Global English and the CLT - part 2

This post is the second and final part of a reflection about the limitations of the Communicative Language Teaching concerning the present reality where English has become the new lingua franca. The fist part is here.

As CLT misses the point about pour present world, so it does concerning the classroom. Once the typical CLT class aims to prepare students for “real life” situations, the classroom itself tends to be seen as an artificial environment. This very conception endangers the quality of classroom interaction as the real communication is assumed to happen later, out there. One enters a new paradigm when sees that the classroom “is in fact a real social context – only too real, sometimes, for young people who spend such a large part of their lives there!” (Andrewes, 2005b.:4-5). It should be added that for a teacher who spends about 40 hours a week in classrooms, the class cannot be anything else but a real social context either.

As probably many English teachers around the world, I have questioned myself why I was supposed to give so much importance to topics such as asking and giving directions and other tasks that are typically part of materials produced by followers or proponents of CLT when teaching students who do not have plans to travel abroad or welcome speakers of English in Brazil. Instead of “real life”, these tasks may seem unreal to many of our students.

What are the benefits of following such syllabus? Should we just follow what is assumed as necessary by an author, publisher or language institution? It seems quite obvious that classes should meet our students’ needs. But should we not also help the students to understand their own needs? Certainly there is a necessity to assess and rethink what we have been taught to teach in terms of content.

The idea of teaching either a second, foreign or additional language assumes that the learner already has at least one language that he/she uses to communicate. CLT has traditionally created a problem in its view of the non-native’s mother tongue, going “as far as to consider the L1 as a dangerous source of contamination of the target language” (Andrewes, 2007:9). In other words, the traditional thinking could be summarized as follows: “The two languages cannot inhabit the same space. It is either the one or the other” (Rajagopalan, idem: 16). If one considers that learning happens through experiencing the new knowledge in contact with the previous knowledge, how unrealistic is the idea that a student has to forget his/her language to acquire or learn another.

From this brief overview that outlined some of the limitations CLT presents in our day, it is clear that a new paradigm for language teaching is needed and such shift has to start with the understanding of English as a global language.

Illustration by Jared Chapman.

Global English and the CLT

I am posting the first of a series of reflections that try to assess the Communicative Language Teaching approach in face of English as the new lingua franca.

From a historical perspective, the CLT was a reaction against the previous focus on drilling and the mastering of linguistic structures that once dominated the field of language teaching through the Audiolingual method. Different from other methodological attempts that also reacted against the previous mainstream methodologies and were in fashion in the 1970’s, as the Total Physical Response, the Silent Way, Suggestopedia, etc., the CLT was not a method in the strict sense of the word, but rather an approach; it was grounded on more solid and reliable views of language and learning that gave it the status of “a generally accepted norm in the field” of language teaching (Brown, 2001:42, emphasis added).

Similar to what had happened to the establishing of the Audiolingual method in the U.S., the CLT also counted on academic and governmental funding and support:

The rapid adoption and worldwide dissemination of the Communicative Approach also resulted from the fact that it quickly assumed the status of orthodoxy in British language teaching circles, receiving the sanction and support of leading applied linguists, language specialists, and publishers, as well as institutions such as the British Council.

(Richards and Rodgers, 2001:172)

Even thought the new approach represented back then an important step towards a more humanistic and better communicative practice in language classrooms – what explains its long life -, its principles should be now questioned in terms of the historical context and goals it had or still has. So far, no solid approach or methodology has yet replaced the CLT and we do not know if such will ever take place. It has even become a cliché the statement that we now live in a post-methods era. However, as the English language itself is seem from a different perspective today, the language teaching is expected to develop further as it has developed in the past.

Most principles espoused by the CLT are based on the reality of English as a Second Language and classes filled with international students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, who would then need to learn how to communicate with native speakers in English-speaking countries. When brought to the context of English as a Foreign Language, however, the same principles may be less appropriate or desirable. And the questioning goes even deeper if we now consider English as a global language or lingua franca. Many English teachers have taken for granted the idea of national varieties of English (American, British, etc.) and have never stopped to think about what may sound too obvious – what English is today.

