777529

research-article2018
LTR0010.1177/1362168818777529Language Teaching ResearchMurray

LANGUAGE
TEACHING
Article RESEARCH

Language Teaching Research

The world of English language

2020, Vol. 24(1) 60­–70
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1362168818777529
https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168818777529
inequity? journals.sagepub.com/home/ltr

Denise E. Murray
Macquarie University, Australia

Abstract
English language teaching takes place in a variety of different contexts around the globe,
contexts that are affected by the megatrends of global competition, population mobility,
and technological interconnectedness. These trends have resulted in increased demand for
English as a tool for advancement individually and nationally. However, because language is a
social practice, the introduction of English within existing linguistic, sociocultural, and political
values and practices can create tensions. Learners investment in learning English depends on
the extent to which they and their communities envisage any benefits from English or are
positioned by societal forces. Additionally, local educational practices or quality may militate
against the learning of English. English may therefore be rejected by communities or may
maintain current societal inequities. Teachers, teacher educators, and teacher education
programs need to be aware therefore that English teaching is not neutral, but a complex
educational change.

Keywords
immigrants, international students, megatrends, teacher education, technology

I Introduction
Language is a social practice that reflects individual and group identity and so we need
to understand who is learning English and how the introduction of a new language
(English) into any existing linguistic space results in shifting social practices and identi-
ties. Central to learners’ attitude to learning English is their investment in it. ‘[I]f learners
‘invest’ in the target language, they do so with the understanding that they will acquire a
wider range of symbolic resources (language, education, friendship) and material
resources (capital goods, real estate, money) which will increase the value of their

Corresponding author:
Denise E. Murray, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Sydney, 2109, Australia.
Email: denise.murray@mq.edu.au
Murray 61

cultural capital and power’ (Norton, 2013, p. 6). Similarly, communities exhibit their
investment in learning English through their policies and strategies. Communities
include conglomerations of nations (e.g. the EU, UN), nations, local organizations, and
families. The lens through which I will explore these issues is through examining meg-
atrends and how they influence communities’ and learners’ investment in English and its
consequences. The communities discussed here are developing and industrialized con-
texts, refugees, immigrants, and international students in Anglophone countries. In all of
these contexts, English that can both provide and limit opportunities for people. Because
of space constraints here, the landscape of the diverse English learners can only be pre-
sented in broad bush-strokes. Even so, these glimpses into the sociocultural and political
values and practices that affect learner investment in English language learning have a
profound impact on our perception of what constitutes the knowledge base for language
teacher education. Teachers, teacher educators, and teacher education institutions need to
be aware that despite the rhetoric that ‘English is an automatic good’ for individuals and
society, it can also exacerbate inequality. Our knowledge base needs to confront this
dilemma.

II Megatrends
PWC (PricewaterhouseCoopers), for example, presented five megatrends at the World
Economic Forum in 2013: shifts in global economic power, accelerating urbanization,
climate change and resource scarcity, demographic shifts, shifts in global economic
power, and technological breakthroughs (PWC, 2014). Changes in these dimensions coa-
lesce around issues that directly affect English language education:

•• the aspirations of nations and individuals for advancement in a globalized, com-

petitive world;
•• population mobility resulting from competing ideologies, political and economic
power shifts, economic inequality, and climate change; and
•• instant, social technology, which creates virtual mobility and amplifies these
trends.

The rise in the use of English as the global language for commerce, science, and
technology has engendered 1.5 billion language learners as of 2015 (Noack & Gamlo,
2015). These learners come from disparate contexts, with disparate reasons for learn-
ing English. Viewed in the context of the megatrends, we see that English language
learners are affected by the three broad trends. In the sections that follow, I examine
the introduction of English in a variety of different contexts: English as a school sub-
ject in different areas of the world, English in fractured parts of the world, refugees and
immigrants settling in English dominant countries, and international students in
Anglophone countries. Finally, I consider how the role of technology in personal and
educational lives impacts on the learning of English. In all of these contexts, English
is viewed as not just functional, but as symbolic, having economic and status value,
that is, having human capital.
62 Language Teaching Research 24(1)

