The study consists of four points as follows: 1: Language, Dialects and Varieties 2: Standard English and World Englishes 3: Authentic materials 4: Implications in English Language Educa[r]
(1)Part I: Introduction Foreign language education has become a significant phenomenon in the present age Responding to personal or professional needs, people learn a foreign language to qualify for overseas education, to communicate with colleagues in international businesses, or to prepare themselves for round-the-world travel In order to understand the phenomenon, a lot of wide knowledge related to the process of language acquisition, second or foreign language education, and specific knowledge of foreign language teaching pedagogy, testing and evaluation, etc have become especially important According to Cook (1999), foreign language teaching has, broadly speaking, two goals: Firstly, students learn the formal properties of a language and get some practice using it in communicative situations, typically realized in the classroom Secondly, students actually communicate with people in an L2 environment, realized outside the classroom There emerge new areas of research in English Language Teaching (ELT) including the relationship between ELT and World Englishes (WEs), English as an International Language (EIL) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) In many schools of WEs, EIL and ELF exists the interaction between people (e.g., nonnative speaker-nonnative speaker; native speakernonnative speaker) in choosing a common language–i.e., English–to communicate Therefore, it is open to question that whether it is necessary to teach ‘standard English’ or English varieties to develop students “communicative competence” (Hymes, 1972) This is also a big challenge that most teachers of English are commonly facing in such countries as China, Korea, or Viet Nam as stated by Le (2012) Therefore, using a variety of sources beside the textbooks especially authentic materials rooted in different Englishes may bring a prospective outcome This writing mainly aims at introducing some sources for teachers to get authentic materials to use in English teaching to acquaint their students with a variety of English in the world Because of the limit of the article, the specific sociolinguistic aspect – regional dialects, (2) specifically of English, is taken into consideration to draw some implications for foreign language education The study consists of four points as follows: 1: Language, Dialects and Varieties 2: Standard English and World Englishes 3: Authentic materials 4: Implications in English Language Education Part II: Development II.1 Language, Dialects and Varieties There have been a number of definitions of language, especially in comparison with dialects According to Trudgill (1978) “if two speakers cannot understand one another, then they are speaking different languages.” (p.15) while Wardhaugh (2006) challenged that definition by providing the examples of Cantonese and Mandarin people in China, who will not be able to understand each other in speaking but will be able in writing so he defined language as what “can be used to refer either to a single linguistic norm or to a group of related norms” (p.28) Fishman (1972) defined language to be “a superordinate designation” (p.23), which shared the view of Trudgill (1978) in that languages are “autonomous” (p.16) Put it differently, language is an independent linguistic body including vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation which can help people to intelligibly communicate with each other For instance, some languages are Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, English, Russian, etc One of the uses of language in society is to build and sustain meaningful relationships among people (Spolsky, 1998) When we meet people for the first time in a social context, our first reaction often includes speculation, on the basis of their spoken language and dialects to know about where they come from, and what social class they belong to Such speculation leads one to form a fuller image and understanding of people, which may or may not be accurate (3) Dialects, according to Trudgill (1978, p 17), strictly speaking, refers to “differences between kinds of language which are differences of vocabulary and grammar as well as pronunciation” Thus, dialects are ‘heteronomous’ (Trudgill, 1978, p 16) or “a subordinate designation” (Fishman, 1972, p.23) In other words, while language is independent, dialects are dependent Language and dialects can be distinguished in terms of size, in which a language is larger than a dialect, and prestige, in which a language has a prestige but a dialect does not For example, Vietnamese is a language with a lot of dialects of different regions along Vietnam and of different social classes in the society Dialects used to be regional but now they may be regional at one time and social at another time Because when mentioning the term dialects, in some people’s minds, they are related to “provincial, perhaps not well educated”, many of the scholars would rather use the term variety to connote its technical meaning A variety of language is defined by Hudson (1996, p.22) as “a set of linguistic items with similar distribution” while by Ferguson (1972, p.30) as “any body of human speech patterns which is sufficiently homogeneous to be analyzed by available techniques of synchronic description and which has a sufficiently large repertory of elements and their arrangements or processes with broad enough semantic scope to function in all formal contexts of communication.” In terms of these definitions, there are a number of varieties of English such as standard English, American English, Cockney English, Indian English, etc Varieties of a language include all variation in terms of dialects, registers, pidgins, creoles, etc