As Rajagopalan reminds us,

Most of the familiar approaches to language teaching - (…) [including] communicative method (…) - have typically tended to take the identity of the language(s) in question as a given, as something more or less unproblematic.

(2005:13)

Nowadays, the view of English as a national language spoken in certain countries is being reviewed and amplified in the light of the understanding of English as a lingua franca, a global language that allows communication among speakers from different national, cultural and linguistic backgrounds who have English as an additional language (Canagarajah, 2007). Therefore, English in this context does not belong to a limited geographical area or relate to certain national cultures. Also, the participation of a native speaker in the interaction is not a necessary condition for the use of “real” or “authentic” English.

The concept of English as a lingua franca challenges the core assumption of CLT that learners should be trained to speak to natives and deal successfully with the English-speaking culture. Explaining how culture in seem in CLT, Larsen-Freeman states that “Culture is the everyday lifestyle of people who use the language natively” (1986:134, emphasis added). This view assumes that non-natives should learn the target language and culture so that they can be understood and accepted by the natives only in the terms of the later, as if the non-native identity were less valuable. What is the culture behind a global language if not a host of different local cultures?

How much have we progressed in our field in terms of honoring the difference and particularity? Some authors have used the term imperialism to describe this perception of language and culture that still promotes a sort of colonial relationship between the center (represented in the concepts of target language and the native speaker) and the periphery (in the concepts of L1 and non-native). Therefore, unless language teachers reflect about and question these assumptions, we will be helping to perpetuate English as “the repository of the colonial spirit” (Rajagopalan, op. cit.:18).

An essential assumption of the CLT, the dichotomy of native versus non-native speakers and the virtual interlanguage that separates them, must be questioned as a valid way to approach language, given the reality of a multilingual world, where the so-called native speakers have become a minority and in many contexts the boundaries between languages are not so clear as we have imagined. In this scenario, the concept of nativeness is more likely to be useful to ideological than explanatory purposes. Or, it can only make sense when English is understood as a national language. Then, there are native speakers of American English, Jamaican English, British English and so far. But who are the native speakers of English as a lingua franca?

In his critique of CLT, Simon Andrewes points to the fact that authors “nowadays openly or tacitly agree that many of the principles of CLT methodology should be discreetly dropped or modified” (2005:5). Concerning the understanding of English as a global language, however, it should be noticed that some coursebooks have tried to add a global “flavor” using foreign accents in their audio materials or foreign names and faces on the print. However, the idea of the foreigner living in the Anglophone world continues to be almost always present.

See the second part of this discussion here.



References

Andrewes, S. The CLT Police: questioning the communicative approach. Modern English Teacher – MET. April 2005. 14, n. 2. 5-11. London: Pearson Education.

Brown, H. D. 2001. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. 2nd ed. New York: Longman.

Canagarajah, A. Suresh. Lingua Franca English, Multilingual Communities, and Language Acquisition. Modern Language Journal, 91/5 (2007): 921-937.


Larsen-Freeman, D. 2000. Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. 2nd. ed. New York: Oxford University Press.

Rajagopalan, Kanavillil. Postcolonial world and postmodern identity: some implications for language teaching. D.E.L.T.A. Revista de Documentação de Estudos em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada. Especial 2005, 14. 11-20. São Paulo, EDUC.

Richards, J. C., and T. S. Rodgers. 2001. Approaches and methods in language teaching. 2nd. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Burning down the house: Canagarajah’s views on Lingua Franca English

Canagarajah, A. Suresh. Lingua Franca English, Multilingual Communities, and Language Acquisition. Modern Language Journal, 91/5 (2007): 921-937.


In his thought-provoking article, Suresh Canagarajah challenges traditional views of language learning and the status of English in a globalized world, proposing a new understanding of English as a lingua franca that allows communication in multilingual contexts among speakers who have English as an “additional language” and who do not take native-speaker varieties as target models.

