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Course Introduction
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Unit 1: Defining English
This unit introduces the idea of alternative monolithic and plurilithic conceptions of English.
- 1.0 Introduction
- 1.1 Monolithic vs Plurilithic Concepts
- 1.1.1 Monolithic Concepts of Language
- 1.1.2 Plurilithic Concepts of Language
- 1.2 ‘Standard English’
- 1.2.1 ‘Standard English’: History
- 1.2.2 ‘Standard English’: Beliefs
- 1.2.3 Advantages and Disadvantages of ‘Standard English’ for ELT
- 1.3 Rules of English
- 1.3.1 The ambiguity of the word rule
- 1.3.2 Rules of English: The Monolithic View
- 1.3.3 Rules of English: The Plurilithic View
- 1.4 Four Dimensions of Monolithism
- 1.5 Check Your Understanding
- 1.6 Reflect and Discuss
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Unit 2: Using English
This unit explores the plurilithic usage of English in diverse global settings.
- Unit 2: Using English
- 2.1 Introducing Lingua Franca Usage
- 2.2.1 Native speaker Variation
- 2.2.2 Native speakers: Accommodation
- 2.3 Englishes in the British Isles
- 2.4 World Englishes
- 2.4.1 Englishes in Your Part of The World
- 2.4.2 Owning a language (Part 1)
- 2.5 ELF
- 2.5.1 Intelligibility
- 2.5.2 ELF in Your Part of The World
- 2.6 Translanguaging with English
- 2.7 Check Your Understanding
- 2.8 Reflect and Discuss
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Unit 3: Learning English
This unit discusses how English is learned as a first or additional language.
- Unit 3: Learning English
- 3.1 First Language Acquisition
- 3.2 Back to Rules
- 3.2.1 Rules as Patterns in the Mind (Part 1)
- 3.2.2 Rules as Social Markers
- 3.2.3 Rules as Mental Representations
- 3.2.4 Rules in Schools
- 3.2.5 Rules as Patterns in the Mind (2)
- 3.3 Models and Targets
- 3.4 Learning Contexts
- 3.5 Owning a Language (Part 2)
- 3.6 Learners and Users
- 3.7 Check Your Understanding
- 3.8 Reflect and Discuss
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Unit 4: Teaching English
This unit examines the teaching implications of plurilithic conceptions of English.
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Unit 5: Changing English
This unit suggests ways to share your learning on the course with others.
- Unit 5: Changing English
- 5.1 The Challenge
- 5.2 Changing Learners’ Beliefs About English
- 5.3 Changing Teaching Colleagues’ Beliefs About English
- 5.4 Changing Policy-Makers’ Beliefs About English
- 5.5 Changing the Public’s Beliefs About English
- 5.6 Check Your Understanding
- 5.7 Reflect and Discuss
- Course Finish
2.4.1 Englishes in Your Part of The World
Activity
In which circle would you place the country where you were born? What about other countries where you may have lived, studied, worked, or visited?
It comes as a surprise to many English teachers that among users of English, ENL users are in a minority (less than half a billion). There are more ESL users (more than half a billion), and over twice as many EFL users (over a billion, and expanding daily—hence Kachru’s name for this circle of nations). But numerical superiority doesn’t necessarily imply linguistic assertiveness: because of the monolithic beliefs we looked at earlier, according to which languages belong to nations, most users of English in Expanding Circle countries look to users from the UK, the USA and other Inner Circle nations for the ‘correct’ forms of the language. They are, in Kachru’s terms ‘norm-dependent’.
Many ESL users in the Outer Circle nations, on the other hand, have adapted English for their own local purposes in the years since independence from the Inner Circle countries that once oppressed them. In other words, they have begun to ‘indigenise’ it: they are ‘norm-developing’ in Kachru’s terms. As Manmohan Singh said in his Oxford speech, English is now ‘just another Indian language’. In some cases, the indigenised variety is becoming codified. For example, A Dictionary of Nigerian English Usage (Igboanusi, 2002) allows ‘Nigerians and foreigners alike to recognise and learn the varieties of English peculiar to Nigerian usage and gain a more in-depth understanding of the state of Nigerian English’.
Discussion point 2.1
Wherever you are currently living, there are likely to be Outer and Expanding Circle Englishes being used somewhere nearby—perhaps all around you. A typical feature of these Englishes is their hybridity and the blurring of the borders between them and the languages used alongside them. This is clearly seen in what’s called ‘foreign accent’, and also in the ‘borrowing’ of words.
Find some samples of what might be Outer or Expanding Circle usage in your location, and make a list of some of the words which might not be considered to ‘belong’ to ‘Standard English’. See if you can find at least ten if you live in an Inner Circle country… and restrict yourself to twenty if you are in the Outer or Expanding Circles. (If you’re in an Expanding Circle country, feel free to look at learners: they are using English too!)
Share your words here to see if other course users can tell you how widespread they are.