depending on one’s regional background, social class and network, ethnicity, gender, age, and style, so on II.2 Standard Language and World Englishes From that perspective, according to Trudgill (1978, p.32), standard language, “somewhat imprecise”, is a ‘proper language’ having prestige He also stated that “standard languages are the result of a direct and deliberate intervention by society”, (4) which must be passed through four processes of ‘standardization’ including Selection, Codification, Elaboration of function and Acceptance (Haugen, 1966) (1) Selection: a particular variety, which may be existing or not, of great social and political importance is often chosen to be developed into a standard language to gain prestige and be accepted by people (2) Codification: dictionaries and grammar books are often written by such agency as an academy to fix the variety so that people agree on and then can learn to produce correct forms (3) Elaboration of function: all functions must be possible to be used in formal contexts such as in parliament, law suits, educational and scientific documents, literature, etc but new conventions for using existing forms are also developed (4) Acceptance: the variety has to be accepted by the relevant population usually as the national language Because most varieties of language change over time, the standard language cannot remain unchanged as new lexical items and new conventions for using existing forms are added Thus, there has been a hot debate on standard English Trudgill (1978, p 17) defined standard English as follows: Standard English is that variety of English which is usually used in print, and which is normally taught in schools and to nonnative speakers learning the language It is also the variety which is normally spoken by educated people and used in news broadcasts and other similar situations The difference between standard and non-standard, it should be noted, has nothing in principle to with differences between formal and colloquial language, or with concepts such as ‘bad language’ Standard English has colloquial as well as formal variants, and standard English speakers swear as much as others (5) Historically, the standard English derived from the English dialects used in and around London but even within standard English, there are a number of differences attracting attention The differences not only lie in vocabularies but also in grammatical aspect Any speaker can be said to speak various dialects depending on the circumstances of a discussion: When chatting together, two students from Southern America can speak in southern American English but when they speak in a conference at their college in New York, they can speak in Standard American English Nowadays, English is not a single entity any longer but it is widely mentioned as World Englishes taking into account all varieties of English not only in the Inner Circle, which comprises the old-variety Englishusing countries namely the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, but also in the Outer Circle, which comprises countries where English has long been used as a second language or official language in education, governance, literary creativity, and popular culture, such as India, Singapore, South Africa, the Philippines, etc.; and especially in the Expanding Circle countries where English has various roles and is widely studied such as China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, etc According to A Suresh Canagarajah (2006), globalization and digital technology have blurred the marginal line among native Englishspeaking countries, second English-speaking countries and foreign Englishspeaking countries and created new English Thus, nowadays, people learning English are not only to communicate to native speakers but also to speakers of other languages It is clear that the number of non-native English speakers outnumber that of native English speakers English now is not English of the UK or of the USA but the global English or world Englishes Many people now question that what the Standard English is, the Standard British English or the Standard American English; “if there are two, why not three? If three, why not a dozen?” (Braj B Kachru & Celcil L Nelson, 1996) II.3 Authentic Materials (6) First and foremost, the definition of authentic materials should be taken into account In the literature of second language acquisition and learning, the term "authentic materials" has been defined in different ways Probably, the most common definition is offered by Nunan (1999), in which authentic materials are defined as "spoken language data that has been produced in the course of genuine communication, and not specifically made for purposes of language teaching and learning." Gebhard (1996) also helps to clarify the above definition by giving examples of authentic materials that teachers have used in teaching foreign languages Some of his examples, which may serve as source material for lesson planning, are: newspapers, TV commercials, quiz shows, cartoons, news clips, comedy shows, movies, soap operas, professionally audio, (taped) short stories and novels, letters, advertisements, radio ads, songs, documentaries, and sales pitches In the last 20 years, the use of authentic materials in the ELT classroom has drastically become a common practice and it is highly acknowledged that that application has brought about many positive results According to Brinton (1991), authentic materials can reinforce students’ associating the language classroom with the outside world Gebhard (1996) sees authentic materials as a way to "contextualize" language learning When lessons are centered on comprehending a menu or a TV weather report, students tend to focus more on content and meaning rather than the language itself Such materials provide students with