. Thus, there appear to be
differences in what is required in school settings, where native ideals are still
prioritized, and in other settings, where more practical communication skills are
approved of.

WHAT TYPE OF ENGLISH SHOULD BE TAUGHT AND LEARNT?

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Teaching and Gaining Knowledge regarding English has brought about different kind of
issues such as which is the suitable kind of English that should be taught and learned
in the classroom, as well as which kind of pronunciation of English by non-native
mentors and learners should be used and spoken in the classroom.
To start with, a language such as English achieves a genuine global status when it
develops a special role that is recognised in every country. Such a role will be most
evident in countries where large numbers of people speak the language as a mother
tongue-in the case of English, this would mean the USA, Canada, Britain, Ireland,
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, several Caribbean countries and a sprinkling of
other territories. Nonetheless, no language has ever been spoken by a mother-tongue
majority in more than a few countries, chiefly in Latin America. To achieve such status,
a language has to be taken up by other countries around the world. They must decide
to give it a special place within their communities.
Also, a language can be made a priority in a country’s foreign-language teaching, even
this language has no official status. It becomes the language which children are most
likely to be taught when they arrive at school, and the one most available to adults
who-for whatever reason-never learned it or learned it badly, in their early educational
years. In addition to this, there is a great variation in the reasons for choosing a
particular language as a favoured foreign language. Those reasons can be historical
tradition, political expediency, and the desire for commercial, cultural or technological
contact.
In a well-supported environment, resources will be devoting to helping people have
access to the language and learn it, through the media, libraries, schools and institutes
of higher education. There will be an increase in the number and quality of teachers
able to teach the language. Books, recordings, computers, telecommunication systems
and all kinds of teaching materials will be increasingly available.
Moreover, as it is known English is the medium of a great deal of the world’s
knowledge, especially in such areas as science and technology. And access to
knowledge is the business education so an interesting question has come out whose
English should be taught in the classrooms. Undeniably, there are many types of
English. For instance, American English, British English, Australian English and so on.
Moreover, it can be deduced that for a mentor it is thoroughly difficult to use a type of
English in their classes or just stick to one since nowadays, learners are likely to be
exposed to different kinds of input. For example, electronic devices such as tvs, or
mobile phones which can help them not only to be updated with the latest news but
also, they can learn and listen to different varieties of English, so it means the mentor
must be aware of it.

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As it is known global demand for English language learning is stronger than ever, it
makes the case against “untrained natives”. Taking pride in the quality of our teaching
and teachers, yet it does not require its teachers to be trained. Moreover, “standard
English” exists. “Standard” English exists only in grammars. It is an idealised norm.
English operates as an international lingua franca and the great majority of
communication in English is between people who come from non-Anglo backgrounds.
There are many more “second” language speakers of English than there are first
language speakers and this has led to the development of several varieties of English.
In many cases, therefore, one of these varieties, a local or a regional one, is far more
likely to be an appropriate classroom model an imported “Anglo” one.
In today’s complex and globalising world, well-trained, multilingual and culturally
sophisticated teachers are needed to teach learners of English, the overwhelming
majority of whom are bilingual and who are learning in culturally diverse context and for
an extraordinary complex range of needs, stretching from local to international. It is
time for those involved in the ELT profession to resist the employment of untrained
native or non-native speaker teachers and to promote the advantages of employing
trained teachers.
From a moral point of view, educational institutions should be under an obligation to
ensure that students are not exposed to untrained teachers. While in Britain and
Australia people need to obtain clearance before they can work with children.
What is more, it is better when learners become aware of these variations. Thus, pupils
can know alternatives of expressions as a consequence the teaching situation has
become more complex.
In addition to this, all the communicate successfully in “English”, but which “English”?
The chances are that it not the language you hear in chat shows and soaps on British
or American television, but rather a range of “Englishes”, with enough of a common
core to make it viable as a means of communication., sometimes labelled “Euro-
English”, is in the process of evolving to serve as a European lingua franca. As yet,
however, this variety of English has not been described, largely because it is at such
an embryotic stage in its evolution.
With any degree of certainty is that English as a lingua franca in Europe (ELFE) is likely
to be some kind of European-English hybrid which, as it develops, will look increasingly
to continental Europe rather than to Britain or the United States for its norms of
correctness and appropriateness.
However, as long as there is no sound empirical basis for a description of how the
language is actually used, the forms ELFE will take will remain an object of speculation.

