Vol 10 No 1 TESL Reporter

              teaching english as a second language
voll10 nool oi 10 n oi 1 nI laie hawaii
fall 1976

ESOL
A

on the teaching learning of english as an international auxiliary language
a by lorry
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bparl i position pa e
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4

HAL

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smith
he spoke with varying degrees of accents He avy said the indians and japanese have heavys s accents while indonesiians and filipinos I dont his question bothered me for two reasons first it indicated a lack of experience on his part indians and japanese are usually identifiable by their speech but so are indonesiians and filipinos if he had I s more experience he would find that out second and more seriously the attitude underlying his question seemed to be english is the language of the united states if foreign students plan to study here why dont they get rid of their foreign accents and speak it the way we do without accent at first this attitude angered me it seemed a classic example of we have the best linguistic imperialism language we speak it correctly if youll learn to speak it well youll be all right As 1 thought more about it however 1 beI I gan to realize he was not unique in his thinking and we in english language education ELE around the world are partly the cause of it we have led others to feel that english belongs to native english speakers to ameri cans canadians australians and the

I recently 1 heard a well known political scientist talking about foreign students living in the united states he asked why they

CONTENTS
ESOL

elal by larnt E r any
ELAL IA

smith

pag e t ag

1

teaching english through songs and games by patricia P realm in
ESL

page

4

use for dialogues by jack wigfield new ESL songs

adult literacy A new
page page 6
8

teaching writing skiinlns k fl f c to adult navajos by sally currie
incidental learning via pedagogic dialogues by emilio G cortez

page 10

page 12

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TESL reporter
e tiions come to mind how and why has english become an international language how does any language become an international language even more basic questions are what is an international language who might use one for what purpose 911 har l like pain it is more difficult to define than to recognize what is needed is an operational definition of an international language and let me suggest that it is a language used by people of different nations to communicate with one another As you will notice this definition doesnt bar any language from being used as an international language any of the 3000 or more languages of the world can be and many often are languages used for communication by people of different nations for example bengali qualifies as an international language when it is used by people from india and bangladesh to communicate with each other so is bikol a language of the philippines if

na v british too often non nattiive english teachers have been heard saying english isnt our language as if it belonged to another race nation or ethnic group EFL english as a foreign language and ESL english as a second language are the most frequently used terms for ELE in asia and the pacific ESOL english for speakers of other languages is the cover term used for both EFL and ESL english is said to be a foreign language in countries like japan thailand and korea while it is called a second language in hong kong the philip1 pines and singapore I no longer believe that these terms EFL ESL ESOL are the most appropriate for our work in ELE in that they dont accurately identify and reflect how english is being used 1 think it I is time for a change

we in ELE need to find redundant ways to point out that english belongs to the world and every nation which uses it does so with different tone color and quality anyone who speaks english has an accent no matter whether it is an american a malaysian or a Zambiian it is true then that c za b indians and japanese speak with accents when they speak english but so do canadians australians and all the rest english is an international language it is yours no matter who you are as much as it is mine 1 no matter who I am we may use it for different purposes and for different lengths of time on different occasions but nonetheless it belongs to all of us english is one of s ngu ges the languaage of japan korea micronesia and the philippines it is one of the languages of the repubilic of china thailand f and the states no one needs to become more like the americans the british the australians the canadians or any other native english speaker in order to lay claim on the language to take the argument a step further it isnt even necessary to appreciate the culture of a country whose principal language is english in order for one to use it effectively english belongs to everyone if you accept this argument then it is time to stop calling it a foreign language or second language instead lets change ESOL to EIAL english as an international Auxiillia ry language which more accurately x aux ila reflects the present state of english language usage around the world if we do make this change several ques

research associate at the east west center culture learning institute he has travelled extensively in the far east and presently heads two programs one for insrviic e I e erv c s teacher trainers and one for pre service teacher trainers
is a

larry smith

it is used by an indonesian to communicate with a filipino then an international language may be any of the languages of the earth either natural or man made such as esperanto or PL 1 it can be used for any purpose trade diplomacy and law on a large scale between governments or transnational corporations or on a very small scale between tourists and locals in a department store while the ultimate goal of the language usage is communication actual content of the transaction can be as varied as the populations involved tional language then our questions how and why has english become an internaand how does any tional language language become an international language can be answered quite simply english or any other language is an international language when used by people of different nationalities to communicate with each our questions may then become other what is it that causes a language to be

if any language can

serve as an interna-

fail fall 1976 li n h
frequently used as an international one and what languages have bee ware being ee n e 1 I would suggest that used frequently in the past the most frequently used languages as international languages were latin sanskrit arabic spanish and french in the last fifty years the use of english has greatly increased and today french and english are perhaps the ones most frequently used as international languages why it might be assumed that the total number of native speakers would have something to do with it the more speakers the more often the language is used at first the observation appears to be true we note that there are only 28 languages which have more than 30 million native speakers if we combine the total number of speakers of these languages the result is about 3 billion people of these 28 languages there are only 17 with over 50 million native speakers and these comprise over four fifths of the 3 billion total it would seem then that the languages most frequently used as international languages would be this 17 this is true following this line of reasoning we would expect the top three to be the most frequently used this is not true
17 languages which have 50 million or more native speakers in order of decreasing magnitude are 1 mandarin 2 english 3 spanish 4 russian 5 bengali 6 hindi 7 arabic 8 portuguese 9 japanese 10 german 11 wu shangjavanese 13 12 hai italian 14 french 15 telegu 16 cantonese and 17 korean although french is frequently used as an international language it ranks 14 on our list of 17 we are forced as an international language than

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russian yet no one denies that the soviet union has much more power and influence than france
colonial history france has many more former colonies than russia so that helps in comparing them but what about spain which lias more than france yet spanish il h isnt as frequently used as an international language as french culture that is nations having a history of recognized fine arts this definition certainly fits countries where latin arabic sanskrit spanish and french is or was spoken but what about english compared with mandarin or with italian there is no way english could win either contest

4 language of

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wealth in natural resources of the countries which use the language natively if that were the case then indonesian and arabic should be frequently used

technological advancement of the countries which use the language natively 7 if so japanese would be one of the most frequently used but so far it isnt number of countries which use the language natively as the principal language this seems like a possibility english is used natively in the united kingdom the united states canada australia south africa and new zealand but french is used only in france and western switzerland southern belgium and various former french possessions while spanish is used as the principal language in spain most of central and south america mexico cuba puerto rico and the dominican republic and arabic is the principal language of arabia jordan syria iraq egypt and parts of northern africa

the

to the conclusion that the total number of native speakers does not correlate directly with the frequency a language is used as an international language

what about power and political influence of the countries in which a language is used natively these factors would appear to have
an influence on language usage until we realize that french is more frequently used

taken from language and A retrospective survey of ford foundation language projects 1952 19774p 13 19 4 p 13

information development

1 1 language I must admit I dont know how or ow b why english has become an internaziionaal l nat 1 language of frequent use but I do know that it has never before has it been more readily eer ap used across frontiers it is the language most r continued on page 14

e it appears to be very difficult to state tho cau criterial attributes of a language which cause it to be used frequently as an international