TEACHING ISSUES The TESOL Quarterly publishes brief commentaries on aspects of English language teaching For this issue, we asked two teacher educators to comment on the implications of World Englishes for second language teaching Edited by DWIGHT ATKINSON Purdue University World Englishes and the Classroom: An EFL Perspective PAUL BRUTHIAUX Chonburi Province, Thailand doi: 10.5054/tq.2010.222223 & The first decade of the 21st century has witnessed rapid growth in the volume and quality of research on World Englishes Following Kachru’s (1985) insight and his three circles model, scholars have described a growing number of varieties of English in terms of their structural characteristics and ecology (for reviews, see Bolton, 2005; Jenkins, 2006) Though the model has weaknesses, it has substantially raised general awareness of the existence and validity of dynamic varieties of English, each with growing populations of speakers and vibrant media, literatures, and popular cultures (Bolton, 2008) More recently, research has focused on the implications for English language teaching of this shift in perceptions This research has explored theoretical motivations for introducing students to varieties of English, including their own (e.g., Canagarajah, 1999), on ethical grounds (e.g., Baumgardner & Brown, 2003), or in response to a postcolonial shift in the distribution and relative importance of these varieties (Morrison & White, 2005) Some of this work has focused on specific areas of English language teaching such as academic writing (e.g., Matsuda, 2001) Others have contributed detailed descriptions of appropriate pedagogy and even materials (for an early example, see Kubota, 2001) Inevitably, much of this work has focused on postcolonial settings, especially in urban areas of countries where English has a substantial societal presence beyond classroom walls, or in college settings, where TESOL QUARTERLY Vol 44, No 2, June 2010 365 students are expected to display high proficiency and be capable of studying not just English but also wider content, including the complex dimensions of World Englishes themselves, through English However, this focus largely bypasses a vast constituency, namely learners living in settings where conditions are of the English as a foreign language (EFL), not English as a second language (ESL) type In developing, resource-poor societies especially, these conditions include not only the minimal presence of English beyond the classroom but also very large classes, teachers with minimal English proficiency or who cannot afford to travel abroad and thus sensitize themselves to life beyond their borders, limited contact time (often hours per week or less), and an examination culture that favors memorization over exploration (for illustrations from Thailand, see Forman, 2005) In this article, I argue that the focus of much current research on World Englishes and English language teaching pedagogy overplays the concerns of researchers doubling as educators In this sense, it is a producer-centered approach By contrast, a consumer-centered perspective should focus on the learning conditions of the learners themselves, and in particular those countless learners living in EFL settings, especially in developing countries with large populations and scarce resources such as, say, Brazil, Indonesia, or Egypt, where English has little or no presence outside of the classroom There, the broad aim of introducing EFL students to the range of World Englishes becomes a questionable pursuit because of unfavorable logistics and, in particular, the issue of low proficiency mentioned above In East Asia, evidence of low English proficiency abounds, including in countries that have devoted staggering sums—publicly and privately— to English language education Not surprisingly, in societies where educational practices have long privileged mastery of grammatical rules, students typically display low communicative competence and even lack the ability to write short, continuous texts (for Japan, see Martin, 2004; for Thailand, see Forman, 2005; Phungphol, 2005) More surprisingly, this East and Southeast Asian emphasis on receptive knowledge does not always translate into high test-taking skills International comparisons of Test of English as a Foreign Language scores show that among Association of Southeast Asian Nations citizens, Thais score fractionally higher than Lao students but lower than Cambodian and Vietnamese students and far behind Singapore, Philippines, and Malaysian students (Bolton, 2008) In wider comparisons, Thai students score slightly higher than Japanese students and are on par with Mongolians (Wiriyachitra, 2001) But how many of the vast numbers of English learners worldwide are affected by such conditions? According to Graddol (2006), there are about 500 million first language (L1) and fluent second language (L2) English speakers Most 366 TESOL QUARTERLY of the L1 speakers live in inner circle countries (Kachru, 1985), where English is spoken by a majority, often having been acquired as the sole language of the home Most of the L2 speakers live in outer circle countries, where English is spoken fluently for domestic communication by a minority, as an additional language and to varying degrees of proficiency by many, and little or not at all by the rest of the population For those who not only study but also use English as part of their daily lives, the label ESL is apt Although the population of some of these countries is very large (about 20% of humanity lives in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh alone), large numbers lead lives largely or entirely unaffected by English In some cases substantial monolingualism makes a lingua franca unnecessary (e.g., Hong Kong: Li, 2009) In others, many live in rural areas where English has little or no presence (e.g., Kenya: Michieka, 2009) Thus these residents of outer circle countries have more in common, sociolinguistically speaking, with residents of expanding circle countries, where English is studied extensively but used domestically little or not at all Subtracting Graddol’s 500 million from a current world population of 6.8 billion (World Population Data Sheet, 2009) and allowing generously for settings where English has wide currency (the Netherlands, Scandinavia, etc.) still leaves over billion human beings living in ecologies where English plays little or no domestic role beyond the