III English as human capital

Despite the diversity of contexts in which English is taught, they all share the inherent
conflicts from introducing another language into existing complex social practices, espe-
cially the possibility of social inequity.
Current rhetoric attributes human capital to English. This perception has led to a rapid
expansion of English language teaching across state education systems from primary
school to university in both countries with high income to those on the OECD’s DAC
(Development Assistance Committee) list of least developed. ‘[E]ducational planners
believe that English should have a significant role in a national curriculum, because not
to do so would be to opt out of contemporary views of progressivism’ (Richards, 2015,
p.9). Countries as disparate as Japan and Bangladesh have policies for teaching English
from early grades. The vital issue for English language education is how this rhetoric
plays out in the lives of students in these different contexts. Because the introduction of
English into curricula is not neutral, but rather a complex educational change (Wedell,
2011), this shift in language use takes place within the socio-cultural values and struc-
tures already existing. One of those social practices is the linguistic landscape, that is, the
role of official and local languages, and often the previous history with English.
Bangladesh provides one such context. The majority local language is Bangla. During
the British colonial era, English was widely used among the affluent and government
employees. After independence, Urdu was deemed the official language of Pakistan,
which was at that time divided into West and East. However, Urdu was a majority lan-
guage only in the West. When Bangladesh became a separate independent country, both
Urdu and English were rejected, and Bangla was instituted as the language for use in
most government agencies. As a result, Bangla has become closely tied to Bangladeshi
identity, with English for the privileged. Recent moves to promote English at younger
ages and for universal education have seen resistance because ‘[i]n the minds of most
people, national identity and learning English are positioned as antagonistic, not comple-
mentary’ (Imam, 2005, p. 482). Yet, everyone affords high status to those who can com-
municate in English, which is a school subject for twelve years. The access to high
quality English instruction in schools varies, with private schools and universities often
being English medium, whereas government schools pay little attention to English, lead-
ing to inequality in outcomes.
English is promoted as essential for development in countries with low incomes
through international conferences and huge investments in both language teaching and
teacher education by foundations and other international organizations (Coleman, 2011).
Yet there is little evidence that students have learned English or that it has raised indi-
viduals from poverty or increased the country’s ability to participate in the global econ-
omy (e.g. Seargeant and Erling, 2011; Erling, 2017). Despite its symbolic value, many
learners are not invested in learning English. They either do not envisage their gaining
material or other benefits or are positioned by societal forces to be unable to achieve such
benefit. Rather, existing social class structures mean that the affluent place their children
in private schools and engage after school tutoring, increasing, rather than reducing ine-
quality because English acts as a gatekeeper to higher education and to well-paid jobs
Murray 63

(Shamin, 2011). Similarly, local educational practices often militate against the learning
of English. The quality of education is often poor, with little attention paid to profes-
sional development of teachers, large classes, and limited resources (UNESCO, 2014),
such that ‘some 250 million children of primary school age were not reaching minimum
learning standards in reading and mathematics’ (UNESCO, 2015, p. 18). In multilingual
countries, early education is often conducted in the official language, not in the local,
familiar language of the students. Thus, students from minority languages find them-
selves trying to learn in a language they are not familiar with (the official language),
while also having to learn English (which may even be in a different script e.g. alphasyl-
labic scripts of South Asia). For example, in Thailand, Thai is the medium of instruction
in government schools, with English taught as a second language starting in Grade five
(as of 2014). However, a range of ethnic minorities speak unrelated languages. Yet
research has consistently found that literacy needs first to be established in the local
language (for a summary of research, see Ball, 2011; see also Lo Bianco, 2017).
In other countries (such as Korea and Japan) where English is considered to advance
human capital, learners lack investment in the English being taught in school because of
the disconnect between classroom English and the high stakes test they need to pass to
enter university or the disconnect between traditional pedagogy and the type of activities
being attempted in class. The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science
and Technology (MEXT) issued a new English Language Course of Study, which took
effect in April 2011. English as a foreign language (EFL) became compulsory in primary
schools, with the goal of fostering positive attitudes and experiences with foreign lan-
guages, rather than to develop language proficiency. MEXT required more communica-
tive abilities in English across all grade levels, suggesting specific classroom practices
that would foster communication. Teachers, however, had limited communicative lan-
guage skills, having themselves undergone exam-focused curricula using grammar trans-
lation. Furthermore, the high stakes exam did not assess for communication (Mondejar,
Valdivia, Laurier, & Mboutsiadis, 2012).
In 2002, the European Council recommended that at least two foreign languages
should be taught to all pupils from a very early age. Recent 2017 statistics show that
while this has been variably implemented, when one language is taught, in most coun-
tries in the EU English is the choice (Eurostat, 2017). This focus on English often
results in content areas being taught in English in schools and university, with a
resulting lack of knowledge creation in local languages. The EU policy of free move-
ment of people across the EU also means that English is the language that facilitates
this movement.