a valuable source of language input, so that they are not being exposed only to the language presented by the textbooks and the teachers Also, some researchers indicate that more authentic materials are needed in the classroom because of the wide disparity that is often found between materials developed specifically for English language teaching and real-life communication Porter and Roberts (1981) show several mismatches between authentic materials and non-authentic materials in terms of spoken and written language For example, conversations recorded for language texts often have a (7) slow pace, have particular structures which recur with obtrusive frequency, and have very distinct turn-taking of speakers Also, hesitations (such as “uh’s” and “mm’s”) are often missing, and sentences are very well-formed with few if any mistakes Simultaneously, real-life records are rarely in such good quality It is easily noticed that background sounds as well as daily spoken expressions are often included In other words, what the language learners hear in class is different from that in the real world In many cases, the language used in classrooms is a stilted use of real-life language, and authenticity is lost because of a need to teach specific language points in a way that some teachers feel would be more understandable for learners Brosnan et al (1984) justify the importance of the use of authentic materials in the classroom in this way: a Language is natural Authentic language offers students the chance to deal with a small amount of material which, at the same time, contains complete and meaningful messages b Students need to be able to see the immediate relevance of what they in the classroom to what they need to outside it, and real-life material treated realistically makes the connection obvious II.4 Implications in English Language Education Because the number of nonnative English users is on a drastic increase surpassing that of native ones, it has come to be the case that the interactional contexts in which nonnative speakers use English with nonnative ones dominate communication in reality compared to the fast shrinking of the interactional contexts in which nonnative speakers communicate with native ones in English In particular, in most countries in the world, the majority of monolingual or bilingual teachers (nonnative teachers) who may have never encountered nativeEnglish-used environment teach their students (nonnative students) who will become nonnative teachers in the future Before teaching at school, most teachers (8) of English have never communicated with any native or even a foreigner when they were at school or at the university Their ability of communication in English could just be seen through their grade at the university and they bring this assumption with them to the school at which they are teachers of English So they also become teachers of English speaking in their own accent, surely not a standard English However, when communicating with foreigners including those coming from England, America or from the Philippines, South Korea, etc., whether their accent is Vietnamese one, provided that they can express themselves fluently and easily make they understood, they can be successful in communication, and this is the most important thing in their job However, if they can get an English or American accent, they can have a significantly positive effect on their students who always long to listen to standard English but it is extremely difficult, not mention impossible, to acquire standard English even when they spend some years in London, let alone they have never been there Therefore, the use of authentic materials is a good way to acquaint students with the real-context sources of English around the world, not only those coming from native English speaking countries Basing on the understanding of world Englishes, some implications can be drawn out on English language education for teachers as follows Firstly, teachers of English should try best to increase the chances for students to expose to different varieties of English instead of only one or two varieties, which are considered ‘standard’ According to Le (2012, p.193), it is advisable that standard English or ‘native speaker variety’ be ‘considered as a frame of reference that signals EIL varieties’ because this helps to provide teachers and learners with a vision and objective to aim for To achieve this goal, teachers of foreign languages should some research on varieties of English in different countries where English is spoken especially to prepare students for regional vernaculars they are likely to encounter They can also exploit various sources of English like films, news, newspapers, etc to broaden students’ exposure to world Englishes (some suggested websites to obtain authentic sources in (9) appendix 1) It is clear that functional view of the language, not the necessarily native use, should be taught in ranged and deep explanation while drawing students’ attention to the differences in use Taking the pronunciation the consonant ‘r’ in ‘cart’ as an illustration, while pronouncing the word with ‘r’ is normal in the U.S., it is considered a bit rural and uneducated in some parts, but not all, of Britain, especially in the globalization and integration age, many parts of Britain is engaging in this type of pronunciation Therefore, it is extremely essential to raise students’ awareness of appropriateness and intelligibility of communicative competence This is the most critical element in foreign language education nowadays rather than teaching students what standard English is Furthermore, the way to evaluate students should also be adapted to fit the changes in English language education English tests should be standardized so that students have chances to encounter Englishes not only of the U.K or