GLOBAL ENGLISH:
The end of English as a foreign language

David Graddol emphasises his main point.

The other effect of globalisation, as debated by linguists and educational experts, is in the language. Globalisation, they say, has established preconditions for a new world language order _ English as a global language.

To David Graddol, a renowned UK applied linguist, this new role of English will happen in the next 10 to 15 years, and he attributes the world's changing demography, economy, and technology as the driving factors.

However, this is not a story of the triumph of the English language over other languages in the world. Rather, the new world language order is in place to raise many questions regarding the role of native English speakers and more importantly, how the teaching and learning of English should be carried out globally.

These were the key topics of discussions at a conference recently held in Bangkok on ``Future Perfect? English Language Policy for Global Transition. It was organised by the British Council and the Thai Ministry of Education.

English as lingua franca?

The Nineteenth century model of English language learning, says Graddol, puts more emphasis on native speakers as ones to expand English usage through out the world. This model also creates a clear distinction between native English speakers and those who speak English as a second or a foreign language.

With globalisation, this model becomes outdated. As people travel and move to other parts of the world, they increasingly use English as the means of communication, particularly among non-native speakers.

One of the best examples is in Europe, where people who used to speak English as a foreign language have gained enough proficiency in English to use it interchangeably with their own native language. According to the Eurobarometer surveys, more than 80 percent of citizens of The Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark claim to be able to hold conversations in English in 2005.

``Increasingly, people will speak English along with other languages,'' Graddol says. With major corporations reaching out to areas of the world where labour is cheap, non-native English speakers in all levels of the work force will be in direct contact with each other.

``This is particularly true of service-based areas, rather than manufacturing. In manufacturing, to some extent, the large workforce needs skills but doesn't need other languages so much. Now it seems, as we move toward a service-based economy, increasingly everyone needs language skills,'' Graddol says.

The emerging services economy, along with the shift in English language learning model, has given a whole new meaning to the study of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). In the world where high English proficiency is required, according to Graddol, studying English solely for a communicative purpose _ as in the EFL model _ is no longer enough.

``At the moment, [achieving native-speaker-like fluency] is always the goal,'' Graddol says. Doing so, means that the focus of learning is on what learners cannot yet do, rather than on what they can already do. ``Of course, it's also an impossible goal for every learner of that language as a foreign language.''

Proficiency vs fluency

With a shift of focus to proficiency, experts have applied new methodologies to the teaching and learning of English. One of the methods that have been proved successful in North America and Europe, since its introduction in the mid-1990s, is Content and language integrated learning (Clil).

David Marsh, an education specialist from Finland's University of Jyvaskyla, emphasises that integration is the key to Clil's success. ``Clil is a dual purpose approach, in which an additional language, such as English, is used in teaching and learning of both content and language,'' he says. This way, students have an extra platform for practicing the language, rather than doing it only in English classes. ``It gives young people confidence in the language,'' Marsh adds.

Compared with a total immersion programme found in international schools, Clil requires a smaller amount of exposure to English per day. In fact, Marsh says that the Clil methodology works best in bilingual education, where exposure to English is usually less than 50 percent.

In a country that has one dominating national language like Thailand, the language shower technique works best. ``That is, start it so that it doesn't actually take up much time in the curriculum but that it is a continuous experience,'' Marsh says.

``The focus of the language shower is not to learn English, but it is to play, to sing, to learn something about flowers, mountains, or whatever,'' he adds. Give grade one students a 10-minute exposure per day to an integrated English curriculum, for example. That should be enough.

Clil, however, is not a replacement for English language teaching. In fact, it is often used as an additional tool, one that fuses subject teaching and language teaching. As a result, the questions that must be answered before adopting the Clil method include at what age should Clil be started and in what form?

``Looking at Thailand, I would say early language learning needs to be a priority,'' Marsh suggests. ``If a child, at a very early age, like five years old, can enjoy singing a song in English, that child is beginning to think in English, even though the vocabulary command or the grammatical function is low.''

This characteristic makes a Clil classroom highly interactive. The best scenario, according to Marsh, is to have one English teacher work with two or three subject teachers in delivering Clil. Merely changing the language of instruction, from Thai to English, for example, is not the Clil approach. Non-native speaking teachers, Marsh says, are as good as native speakers at carrying out Clil.

``Local teachers know the way children think, in terms of local context and culture. Clil involves using that knowledge [of how children think] in teaching through English. So, the old idea of we must push Thai culture out of our classroom and punish children who speak Thai doesn't work in the Clil context,'' Marsh adds.

Increasingly, the need for non-native speakers to teach through Clil may force native speakers to re-examine their roles. With English becoming a global language, as more non-native speakers communicate with each other through English, native English speakers find themselves in direct competition with non-native speakers, particularly in the area of education.

``I don't think anyone knows at this stage whether global English is good news or bad news for native speakers,'' says Graddol. ``It's a very difficult question to work out. I was the one to raise the question mark, of perhaps it's not good news.''

Universities in the United Kingdom, for example, are finding themselves more and more in direct competitions with universities in Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. ``Asian students who might have gone to the UK, the United States, or Australia, are now going to Germany. They find that a more attractive proposition because they can have international standards of education, taught through English, and also learn about Germany, while getting a better understanding of the European Union,'' Graddol explains.

In a way, the conference raises some warning flags regarding the role of native English speakers. Although in the next 10 to 15 years, Graddol still envisions English as the lingua franca and as something to be learned at a very early age, the tables are being turned on the native speakers themselves.

If all these predictions came true, specialist English teachers in many countries can expect to see the nature of their jobs changing in the near future.

For more information on Future Perfect? English Language Policy for Global English Conference, visit http://my.britishcouncil.or.th/?future-perfect