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The interactions among “no-native” speakers of English from a wide variety of first-
language backgrounds, and to investigate what happens linguistically when English is
used as a lingua franca. In addition to this, it focuses on pronunciation and
lexicogrammar (vocabulary plus grammar), some intelligibility problems when English
is spoken as an International Language.
ELFE lexicogrammar is based on a corpus of interactions in English among fairly fluent
speakers from a variety of first-language backgrounds.
The emergence of so many different kinds (or “varieties”) of international English has
caused a number of linguistics to question the use of native speaker pronunciation
models in the teaching of English. Their argument is that native speaker pronunciation
models in the teaching of English. Native speaker accents are not necessarily the most
intelligible or appropriate accents when a non-native speaker is communicating with
another non-native speaker.
As regards intelligible, pronunciation for EIL, it is essential to identify which
pronunciation features are crucial for mutual understanding when a non-native speaker
of English talks to another non-native speaker and which are not at all important. These
are often not the same features that are crucial and unimportant for a native speaker of
English.
Along with the variety of uses in different fields, non-native speakers have also brought
about a variety of Englishes, in the linguistic sense. Since English used as a lingua
franca characteristically manifests itself in spoken language, accent is one evident area
of this diversity. According to those who appreciate linguistic diversity, variation in
accent is acceptable as long as intelligibility and conversation flow will be secured. This
means that interlocutors are required high-grade accommodation skills as well as
cultural sensitivity since many of the English accents — native or nonnative — they will
encounter will be unfamiliar to them.
It is even claimed that a European variety of English the mentor is drawn to use
International English in order to convey messages to their learners. Firstly, it is
essential to define what International English is. According to McKay (2002), in her
book entitled Teaching English as an International Language defines it like this
“International English is used by native speakers of English and bilingual users of
English for cross-cultural communication. International English can be used both in a
local sense between speakers of diverse cultures and languages within one country
and in global sense between speakers from different countries”.
Furthermore, Mr. Brutt-Griffler identifies four central characteristics of the development
of Global English. These ones are econocultural functions of the language which
means that World English is the product of the development of a world market and

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global developments regarding science technology, culture and the media. The
transcendence of the role of an elite lingua franca- it means that World English is learnt
by people at various levels of society. The stabilization of bilingualism through the
coexistence of world language with other languages in bilingualism/multilingual
contexts-it concentrates on World English tends to establish itself alongside local
languages rather than replacing them, so it contributes to multilingualism rather than
jeopardize it and language change via processes of world language convergence and
world language divergence. It means English owes its global spread.
What is more, the demand “English” in schooling will remain strong in the foreseeable
future. Consequently, it is being learnt by people at different levels of society, not just
the socio-economic elite. Undeniably, it is expected to establish alongside local
languages rather than replace them and be shaped by all its users which means that
teachers and learners are likely to get an input of different types of accents, vocabulary
and so on.
As it is common knowledge, all non-English-speaking powers of our globalised world
recognised it as the first foreign language to learn. Moreover, it has broadened
learners’ horizons. Also, there are some ways of considering English as an
International Language. The first one is functionally, it means the role of English in the
world as an econocultural fact and give basically one or both of the following kinds of
motivation for learning it to apply it; for example, for international business, and the
idealistic one. For example, the potential it provides for cross-cultural communication
and mutual understanding. The second one is conceptually which focuses on people’s
perspective on and attitudes towards this global role of English, the third one is
linguistically which questions how English is spoken and written and the last one
pedagogically, it concentrates on the teaching of English as a Foreign Language or as
a Second Language.
The last three ways agree on focusing on “cumulative” proficiency and on the goal of
successful communication with native speakers. By and large, “intelligibility” is taken to
mean being intelligible to native speakers and being able to understand native
speakers.
From today’s point of view, nativized varieties. For example, Indian English, Nigerian
English, Australian English and so on are interesting owing to the fact that the terms
generally employed to refer to them reflect the problematic and crucial role of the
nativeness criterion. On the one hand, they are called “nativized” or “indigenised”
varieties, on the other hand, they are also referred to as “non-native” varieties. In any
case, it depicts how deeply ingrained the notion of nativeness is in any consideration of
language theorising, description and teaching.

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 Assignment - EIC

Taking into account the foregoing paragraph, it can be deduced that pronunciation
plays an important role at the moment of passing on knowledge regarding spoken
discourse to learners. It is unquestionable that conveying messages orally is nowhere
as easy as it seems to be due to the fact that there are many factors that must be given
consideration. For example, phonology which centres around a pedagogical core of
phonological intelligibility for speakers of EIL. It is undeniable that teachers must be
aware and capable of providing the right pronunciation, intonation (rising and falling),
voice and voiceless sounds, etc.
Moreover, a research undertaken by Jenkins propose establishing which pronunciation
features impeded mutual intelligibility in her empirical studies of what she terms
“interlanguage talk among non-native speakers of English”. Undoubtedly, this research
has helped mentors or teachers of English to cope with their problems regarding
pronunciation by considering some sounds which are regarded, and taught, as
“particularly English” ones by most learners and teachers, such as the “th-sounds” and
the “dark l” allophone. In the conversations analysed by Jenkins, mastery of these
sounds proved not to be crucial for mutual intelligibility and so various substitutions
such as /f, v/ or /s, z/ or /t, d/ for the “th-sounds” are permissible and found in some
native-speaker varieties. The “th-sounds” and the “dark l” are therefore designated
“non-core”.
Besides this, there are features which proved decisive for EIL intelligibility and which
consequently constitute the phonological Lingua Franca Core. The first feature is the
consonant inventory with the exception of the “th - sounds” and of “dark l”. In addition to
this, phonetic requirements such as aspiration of word-initial /p/, /t/, and /k/, which were
frequently heard as their lenis counterparts /b/, /d/ and /g/ and the maintenance of
length before lenis consonants. For example, the longer /æ/ in the word sad contrasted
with the phonetically shorter one in the word sat.
Furthermore, consonant cluster which means no omission of sounds in word-initial
clusters. For instance, in proper and strap; omission of sounds in word-medial and
word-final clusters only permissible according to L1 English rules of syllable structure
as a consequence the word friendship can be frienship but not friendip.
Another important characteristic is vowel sounds which means the maintenance of the
contrast between long and short vowels, such as the long and short i-sounds in the
words leave and live; L2 regional vowel qualities otherwise intelligible provided they are
used consistently, with the exception of the substitution of the sound /ɜː/ (as in bird)
especially /ɑː/ (as in bard). In addition to this, another feature is production and
placement of nuclear (tonic) stress, especially when used contrastive. For instance, He
came by TRAIN vs He CAME by train.

