THE CHANGING WORLD OF ENGLISH

In the 80´s the world of English was described in terms of three circles. In the inner circle there were countries such as
Britain, the USA, Australia, etc. Countries where English is the primary language.

The outer circle contained countries where English had become an oficial or widely-used second language. These
included India, Nigeria, Singapore, etc. Finally, the expanding circle represented those countries where English was
learnt as a foreign language, countries such as Poland, Japan, Argentina, Mexico, etc.

It was once assumed that there was some kind of inbuilt superiority for inner circle speakers. They spoke better English,
and there were more of them. Among other things, this situation bred an extremely enervating inferiority complex
among many a non-native speaker learner/teacher. But since English is now used more often as a lingua franca than as a
native language, and since the majority of competent English speakers are not native speakers, but second-language
users. The inner circle has lost much of its linguistic power, real or imagined.

As a result, a consensus has emerged that instead of talking about inner, outer and expanding circle Englishes, we need
to recognise “World Englishes” (Jenkins 2006ª: 159) or “Global English” (Graddol 2006:106). World English belongs to
everyone who speaks it, but it is nobody´s mother tongue. Nobody owns English anymore. In other words we could say
that we all own it together in a kind of international shareholders’ democracy since whatever English we speak- Indian,
British or Malaysian. Suddenly, native speakers may actually be at a disadvantage if we compare less educated native
speakers with highly competent and literate second-language English users. Because native speakers are becoming less
and less powerful in the daily use of the language, we will have to adjust the way in which both native and non-native
speaker experts have traditionally thought about learning and teaching English around the world.

For many years, scholars and teachers have made a distinction between EFL and ESL. EFL described situations where
students were learning English in order to use it with any other English speaker in the world- when the students might
be tourists or business people. Students often studied EFL in their own country, or sometimes on short courses in
Britain, The USA, Australia, Canada, Ireland, etc. ESL students, on the other hand, where described as usually living in a
target language community and needed the target language in order to survive and prosper in that community, doing
such things s renting apartments, accessing the local health service, etc. It follows from this separation that the language
studied in EFL lessons will be different from the language which ESL students concentrate on.

The distinction has become difficult to sustain, however, for two reasons. Firstly, many communities- whether in English
or non-English speaking countries- are now multilingual, and English is a language of communication. Does that make it a
foreign or a second language? Secondly, however, many students of EFL use English in a global context, as for
international communication, especially on the internet, means that our students are in fact part of a global target –
language community. For all this, it makes sense to blur the distiction and say, instead, that whatever situation we are
in, we are teaching ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages). This does not mean we should ognore the context in
which language-learning takes place, but it does reflect a more multilingual global reality.

The reality of Global English has caused some people to become very interested in what happens when it is used as a
lingua franca EFL- that is between two people who do not share the same language and for whom English is not their
mother tongue.

For Jennifer Jenkins, the evidence of EFL suggests that we should change what we teach. Instead of conforming to a
native standard such as British English, learners’ need to learn not a variety of English, but about Englishes, their
similarities and differences, issues involved in intelligibility, the strong links between language and identity, and so on.
Vicky Kuo (2006) argues strongly against this view, and she points out that there is more to language use than mere
international intelligibility. She suggests that while a a degree of inaccuracy may be tolerated in communication, it does
not constitute an appropriate model for learning purposes, especially in a highly competitive world where accuracy and
linguistic creativity not only in speech, but also in reading and writing may contribute towards success.

Taken from “The Practice of English Language Teaching” Fourth Edition. Jeremy Harmer