the U.S but also of India, Singapore, Philippines, South Africa, and even Spain, China, etc Moreover, evaluation and assessment should take on a dynamic aspect, focusing on processes rather than on outcomes of standardized decontextualized tests, i.e the language proficiency and academic achievement of the students should be considered by observing their communicative competence in both spoken and written forms over the time However, this application in teaching is not easy for all teachers because it requires them to devote a lot of time to searching for a variety of document from different sources and adapt this material to their own classes This process needs a lot of attempt and hard work Besides, teachers without good background English competence can mislead students because of their lack of capacity in processing the raw material of different sources, some of which may be unreliable (some lesson plans made from authentic materials provided in appendix 2) Part III: Conclusion (10) In conclusion, this article has explored varieties of the language – English, and its implications in English language education It is clear that varieties of the language should be taken into consideration in carrying out the language education so that the best result can be achieved Because of the development, English now is not a single identity but world Englishes in which the varieties of English in native English-speaking countries may be surpassed by the varieties of English in nonnative English-speaking countries, so it is worth bearing this fact in mind Teaching English, therefore, means teaching students how to develop learning awareness and strategies to communicate in English in the global environment rather than in the Inner Circle countries These trends include the analysis of different genres of written and spoken language emerging in contexts where English is spoken as a native language and also in global contexts where other varieties of English are spoken Hence, it is important to note that foreign language teaching in a broader sense involves the teaching of successful communication in foreign language through the use of an appropriate variety, which can be enhanced by introducing students with a wide source of authentic materials Both teachers and students need not acquire a standard accent provided that their English is comprehensible 10 (11) References A Suresh Canagarajah (2006) TESOL at Forty: What are the issues? TESOL Quaterly , 40, 1, 9-34 Bayyurt, Y (2013) Current Perspectives on Sociolinguistics and English Language Education The Journal of Language Teaching and Learning, 3, 1, 53-78 Braj B Kachru & Celcil L Nelson (1996) World Englishes CUP: USA Brinton, D.M (1991) The use of media in language teaching In M CelceMurcia (ed.), Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, Boston: Heinle and Heinle Publishers Brosnan, D., Brown, K and Hood, S (1984) Reading in Context Adelaide: National Curriculum Resource Center Cook (1999) Going beyond the native speaker in language teaching TESOL Quarterly, 33, 2, 185-209 Ferguson, C A (1972) Language Structure and Language Use Standford: Standford University Press Fishman, J A (1972) Sociolinguistics USA: Newbury House Publishers Gebhard, J.G (1996) Teaching English as a Foreign Language: A Teacher SelfDevelopment and Methodology Guide Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press Haugen, E (1966) Language conflict and language planning The case of Modern Norwegian Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press Ho, Thi Thu Trang (2014) Using Authentic Materials in Listening Teaching Lessons Presented at Vinhphuc English Teaching Conference for the Gifted High Schools Hudson, R A (1980) Sociolinguistics Great Britain: CUP Hymes, D H (1972) Hymes, Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press Kachru, B B (1986) The alchemy of English: The spread, functions, and models of nonnative Englishes Oxford: Pergamon Press 11 (12) Le, Van Canh (2012) Teaching English as an International Language: A perspective from the expanding circle International Journal of Innovation in English Language Teaching, 1, 2, 189-199 Mc Kay, S L & Hornberger, N H (1996) Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching (ed) USA: CUP Nunan, D (1999) Second Language Teaching and Learning Boston: Heinle and Heinle Publishers Porter, D and Roberts, J (1981) Authentic listening activities English Language Teaching Journal, 36 (1), 37-47 Spolsky, B (1998) Language and Culture Oxford University Press: Great Britain Trudgill, P (1978) Sociolinguistics: An Introduction Great Britain: Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd Wardhaugh, R (2006) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (5th ed.) Singapore: Basil Blackwell Ltd 12 (13) APPENDIX Websites to get authentic materials - BBC (Online): http://www.bbc.co.uk/ - BBC (Radio): http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/ - CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/ - Earthwatch Radio: http://ewradio.org/ - Repeat After Us: http://www.repeatafterus.com/ - CBC Podcasts: http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/podcasts/ - NPR: http://www.npr.org/ - The British Council: http://www.britishcouncil.org/ - Newsy: http://www.newsy.com/ - The Weather Channel: http://www.weather.com/video/ - Schackne Online: http://www.schackne.com/ - Ted talks: https://www.ted.com/ - English teaching materials: http://www.onestopenglish.com/ - Exercises: www.englishdaily626.com - Teaching and learning English: https://fedor.vn - Teaching and learning English: www.ucan.vn - One of the most reliable English newspapers: indiatimes.com - Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/schooloflifechannel 13 (14) APPENDIX SOME SAMPLE LESSON PLANS READING: AN ARTICLE CHINA’S ‘VIOLENT PHILANTHROPIST’ GIVES AWAY FRESH AIR (The