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According to Jenkins, these are the main characteristics that the teaching of English for
international communication should concentrate on.
Moreover, James (2000) proposed a conceptual discussion of the place of English in
bi/multilingualism, making reference to a project in its pilot phase, entitled “English as a
lingua franca in the Alpine Adriatic region” He also developed a hypothesis as to what
findings the future analysis of the use of English by speakers of German, Italian,
Slovene and Friulian might yield. The benefit of James’ research focus is merely its
delimited range of first languages aiming at a description of EIL in a specific region.
Nevertheless, there is also a necessity for a broadly based corpus for getting a more
general description of features of EIL from a wide variety of first language backgrounds
and a good range of settings and domains. Moreover, the compilation of this corpus is
now at the University of Vienna (VOICE) under the present author’s direction. VOICE is
a corpus of spoken EIL. It concentrates on unscripted, largely face-to-face
communication among fairly fluent speakers from a wide range of first language
backgrounds whose primary and secondary education and socialization did not take
place in English. The verbal communication captured include private and public
conversations as well as private and public group discussions and casual
conversations and one-to-one interviews.
Moreover, sharpening teachers’ and learners’ speaking skill is a hard work to be done
in the classroom due to the fact that it is difficult to grapple with typical errors which
most English teachers would consider in urgent need of correction and remediation,
and which consequently often get allotted a great deal of time and effort in EIL lesson,
appear to be generally unproblematic and no obstacle to communicate success.
Those errors include, dropping- it means the third person present tense- the
pronunciation of /s/. Then, confusing- which means the misuse of the relative pronouns
who and which.
Another problem is omitting, it definite and indefinite articles where they are mandatory
in native speaker language use and the last one but not the least failing to use “correct”
forms in tag questions. Undeniably, one of the main objectives of VOICE is to identify
and make comparisons between foreign-language productions and native-speaker
speaking.
However, there seems to be an inclination for particularly idiomatic speech by one
participant-a kind if “unilateral axiomaticity” characterised by metaphorical language
use, idioms, phrasal verbs and fixed ENL expressions such as this drink is on the
house or can we give you a hand to be the cause of misunderstandings. Thereon, it
may be worth noting that some specifications in the self-assessment grid of European

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Language Portfolio might not be relevant. Also, it is important to mention that colloquial
language is likely to be used on daily basis conversation with peers or relatives.

CONCLUSION
Were the ideas mentioned above, we are drawn to reach the following ideas or
thoughts. The first one is using and mastering a second language such as English is
not a piece of cake since it is common knowledge learners depend on qualified
teachers who manage the different kind of English. Likewise, it is important that both
mentors and learners be aware that it is not necessary to stick to a specific accent.
What is more, the better you understand different kind of English, the better you can
keep in touch.
Moreover, it is important to overcome pronunciation problems due to the fact that we
can convey a wrong message and be misunderstood by learners.

REFERENCES
 Texeira and Pozzi (2014) “Introducing English as an International Language in
the Inner-Circle Classroom: Exploring World Englishes”.

 Seidlhofer (2003) “A Concept of International English and Related Issues: From

Real English to Realistic English”?

 Jenkins and Seidlhofer (2001) “Be proud of your lingua franca”, The Guardian,
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/apr/19/tefl4

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 Ostler (2018) “Have we reached peak English in the world?”, The Guardian.
Taken from:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/27/reached-peak-
english-britain-china

 Ostler and Lane (2010) “The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of
Babel”, Forums. Taken from:
https://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/652780-The-Last-Lingua-Franca-
Forums

 Jenkins Jennifer (2009) “English as a Lingua Franca: interpretations and

attitudes”. Taken from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227663650_English_as_a_Lingu
a_Franca_interpretations_and_attitudes

 Schmitz John Robert (2012) “To ELF or not to ELF?” (English as a Lingua
Franca): That’s the question for Applied Linguistics in a globalized world. Taken
from: http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rbla/v12n2/v12n2a03.pdf

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