IV English learners in the fracture lines

Another site for learners is what Erling (2017) calls fracture lines, the multiplicity of
contexts that includes ongoing conflict areas, refugee camps, and countries recovering
from civil war or insurgency. The number of people forcibly displaced globally contin-
ues to increase, reaching 65.6 million (UNHCR, 2017). In conflict areas and refugee
camps, humanitarian agencies focus on survival – food, shelter, and health care. However,
‘education can shape your access to opportunities and thus enable the individual to
64 Language Teaching Research 24(1)

improve themselves economically, socially, and personally. Education is one of the fun-
damental factors that can open opportunities to tens of thousands of young people whose
lives have been interrupted and displaced by hostilities’ (Abu Mezied, 2017). From this
point of view, English is often considered an integral part of education. ‘[L]anguage can
function as a resolver of conflict and adaptive, negotiated multilingualism –involving
English – can be a way of moving beyond fracture lines towards more socially cohesive
multilingual societies’ (Erling, 2017, p. 17). Work in this area has included post conflict
areas such as Colombia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Southern Thailand. In Greece, the NGO
Iliaktida first provided accommodation and support structures for asylum seekers, and
worked with the UNHCR, expanding by partnering with Gekko, a school for unaccom-
panied minors in Myteline, on the island of Lesvos. The curriculum is centered on the
needs of youth who will be moving on to other countries and includes a number of sub-
ject areas, with a focus on language and literacy: maintaining their home languages while
learning English (an international language) and Greek, the language spoken in their
current country of residence (Lydia Stack, 2018, personal communication).
However, English is not necessarily a panacea. The plight of the recent waves of
migrants from the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa illustrates the tension. Syrian
students struggle in schools in Lebanon where classes are often taught in French, because
their only language of learning was Arabic (UNHCR, n.d.). Many refugees are unable to
advance to higher education because of the high level of English required by interna-
tional scholarship programs whether in Anglophone or other countries or even in blended
programs (Gladwell et al., 2016).
What is common among all these fracture sites is the trauma of dislocation, fear, and
deprivation for these children and youth with disrupted schooling and ruptured families.
They bring these heavy burdens with them to the English classroom. Their focus on
short-term survival often impedes their investment in English. Some are fortunate enough
to be able to resettle permanently in a third country, as discussed in the next section.

V Resettled learners
Some of those fleeing conflict are able to resettle in Anglophone countries, in particular
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the USA. Some also resettle in countries where
English is not dominant, such as Sweden and Jordan. In 2016 of the 22.5 million refugees
worldwide (half of whom are under 18), 189, 300 were resettled (UNHCR, 2017). The
remainder find refuge in some form of temporary accommodation or refugee camp,
mostly in Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, Uganda, and Ethiopia. The terms for displaced persons
are confounded by the generic use of refugee and migrant as though they were syno-
nyms. Migrant is the more expansive, including migrant worker with temporary status,
voluntary repatriation, and irregular migrants, entering a state without legal right or over-
staying a visa. For the UNHCR a refugee is someone whose claims to protection have
been assessed and determined to be valid. ‘An asylum-seeker is an individual who has
sought international protection and whose claim for refugee status has not yet been deter-
mined’ (UNHCR, 2010 p. 41). In 2014, 866,000 claims for refugee status were recorded.
The countries receiving the most asylum requests between 2010 and 2014 were Germany,
the USA, Turkey, Sweden, and Italy. In terms of the population in the receiving country,
Murray 65

Germany had 5.3 per 1,000 inhabitants, with the USA having 1.3. The populations seek-
ing asylum are also different, with those in the USA being primarily from Mexico and
Central America, whereas in Europe they have been mostly from Syria, Serbia, Kosovo,
and Eritrea.
Host countries provide vastly different services for refugees and asylum seekers,
often including local language classes. In Anglophone countries, the dominant local
language is English. In many EU countries, such as the Netherlands or Germany, EMI
and CLIL are increasingly used in schools and universities. These learners therefore
are neither educated in their home language nor the host country’s language, limiting
their access to both necessary content and the local language, contributing to low
levels of achievement. In many receiving countries, refugees receive support services
to facilitate their resettlement, and counseling because of their previous trauma. While
there are considerable differences among individuals, there are also commonalities.
For example, many Syrian adult migrants are well educated and may speak English,
many Eritrean migrants have had limited, if any, education. Children and youth, in
particular, have experienced interrupted schooling and trauma during their exodus, as
is the case of an eight-year-old South Sudanese child. Anwar escaped the ethnic vio-
lence in South Sudan after his family’s village was attacked by government militia.
He was out getting water and returned to find the village strewn with bodies and no
sign of his mother, father, or siblings. He ran into the bush, finding some other chil-
dren from his village. They walked to Egypt, where they found no refuge. He went to
a refugee camp in Ethiopia, where he was told his father was in Kenya, so he walked
to the enormous Kakuma camp, but his father had already been accepted for resettle-
ment in Australia. He was eventually sponsored by his father and resettled in Australia
at age 16 (Murray, research notes).