guardian Weekly, February 2012) I: Aims: By the end of the lesson, students will: - be able to know more about a debatable philanthropist, Chen Guangbiao in China so that students’ morality and humanity are raised together with their critical thinking - develop reading skill as well as other integrated skills II: Lexical items: words related to reading topic III: Teaching aids: PC and projectors, handouts IV: Procedure: Stages Teacher’s activities Students’ activities Warm-up - Show the word ‘Philanthropist’ on the screen and - They don’t know/ ask students whether they know this word or not If they know, ask - Show some pictures of famous persons such as them the meaning or Bill Gates, Geogre Soros for students to guess who explanation they are - Guess - Provide some information about their achievements, properties and donations - Say that they are philanthropists - Pay attention - Ask students to define a philanthropist - Show the definition of a philanthropist A philanthropist is a rich person who helps the - Give answer: They poor and those in need are rich, successful - Show the picture of Chen Guangbiao and ask and help other students whether they know him or not people who are - Show a short clip of Chen Guangbiao who is underpriviledged giving fresh air cans for the people in Beijing - Most/All of them retrieved from don’t know https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=GO2rKniOluA - Watch the clip - Ask students what is the man doing? What is in the cans? Why is he doing so? - Students give => Lead in: to know who the man is and what he is different answers doing, study the article: China’s ‘violent philanthropist’ gives away fresh air quoted in the Guardian Weekly, February 2012 Pre-reading - Pre-teach new words Pre-teach some new words by delivering handouts - Work individually in which students have to match new words in and the task column A with their definitions in column B 14 (15) - Call some students to write their answer on the blackboard and check the correct answers before asking all the students to read aloud the new words Whilereading Postreading Homewor k Exericse 1: Y/N - Deliver handouts of reading and ask students to read the article and the exercise - Check the answers and ask students to explain why they have those answers by pointing out the cues Exericse 2: Answer the questions - Ask students to work in pairs ask and answer the questions - Check the answers Discussion: Do you think you would be an admirer or a skeptic of Chen Guangbiao? Why - Ask students to work in groups and discuss - Call some students to present their ideas in front of the class - Give some remarks on their presentations and wrap up the lesson - Give the answer and then read after the teacher - Do the exercises - Discuss and Give presentations Assign homework Handouts Write the words in column A next to the people described in column B A Ebullient one /ɪˈbʌliənt/ Descendant Donor Entrepreneur /ˌɒntrəprəˈnɜː(r)/ Environmentalist Passerby Sceptic Sibling B A person who … a makes money starting new businesses b doubts that something is true c gives money to charity d is full of confidence, energy and good humour e walks past something by chance f wants to protect the natural world g is the brother or sister of someone h is the grandchild, great-grandchild, etc of someone 15 (16) 16 (17) 17 (18) NEW YORK CITY TRAVEL GUIDE on Youtube.com PREPARED BY Ho Thi Thu Trang – Halong Gifted High School Who am I? Read the sentences and find out which city is being described I am an apple I’m multicultural I’m famous for my theatres I love shopping And old lady welcomes you Yellow is my word I’m an island Visit me if you love musems Look up! 10 Film, film, films Watch the video, listen to the text and try to fill in the gaps New Yorkers like to think their is the centre of the world And who can blame them? Home to over million people, the city is and fast, and posed with energy America’s biggest city can be overwhelming for but you’ll find the street names make navigation And those yellow cabs are a great way to get around Manhattan is the and soul of the Big Apple And within its neighbourhoods, there’s a distinct and pace Lower Manhattan, the city’s disctrict bustles from Monday to Friday The of Time Square and Broadway burns bright in Midtown While dominating the Upper East End West sides are Central Park, boutiques and those 10 18 (19) brown-stone homes Based on the text, answer the questions: If you want to some shopping where would you go? _ If you are interested in arts which museums can you visit? _ How can you get to Liberty Island? _ Why is the Statue of Liberty important to immigrants? _ Where can you find street art? _ How about music? What kind of music can you hear at different parts of the city? _ Imagine that you are travelling to New York! Prepare a wish-list, what you would like to visit and why Here are some suggestions: "The rainforest song" by J.P Taylor 19 (20) a Cross out the words that are not in the listening Listen to the first paragraph and cross out the words that you not hear Here’s our beautiful song about a place, That’s threatened by the entirely human race Want to let you and me know We Want to let you know b Choose the correct option Listen to the second paragraph and choose the correct option Tropical PAIN/RAIN falls on tropical trees, Tropical rainforest, won’t you PLEASE/ SEE, Help us SAY/SAVE it now, Help us save it NOW/KNOW c Gap filling Listen to the chorus and fill in the blank Oooh! it gives us to breathe Oooh! the animals call it Oooh! its help you and me Oooh! us save it before it’s gone d Matching Listen to the fourth paragraph and match a half in A with a half in B A B They burn and a for their family But we all know it's doing harm b to go There's no place c somehow Monkeys rush from tree to d cut it down to farm 20 (21) 21 (22) (23)