A professor at Pennsylvania State University, Canagarajah is originally from Sri Lanka, a former British colony in Asia where multilingualism is widespread. The author’s background seems to drive his research, as issues such as identity, multilingualism and non-Western scholarship are present all over the article.

The article starts reviewing Firth and Wagner’s (1997) questioning of traditional dichotomies such as learner versus user, non-native versus native speaker and interlanguage versus target language, stating that there is a bias that holds the second element in each pair as superior. The author then calls for an SLA research that considers a broader context outside language classes and homogenous communities, overcoming what he considers the traditional Western emphasis on concepts such as cognition, innateness and form.

Lingua Franca English (LFE) is said by the author to be difficult to describe since its form is negotiated in interaction. As LFE does not belong to a limited geographical area, it is part of a virtual community in where all speakers, according to Cangarajah, have native competence. Here, the concept of native competence or proficiency is not fully developed as it applies to LFE. Because of the existence of speakers from different national, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, LFE is characterized by constant variation and active negotiation in each interaction. As a consequence, use and learning cannot be separated in LFE, according to the article. However, one could question if this indissoluble relation is not present in every language learning process, instead of being exclusive to LFE.

As form becomes less important than pragmatic strategies, error also receives a different significance in the context of LFE – error is a failure in communicating meaning, something that, according to the author, seldom happens in LFE. One could point out that Canagarajah does not provide evidences for many of his statements.

In one of the few insights that apply directly to classroom, Canagarajah reminds us how students can use different identities in class and even “subvert” activities that underestimate their identities, an observation that can - or should – affect the way teachers approach classroom material and routines.

A worth-reading article, “Lingua Franca English, Multilingual Communities, and Language Acquisition” makes us question many topics that have been taken for granted in our field and helps us ponder about ideological aspects of English that perhaps we may have wanted to avoid as language professionals and especially as English teachers. As we read it, however, it is impossible to stay indifferent to the iconoclastic perceptions it provides.

More about Suresh Canagarajah here.

For a discussions on the implications of global English to teaching methodologies, click here.

Teaching and learning Global English

There can be little doubt about the fact that in the last decades English has become a global language. In science or entertainment, on the internet or in conferences, in former colonies or in countries where it had never been historically present – such as Brazil -, English is now used to overcome national limits and provide communication among people from different nationalities that do not necessarily have the native speaker of English as a role model or a certain national variety as a target or measuring reference to one’s fluency in the language.

In this context where native speakers have become a minority, there is a necessity to question many traditional concepts that have been considered as proven facts and move to a new paradigm that may enable us to more accurately understand what English is today. From the popular assumption that English is likely to replace national languages to the questioning if the present “hegemony of English” is not going to be “replaced by an oligarchy of languages, including Spanish and Chinese” (GRADDOL, 1997, p.3), attempts to assess the issues related to global English vary widely, as well as the definition of global English itself.

As this debate shapes and generates many others in education, linguistic policies, culture and politics, one cannot expect it to be a neutral one. On the contrary, it is a discussion permeated by ideology and interest, as the predominance of English itself is in fact a result of complex economic and political contexts of the 20th century.

The language of British colonialism and American imperialism has become “independent of any form of social control” (CRYSTAL, 2002, p. x), escaping from the hands of the native speakers, so to speak, up to the point that it is appropriated by cultures at the periphery of the world as a tool to foster development and have admission in a globalized world. One could question, however, if this is actually a process of appropriation or just a new version of colonization that is welcomed by the people being colonized. Who benefits most from this global English?

In this paper, I try to address the following questions: what are the implications of this global English to language teaching? How does one deal with a global language living in a country where just a small minority speaks it? Is global English a natural outcome of learning English in a non-English speaking country? How are English teachers expected to deal with this new phenomenon?

What is global English? And what makes a language global?