VI Immigrants in Anglophone countries

As well as accepting refugees and asylum seekers, Anglophone countries have all expe-
rienced waves of immigrants. In Britain, these traditionally were from former British
colonies and more recently, from the EU. The largest numbers are from Poland, Pakistan,
and India. Those from Pakistan and India are often women coming to join recent spouses
already resident in the UK, such that in 2010 the UK government changed its visa policy
so that immigrating spouses had to pass an English test (Capstick, 2011) and, since 2017,
the resident spouse must have an income of £18, 600 or more. Australia, Canada, and the
USA have always attracted immigrants, but the numbers and source countries have var-
ied depending on government policy both in the host country and country of origin, as
well as on world events.
In Anglophone countries there has been an abundance of research that has demon-
strated the advantages of knowing English, such as, economic and health benefits
(Seargeant, Erling, Solly, & Hasan Chowdhury, 2017 provide an overview of this
research). While this is often the case, because English is a social practice, immigrant
advancement depends on multiple socio-economic factors, especially the attitudes of the
host community to the immigrants’ language and culture, which in turn can affect learn-
ers’ investment in learning English (Norton, 2017; Piller, 2016). If learners experience
66 Language Teaching Research 24(1)

racism or other forms of discrimination, or do not see adults in their community in posi-
tions of power and influence, they may not imagine that English will bring them any
symbolic or material resources. This resistance to investment is exacerbated if there is a
large community from the same country, providing services such as doctors, dentists, and
food stores. The functional need to learn English is diminished. Further leading to pos-
sible lack of investment are two issues raised above concerning English as human capi-
tal: children experience a major disruption when they begin school that is conducted only
in a new language, English (e.g. Lo Bianco, 2017), and many immigrants are multilin-
gual so that, even when the official language of their country of origin is acknowledged
or even used in instruction, it may not be their home, familiar language.
Government commitment to English language instruction varies tremendously across
the Anglophone countries, with only Australia and Canada providing coordinated sup-
port for adults (Murray, 2005). Instruction for K-12 learners is a constant struggle
between mainstreaming, conflating second language learning with literacy, and profes-
sionally accepted instructional approaches that ‘recognize the rich diversity of learners,
and affirm the knowledge, languages, and identities that they bring to the classroom’
(Norton, 2017). This lack of commitment both impedes actual functional language
development and learners’ investment in the language.

VII International students

Students have long sought to study in countries that provide opportunities not available
in their home countries, whether to learn English and/or obtain a higher education quali-
fication. International students have been encouraged to attend universities in Anglophone
countries, most recently being actively recruited to make up budget shortfalls because
governments have significantly reduced funding. The countries of origin have continu-
ally changed, due to government policies and world events. After the 9/11 attack, the
USA restricted student visas and Australia and Canada saw a large increase in interna-
tional student applications. During the SARS outbreak in 2003 all countries restricted
visas to students from China, causing financial difficulties for many institutions. Two
decades ago, China provided scholarships for study abroad to build higher education
capacity in their own country because they realized they did not have sufficient capacity
to educate their growing middle class at university level. Similarly, Saudi Arabia invested
in scholarships. Both have since significantly reduced such funding.
The top three receiving countries for international students are the USA, UK, and
Australia. While still receiving the highest number of international students, over the last
decade, fewer international students have been coming to the USA. In 2016–17, the top
sending countries were China, India, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia (in terms of raw num-
bers). The biggest growth has been from India, with significant growth from Brazil, Kuwait,
and Saudi Arabia (Zong & Batalova, 2016). However, in 2017 numbers from Brazil and
Saudi fell because of the removal of scholarships by their governments (Saul, 2017).
A more recent phenomenon is transnational education where education is delivered in
a different country from the one where the institution is based. Instruction may be con-
ducted through a branch campus, distance education (most recently web-based), or in-
country partner arrangements that might include the franchising, twinning or validating
Murray 67

