English Grammar Pedagogy

A Global Perspective

Barbara M. Birch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136879760
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Designed for ESL and ELT pedagogy courses around the world, this text describes English grammar from a World Englishes perspective. It is distinguished by its focus on the social setting for English as a global language, the latest thinking about grammatical theory, and new theories of how first and second languages are learned and taught. The fundamental premise is that teaching and learning grammar cannot be isolated from the local, regional, and global sociocultural contexts in which the teaching and learning take place. Part I presents different attitudes toward English as a global language and some challenges that learners of English share no matter where they are in the world. Part II is about the features of English that educated speakers consider the most likely and probable in Academic English. Part III describes the flexible and fluid features of English that might be susceptible to change or modification over time. Each chapter includes engaging Study, Discussion, and Essay Questions and Activities.

Part I

Global Trends in English Grammar Pedagogy

Overall, Part I is meant to make a strong case for teachers’ own preparation for teaching language, especially in the area of formal grammar. Chapter 1 begins with a look at the global context of English language instruction and a discussion of what issues in the global spread of English influence English language teachers and learners in their local settings. Academic English (AE) is not the native language of anyone; its features are so specialized and conventionalized that it is a different variety of English. Although some English speakers are privileged because their “native” language is similar to it, in fact everyone faces linguistic obstacles when it comes to learning to write and speak AE, in contrast to his or her colloquial varieties. Grammatical obstacles like proper word choice, accurate grammatical forms, and complex sentence patterns form a barrier between AE and colloquial varieties of English. Grammar teachers across the globe have the job of helping learners who want to overcome the linguistic barrier.

Chapter 2 presents a new theory of grammar, Construction Grammar, that has been emerging in recent years. Construction Grammar offers a way of reconciling first language acquisition and second or later language learning as similar cognitive and linguistic processes. In Chapter 3, some factors in second language acquisition theory are explored for their influence on identity, language awareness, interaction, feedback, with special attention to the psychological processes involved in language learning. Finally, Chapter 4 is about the best practices in grammar instruction, in light of new ideas of language learning and acquisition. Some of the recommendations are innovative and some are traditional practices that are taken off the storeroom shelf, dusted off, and brought back into the classroom.

1

Global Perspectives on English

It goes without saying that, in the real world, all users of English are equal partners in ELF (English as a Lingua Franca); in the classroom, we will expose learners to those forms and varieties of English which will empower them to meet the challenges of globalism and to resist the hegemony of one culture over another.

(Prodomou, 2008, p. xiii)

Prodomou’s quote is a good introduction to a global perspective on English because it encapsulates three common ideas about what English is in the world today. First, there is the broad-based English that refers to a language used by many people the world over. This English has varieties that range from local to global, standard to non-standard, or halting to fluent. It has different users, mother-tongue monolinguals, second language learners, and bilingual and multilingual users. People use English for many purposes, from the integrative purposes of immigrants, refugees, and people who wish to participate actively in a globalized culture, to the instrumental purposes of entrepreneurs, students, and politicians who want to increase their social and economic capital through language learning. This broad concept of the English language is often called World Englishes (WE).

English as a Global Language

1. World Englishes (WE)

2. English as a lingua franca (ELF)

3. Academic English (AE)

The second idea about English has to do with English used as a lingua franca (ELF), which refers to a spoken variety of English used as a medium of communication among speakers of various levels of proficiency. For Prodomou (2008), any user of World Englishes can speak it as a lingua franca with others; for others, ELF is a more specialized concept. However, there is also a third concept of English in the quote: the forms and varieties within World Englishes that will empower learners to accomplish the professional or educational purposes they have set for themselves. This is the English of the classroom, Academic English (AE). This chapter is about these three concepts of English as a global language and some specific characteristics and challenges of Academic English.

English as a Global Language

English as a global phenomenon is described metaphorically in a number of different ways. It is part of a global system of language constellations. It is the result of processes of intentional diffusion as a form of imperialism and colonialism. It is a place of resistance to imperialism and colonialism. It is a set of concentric circles of multicultural speakers, and finally it is a language spoken at the intersection of different populations and purposes.

Constellations

English is a language of wider communication (LWC). Languages of wider communication are resources that allow speakers to communicate with people beyond their local context and setting. They are official languages like Mandarin in China, international languages like French or Arabic, or trade languages like Hiri Motu in Papua New Guinea. LWCs are at the center of linguistic constellations and galaxies with local languages clustered around them, and with regional dialects clustered around national languages.

The languages of the world together constitute a global system held together by multilingual people who can communicate with several language groups. The position of each language in this system may be characterized by its “communication value” (Q), the product of its prevalence and its centrality. Languages represent a very special class of economic goods: they are not only collective goods but also display network effects . . . The special characteristics of language, language groups and their accumulated textual capital help to explain the dynamics of language acquisition, conservation, and abandonment.

(de Swaan, 1998, p. 63)

This dynamic system of languages was not intentionally created but is the result of many individual actions. People learn second and third languages (or not), speak and write languages, stop using languages, and neglect to teach their languages to their children. Their actions create a global system of languages held together by people who are positioned by their languages to interact with people in other positions. The way that people position themselves reveals the prevalence and centrality of a language in the constellation of languages.

An example that de Swaan gives is the position of Russian among former Soviet Union countries and satellites. Among the people of those regions, Russian was at the center as a LWC because, among multilingual people, Russian was the most frequently known. By de Swaan’s reckoning, English is now the most central LWC, with the highest communication value and strategic importance because of its number of speakers and sociopolitical and economic importance. English also has a very high textual capital, which is a term for written or memorized texts that are part of the cultural capital or heritage produced by the users of that language in media, art, music, scholarship, and so on. More and more, the texts created by people across the globe are in English.

The constellation metaphor that applies to languages of the world can also describe World Englishes. It is a constellation of different spoken and written varieties with different communicative values, network effects, and textual capital that affect acquisition, conservation, and abandonment. In each English-speaking country there are national standard varieties as well as regional standards that differ in pronunciation and some grammatical patterns. There are a lot of differences between spoken English and formal written English, so many differences that a language barrier called diglossia has arisen. D...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part I: Global Trends in English Grammar Pedagogy
• Part II: Consensus Grammatical Features
• Part III: Unstable Grammatical Features
• Bibliography
• Index