As David Crystal states, “a language has traditionally become an international language for one chief reason: the power of its people – especially their political and military power”. (CRYSTAL, 2002, p. 9) The development of English as an international language is a direct outcome of British colonialism and, in more recent times, the position obtained by the United States after the Second World War. The status acquired and or attributed to English therefore is not apart from the entire historical context of the last 60 years:

Had Hitler won World War II and had the USA been reduced to a confederation of banana republics, we would probably today use German as a universal vehicular language, and Japanese electronics firms would advertise their products in Hong Kong airport duty-free shops (…) in German (ECO, 1995, p. 331 apud GRADDOL, 1997, p. 8)

The English language was then closely associated to the American culture and lifestyle. Students from a traditional language institution in Porto Alegre, for example, reported that in the 1980’s they were taught how to greet Americans and the appropriate distance to keep, etc. Text books and other didactic materials also reproduced the same ideas promoting English as an American language.
English became an international language as American influence became stronger around the globe. Americans (and in less degree in our hemisphere, British) were seem as the source and owners of the language. This perception may still exist among English teachers in Brazil, even though there is a tendency to develop a more critical thinking concerning our relation to the English language and culture.

The end of the Cold War and what was then understood as the hegemony of the American power also ratified the status of English as the most important international language. On the other hand, in the last decades it became more evident that English was not an American or British language anymore, and beyond all national Englishes there was now a global language used in many aspects as a lingua franca.

In recent years, I have listened many times to teenage students saying how they hate Americans. They would then portrait Americans in very stereotyped terms. As someone who was probably seen as a kind of representative of that foreign language and culture, I had to explain my views of English as a language that does not depend on a national culture, at the same time I questioned their biased perception of uniformity among Americans asking them how they though Americans would picture a Brazilian person.

These experiences in classroom helped me to understand this phenomenon as an overreaction to the world inequality and injustice that those students associated with the American institutions, a kind of perception that has become more and more common after the September 11 events and the Bush administration. Is it being now minimized with the election of Obama?

Governments and institutions have also responded to this new scenario. In Brazil, it was during the Bush administration that Itamaraty decided to attribute less importance to its English test in admissional exams for the future Brazilian diplomats, in a clear ideological refusal of a supposed acceptance of “imperialism”.[1] A few years ago, Mongolia made English its official second language in a controversial measure. [2] The British Council has sponsored research on the topic, including the book The future of English?, by linguist David Graddol (1997).

Scholarly research has attempted to assess the issues related to global English, in which the role of non-native speakers is of notice. Suresh Canagarajah (2007), for example, stresses the role of what he calls Lingua Franca English in multilingual contexts where speakers have native competence in this additional language (not “second” or “foreign”). However, it seems necessary that a more accurate and detailed research is carried out to assess global English in contexts where there is no widespread multilingualism and English is taught as a foreign language as we do in Brazil.

In terms of the language teaching market, so far, there has been a shy attempt to recognize the existence of global English, since it seems to avoid a shift from the American English versus British English dichotomy. Some books will just add “foreign accents” to audio materials to give a global “flavor”. Many schools advertise their connection to a national variety and in many countries there is a high demand for native teachers. In some cases, the criteria do not include any previous teaching experience or degree in language, being the condition of native speaker the only requirement. [3]

I believe that such a shift will never happen completely, given the marketing power that “American “English” has as a label or a symbolic product to be sold. However, we do need in fact a more realistic view of English and better approaches to its teaching that can consider it as a global language and effectively provide students with a tool for real communication.

Whether or not we train our Brazilian students to perfectly pronounce the th sound or teach them the native-speakers’ culture behind the language without a critical viewpoint, they will still be Brazilians learning English. This means that the outcome of their learning is not likely to be American or British English but global English.

English teachers should be more realistic about the use of English that happens so frequently in conversations with non-native speakers or through the internet. Much more needs to be pondered and discussed about what makes global English and all its implications in classroom as it is in fact a new concept that challenges our understanding of English learning and teaching.


NOTES

[1] Articles from Brazilian newspapers about the Itamaraty’s decision

[2] Located between China and Russia, Mongolia is a former communist country where the study of Russian was widespread before the debacle of the Soviet Union.

[3] Some brief reflections on native and non-native teachers are available here