Archive for the ‘English as a Lingua Franca’ Category

No, that doesn’t mean you can use the language without charge for 24 hours only (like the name “Jaffa Cakes”, someone forgot to copyright the English language and must be kicking themselves now), but rather that the journal English Today is available this month for free in order to celebrate reaching 100 readers in its 25 year history. It’s no Viz, Private Eye or El Jueves, but I will be reading the whole thing this time just to prove to them that making it free rather than- wait for it- 110 pounds  a year is a very good idea indeed. If you want to do the same, click here and show your support. I’ll be interested to see whether more people are interested in this than were interested in saving ELT in the UK!

Like “Japanese English”, “Korean English” is often used not to refer to a variety of English (like Singlish or Indian English) but to the use of English in the Korean language, including some words and expressions that were created in Korea from English and other European roots and don’t exist outside Korea. As I am using this meaning of “Konglish”, the expressions below are neither wrong English nor a variety of English but simply a category of Korean vocabulary similar to “French” expressions like “cul de sac” in English. The reasons for including them on a blog about English teaching are:
1. Korean people speaking English sometimes think they are used in other countries, and so they are an important source for error correction (in a recent Pre-Intermediate class of mine doing The Alibi Game, almost all the vocabulary mistakes were ones that were in this list), as long as it doesn’t make the students paranoid about using the vast majority of English phrases in Korean that have more or less the same meaning
2. It’s the one part of the Korean language that is interesting and accessible to people who will never even come here, including people who are teaching Korean students in other countries
3. This list took me hours, and until I manage to work out how to make some fun worksheets out of this, putting them on the blog makes me feel it wasn’t a complete waste of time…

Sorry about the uncharacteristically serious intro, but I was accused of being a racist (!) for doing a similar list of Japanese English, and have only just got over the trauma of that enough to do this with a new language and to use that list to label ones that are the same in Japanese (as well as other languages in the few cases I know) below:

• accel- accelerator- same in Japanese
• accessory- jewellery
• agree! – I agree
• all ri (from “all right”) – only used when backing up a car – same in Japanese
• American coffee- (more…)

“The surprising thing to most observers, including some historians of language, is that contact varieties of English came to ‘belong’ to other populations, that Americans and Englishmen who use EIL/ELF (English as a Lingua Franca/ English as a Lingua Franca) are not automatically authorities on it. If they want to use it, they must learn to do so from the Africans, Indians, Chinese who are expert (if, by definition, not native) speakers. Usually, the native speakers of English are quite clumsy in their attempts to use EIL/ELF; they are often objects of mockery to more proficient users” All- American English J L Dillard pg 14   (more…)

I’ve been reading “English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity” (hence “the ELF” of the post title) by Jenny Jenkins, and although its a much easier read than that Pseuds Corner book title might make you think, the main reaction so far is “Who cares?”

To summarize 37 pages in 37 words, the concept of English as a Lingua Franca is that as more and more English is used between non-native speakers a new variety or varities of English are being created that are just as valid and important as Glaswegian English or even RP and SAE- and much more relevant than those forms to most students studying English. So far, so fascinating- if we are in the process of the language and teaching changing, you can probably tell from the post below that I’d be happy to have something to shake things up. The important little grammar word here, though, is “if”.

Let’s see what Prof Jen Jen has to say about it: (more…)