Detail English as an international language: misconceptions and reconceptualisations   Oleh:  Marlina, Roby Jenis: Article from Proceeding Dalam koleksi: KOLITA 17: Konferensi Linguistik Tahunan Atma Jaya Ketujuh Belas Tingkat Internasional, page 10-16. Topik: English international language; International language Fulltext: 10-16.Roby Marlina.pdf (426.33KB) Ketersediaan Perpustakaan PKBB Nomor Panggil: 406 KLA 17 Non-tandon: tidak ada Tandon: 1  Lihat Detail Induk Isi artikel For the last three decades, both TESOL and Applied Linguistics disciplines have undergone a major paradigm shift prompted by the unprecedented global expansion of the English language (McKay, 2018; Marlina, 2018b). One major outcome of this expansion, leading to numerous urgent calls for a critical re-assessment of the teaching, learning, and testing of English, is the pluralization of the users of English whose multilingual repertoires and linguistic creativity have organically shaped and reshaped the language in ways that are appropriate for their immediate local communicative contexts. This fluid and unusually complex nature of the English language has led to the development of different academic approaches to discussing English language usage namely, English as an International Language (EIL); World Englishes (WE); English as a Lingua Franca (ELF); and Global Englishes (GE). Not only do these „anti-normative? approaches provide an intellectual ammunition to contest the taken-for-granted or unquestioned superiority of the notions such as „the Queen?s English?, „Received Pronunciation?, or „General American?, but they also unanimously advocate the equal treatment given to all varieties of English and its speakers (Marlina, 2018a). As liberal and democratic as the approaches may sound, their practical implementation has been found to be relatively distant from reality (Rose, 2017; Marlina, 2018a), meaning that many current ELT practices are still dominated by the ideology of native-speakerism. For example, English as an International Language (henceforth, EIL) is one of the approaches that has been advocated for the past three decades by its pioneer Larry E Smith (1976). In 2002, it was revisited and re-emphasised by Sandra McKay in her seminal book entitled, Teaching English as an International Language. Since then, the field of TESOL and Applied Linguistics witnessed a boom in popularity for (teaching) EIL, evidenced in the wealth of publications on the approach (Sharifian, 2009; Alsagoff, Mckay, Hu & Renandya, 2012; McKay & Brown, 2016; Matsuda, 2012, 2017; Marlina, 2014, 2018a). However, various empirical studies that explore teachers and students? perceptions towards EIL and/or translating EIL into classroom practice (to name a few, Suzuki, 2011; Marlina, 2013; Chang, 2014; Galloway & Rose, 2014; Ali, 2015; Lee & Hsieh, 2018) have revealed resistance towards the ideological beliefs advocated by EIL scholars, and uncertainty about the practicality of EIL in language teaching. These findings were also similarly shared in research works on attitudes towards WE, ELF, and GE; and their pedagogical implications. One possible reason behind the resistance towards the ideological belief advocated by the anti-normative approaches is a lack of clarity in what those approaches actually advocate, and how they can be observed in a classroom setting. For example, some writings on EIL do not often begin with a solid conceptualization of EIL, leaving practitioners with plenty of rooms to guess what EIL is, and what teaching it actually entails. In McKay?s (2002) first publication on EIL, she begins her discussion on English as an International Language by providing comprehensive descriptions and explanations of the features of an international language; the number of speakers of English in the world and the countries where English receives an official status; and the factors behind the global expansion and its outcomes. Though these details on the changing sociolinguistic reality of English in the world are crucial, and have served to be a powerful ammunition to contest a monolithic and monocentric view of English, they have not been easy or perhaps concrete enough for language practitioners as well as some researchers to comprehend what EIL actually is. What may have caused further confusion is its diverse conceptualisations: EIL is „a concept? (Smith, 1976), EIL is „a paradigm? (Sharifian, 2009), EIL refers to the „uses of English? (Matsuda & Friedrich, 2010), EIL is „a linguistic and epistemological lens? (Marlina, 2014), and EIL is „a principle? (McKay, 2018). These multiple ways of conceptualizing EIL, asserted by Maley (2009) a decade ago, may have also caused the struggle for practitioners to see the applicability of EIL. From the implementation science point of view (Nilsen, 2015), understanding and explaining the success, failure (preferred term, limitations), or even absence of implementation is likely to be difficult without a clear and solid theoretical underpinning. This ambiguous theoretical underpinning, Nilsen (2015) further argues, can also “restrain opportunities to identify factors that predict the likelihood of implementation success and develop better strategies to achieve more successful implementation” (p.1). Due to word and space constraints, this paper aims to clarify, critically review, and debunk four recurring misconceptions of one of the academic approaches, i.e. English as an International Language. In my review of EIL, not only do I aim to reiterate what have already been documented in published works on the approach, but I also aim to modestly suggest an alternative way of conceptualizing EIL as there have been recently more queries and concerns raised in both EIL-related conferences and published empirical works. Opini Anda Klik untuk menuliskan opini Anda tentang koleksi ini! Kembali

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