of degree programs (Clark, 2012). The students are local, the medium of instruction is
English, and the degree awarded is from the home university. The UK doubled its num-
ber of branch campuses in 2009–10 to 25, while the USA had the highest number of
branch campuses at 78. In 2011, 503,795 students were enrolled in UK transnational
programs. The UK and Australia have been the most innovative in developing transna-
tional education. One third of international students studying for a higher education
qualification from Australia were offshore in 2010. The source countries differ consider-
ably. Offshore (in order) are Singapore, China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Vietnam.
Onshore are China, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. In the UK offshore coun-
tries are Singapore, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Nigeria, whereas onshore the top two are
China and India. There is no comparable official data available for the USA.
With recently developed Web-based technologies, transnational education has
expanded rapidly. All of the English language learning populations discussed above have
been affected by the introduction of web-based technologies, as explained below.

VIII The intervention of web-based technologies

The past two decades have seen growth in the numbers of people online, as well as the
tools available. Table1 shows the worldwide growth in access that I have tracked since
1997. The growth however is uneven, being much lower in developing nations in
Africa, as well as in minority, poor, and rural communities even in nations with almost
universal access (e.g. the USA). The recent growth has come from second-generation
internet services (collectively known as Web 2.0) that were built on the expansion of
social media technologies. First mass media and then the arrival of the internet and
social media, with the potential for even wider reach, has meant that users interact on
an almost daily basis with English. English learners can interact across informal virtual
global worlds, with people with different sociocultural practices, creating new social
practices and identities.
Educational institutions have harnessed technology for learning English across all
the population sites discussed above. For example, the Xavier project (All Children
Reading, 2016) in Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya uses SMS services to access mate-
rial about subjects such as English, mathematics, science, and social studies, on their
phone or to talk to teachers. Through a laptop and local area servers, solar system with
batteries, and IT support on-site and remote, Jesuit Worldwide Learning (JWL) was
able to provide access to education to 1,900 students in Myanmar, Chad, Philippines,
Sri Lanka, Jordan, Afghanistan, Syria, Kenya, Malawi, and Thailand. ‘In Gaza, English
and technology also offer the possibility to nurture relationships by breaking the isola-
tion, letting the wider world know about the challenges the siege imposes’ (Erling,
2017 p. 94). On a personal note, Asmaa Abu Mezied, who is from Gaza, told delegates
at The Summit on the Future of the TESOL Profession in Athens, Greece in 2017, that
English and technology were her path to higher education in the UK (Abu Mezied,
2017). In their study of higher education for refugees in low resource environments,
Gladwell et al. (2016) found that transnational blended learning programs’ success
depended on ‘multiple practical issues such as security, sustainability of hardware,
availability of electricity, and the reliability and robustness of internet connectivity’
68 Language Teaching Research 24(1)

Table 1.  Percentage of online users worldwide over two decades.

1997 2002 2007 2010 2017

Network Wizards GlobalReach Internet Internet Internet
(reference no (reference no World World World Stats
longer on the web) longer on the web) Stats Stats 2018
6% 9% 18.9% 28.7% 51.7%

Note. Only the Internet World Stats website (2018; http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm) has the
most recent information.

(2016, p. iii). Student refugees expressed a desire for learner-centered, high participa-
tion pedagogy and for their distance instructors to have a more nuanced understanding
of the challenges of being a refugee in different contexts. These learners expanded
their worldview, but their investment was also dependent on their imagining a future
in which they could apply their new knowledge.

IX Conclusions
In an interconnected, global world, English has become more than functional. It has
become symbolic, affecting the lives of individuals and communities, in both virtual
and non-virtual spaces. The populations of English learners are diverse and the contexts
for their learning are multifaceted. The introduction of English into these disparate
environments challenges existing social practices and identities. English creates both
opportunities and barriers for learners and their communities as they often struggle to
achieve the symbolic and material goods English promises. While some have the
resources to gain human capital from English learning, others will continue to be
excluded from such benefits. ‘Everytime our students are successful in getting that
TOEFL score which means that they can study at a US college, we celebrate this step
towards personal liberation. And at exactly the same time, we have put another little
brick in the wall which holds back all those other people who would have wanted to be
a doctor, an architect … in their own country, but whose aspirations will be blighted
because they failed to learn enough English’ (Edge, 1996 p.16). It is therefore impera-
tive that the field of English language teaching challenges the rhetoric of English as the
key to advancement and works to ensure social justice in the field, through teachers,
teacher educators, and teacher education programs whose practices explore the socio-
cultural and political contexts of English language education.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Murray 69

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