classroom For those, the label EFL remains descriptively accurate as well as conceptually helpful in assessing the presence of English in these contexts Of these, the numbers studying English at any one time can only be estimated, in part because the teaching of English at primary level is not uniform, varying in Europe alone from under 20% of primary students in Germany to over 80% in Spain (Graddol, 2006) But if we aggregate those studying English under EFL conditions in expanding circle locations and those studying it in outer circle locations but under EFL conditions, the figure must be very large indeed Clearly, this EFL constituency deserves greater attention But how much attention can the EFL constituency afford to give World Englishes in return? In developing, resource-poor EFL settings especially, the top priority for students must be to acquire some English (for whatever purpose), with little time available and minimal resources from teachers who often lack proficiency and may have little awareness of the outside world As a general principle, given the difficulties inherent in learning any L2 beyond early adolescence, models should be kept constant with variation minimized or even artificially excluded One alternative, much discussed in the literature, is to promote English as a lingua franca (ELF), shorn of its more problematic morphological and phonological features and based on systematic TEACHING ISSUES 367 observations of how English is used by L2 speakers (Jenkins, 2006) Whether this alternative is realistic remains debatable given massive variation across groups of English speakers and the thorny issue of how and how far to reflect this variation in teaching materials Another alternative is to promote an English based largely on local norms However, indigenous norms can only emerge from wide usage in a community (Bruthiaux, 2009) In many EFL settings, such as China’s 100 million-strong ethnic minorities, among whom English is perceived as particularly alien (Yang, 2005), the notion that English is undergoing nativization and becoming self-norming is fanciful This is not to argue for the exclusive promotion of traditionally dominant varieties of English or against the educational goal of sensitizing students to variation whenever possible But in the EFL contexts described above, this should logically occur as part of the social studies curriculum (or its closest equivalent) and, inevitably, through the medium of the local vernacular Meanwhile, as Kuo (2006) argues, the teaching of English should remain based on one of the dominant models serving as a convenient starting point, with the localization of pronunciation inevitably supplied by teachers and the introduction of wider variation dependent on proficiency In postcolonial settings such as India or Nigeria, where English has a substantial societal presence, the model should be the locally dominant one, provided a reasonably standardized version of it is available Though running counter to current wisdom, this approach gains from being realistic and, above all, not producer- but consumer-centered and thus respectful of the EFL constituency and what it can realistically achieve under difficult conditions To learners in developing, resourcepoor EFL settings especially, it matters very little who says tomahto and who says tomayto Knowing the word tomato is achievement enough THE AUTHOR Paul Bruthiaux researches written discourse analysis, language education and economic development, and English as an international language He has taught linguistics and applied linguistics in California, Texas, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Thailand REFERENCES Baumgardner, R J., & Brown, K (2003) World Englishes: Ethics and pedagogy World Englishes, 22, 245–251 Bolton, K (2005) Where WE stands: Approaches, issues, and debate in World Englishes World Englishes, 24, 69–83 Bolton, K (2008) English in Asia, Asian Englishes, and the issue of proficiency English Today, 24, 3–12 368 TESOL QUARTERLY Bruthiaux, P (2009) Multilingual Asia: Looking back, looking across, looking forward AILA Review, 22, 120–130 Canagarajah, S A (1999) Resisting linguistic imperialism Oxford, England: Oxford University Press Forman, R (2005) Teaching EFL in Thailand: A bilingual study(Unpublished doctoral dissertation) University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia Graddol, D (2006) English next London, England: British Council Jenkins, J (2006) Current perspectives on teaching World Englishes and English as a lingua franca TESOL Quarterly, 40, 157–181 Kachru, B B (1985) Standards, codification, and sociolinguistic realism: The English language in the outer circle In R Quirk & H G Widdowson (Eds.), English in the World (pp 11–30) Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press Kubota, R (2001) Learning diversity from World Englishes Social Studies, 92, 69–72 Kuo, I.-C (2006) Addressing the issue of teaching English as a lingua franca ELT Journal, 60, 213–221 Li, D C S (2009) Towards ‘‘biliteracy and trilingualism’’ in Hong Kong (SAR): Problems, dilemmas, and stakeholders’ views AILA Review, 22, 72–84 Martin, A (2004) The ‘‘katakana effect’’ and teaching English in Japan English Today, 20, 50–55 Matsuda, P K (2001) Voice in Japanese written discourse: Implications for second language writing Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 35–53 Michieka, M M (2009) Expanding circles within the outer circle: The rural Kisii in Kenya World Englishes, 28, 352–364 Morrison, R., & White, M (2005) Increasing familiarity and appreciation for World Englishes World Englishes, 24, 361–370 Phungphol, Y (2005) Learner-centered teaching approaches: A paradigm shift in Thai education ABAC Journal, 25, 5–16 Wiriyachitra, A (2001) A Thai university English scenario in the coming decade Thai TESOL, 14, 4–7 World Population Data Sheet (2009) Retrieved from http://www.prb.org Yang, J (2005) English as a third language among China’s ethnic minorities International Journal of Bilingual Education & Bilingualism, 8, 552–567 World Englishes and the Teaching of Writing AYA MATSUDA Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona, United States PAUL KEI MATSUDA Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona, United States doi: 10.5054/tq.2010.222222 & English has become the dominant language around the world This statement hardly requires a justification, but it does warrant some TEACHING ISSUES 369