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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
Unit 3: Learning English
3.0 Introduct
The monolithic view suggests that learning a language is similar to learning other subjects, like biology or geography. And indeed, this is what many students, parents, politicians, and members of the public assume. But we have been proposing that ontologically, ethically, professionally, and practically, it makes sense to view English as plurilithic.
What do we know about how learners learn plurilithic entities like English? In this unit we invite you to reflect on what actually happens in your students’ minds as they learn ‘the language’.
Concept
Learning English isn’t the same as learning other school subjects
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Figure 3.1: A typical German school timetable
A German school pupil following the above timetable would study English on Monday and Tuesday mornings and Thursday afternoons, alongside other traditional subjects. This amounts to a couple of hours a week.
Pupils’ experience of studying English will be similar in many respects to their experience of studying the other subjects on the timetable, with a teacher who determines what happens in each session, a textbook, homework, and tests.
In their history class at 08:20 on a Monday morning, they may be taught that the Chinese revolution began in 1911 with the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and the abdication in 1912 of the last emperor, Puyi, following 2000 years of imperial rule. This follows on from 40 minutes of English, in which perhaps they have been introduced to some new vocabulary and ways of expressing the future, including the use of the auxiliary verb shall, e.g. in Shall we stay to help clear up? (as in Headway Upper-Intermediate).
From the learner’s perspective, they are getting a series of facts from the teacher which they are expected to store permanently in memory. (Although it’s unlikely that a great deal sinks in at that time on a Monday morning!)
Activity
Note down some quick responses to the following questions:
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- ● To what extent do you consider English to be like other subjects your students might be studying? Is it more like some subjects than others, or is it not really like a school subject at all?
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- ● To what extent do you regard what you do as similar to, or different from, what teachers of other subjects do?
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- ● Do you think your current students are learning English in the same way that they are learning the subject matter of other classes that they might be taking?
Feedback
Your response will depend to a great extent on your own experience of learning an additional language, as well as the educational context in which you work, the kind of training you’ve done, and your actual teaching experience.
Another important element in the way you conceive of English in the classroom is the extent to which you’ve studied, and reflected on, the mental processes by which language is learned. Teachers vary enormously in the exposure they’ve had to research on Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Many teachers resist the topic because the internal workings of the mind and brain seem so far away from the social realities of the classroom.
Plurilithic thinking entails challenging the belief that English is ‘a thing’ out there in nations, books, classrooms, and curriculums. So in this Unit we’ll look inside learners’ minds. Those who have already studied SLA may feel tempted to skip this section, but we recommend at least skimming the content because what we present here is not the traditional view of the field.
Adapting terms used by Widdowson (2000), we may call English as it is actually acquired and used the ‘object language’, described by linguists, and distinguish it from ‘the language subject’, the curriculum matter that is taught and tested alongside geography, biology, mathematics, literature, etc. The two are, of course, intimately related, but the relationship between them is far from straightforward or free of controversy.
Monolithic thinking about English makes ‘the language subject’ manageable for teachers (but not necessarily learnable for learners), whereas plurilithic thinking about Englishes takes the learner’s ‘object language’ seriously, and by doing so challenges many of the certainties that teachers have long believed in.
Many teachers clearly appreciate that the ‘the language subject’ can’t be approached in exactly the same way as other school subjects, despite the expectations of students, parents, and educational authorities. But they also have legitimate doubts that English can be learned in classrooms the same way that ‘the object language’ is acquired by infants who grow up in English-using contexts. In this unit we invite you to reflect on the processes involved in both first and L2 acquisition.