Global TESOL for the 21st Century. Heath Rose

likely to change due to the power held by the English during this time. Differences in population size and the context of the language contact gave rise to new Englishes in various parts of the British colonies. In contact situations typified by Channel 1 spread (e.g. in British colonies in New Zealand and Australia), the English language underwent a process of koineisation, which occurs when speakers of different dialects of English come into contact, and a new dialect emerges as a result. In contact situations typified by Channel 2 spread, the English language was subjected to creolisation, which was the result of speakers of languages other than English in sudden intense contact with English. For example, slavery forced different linguistic communities to adopt English as their primary, and often sole, lingua franca in plantation colonies. Both Channel 1 and Channel 2 saw the emergence of new forms of Native Englishes, via different linguistic processes. Channel 3 contact situations also resulted in the creolisation of English as a contact language, however this process typically occurred over a long period of time after going through an initial period of pidginisation. This channel of spread was also contextually typified with English being used alongside other more dominant local languages. For example, in Singapore, English was (and still is) used alongside Chinese, Malay and Tamil. In contexts where the role of English was reinforced as a language of education, law or political, it usually gave rise to nativised varieties of English, such is the case in Singapore. In other contexts, the role of English was diminished during post-colonial times, and thus plays a lesser role, such is the case of Malaysia.

Figure 1.1 The four channels of English Spread (adapted from Galloway & Rose, 2015: 14)

      The second major wave of English dispersion is seen as Channel 4 spread. As a result of 20th century globalisation, English emerged as a global prestige language due to the economic and political power of the USA during this period. Thus, wrongly or rightly, English was seen by many educational policymakers as a means to facilitate individual and national upward economic and social mobility. Accordingly, globalisation saw the emergence of educational policies worldwide that emphasised the teaching of English as a foreign language in regions which had no previous colonial ties to English-speaking nations. This Channel 4 spread via the educational systems, for example in China, is the cause of the current global boom we are witnessing in the number of L2 English speakers. Thus, the majority of English speakers today can be said to have come into contact with English as a result of Channel 4 dispersion.

      Exploring the global phenomenon – the rise of English as a global ­language – has occupied much applied linguistic and language education research in the previous few decades. The complexity in the ways in which English is used globally now attracts the attention of researchers from multiple perspectives: economic, political, linguistic, sociolinguistic, demographic, national and individualistic, to name just a few. It has also attracted the attention of educational researchers as it is inextricably linked with issues surrounding international education. As Chowdhury and Phan (2014) note, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) ‘has emerged an important field of choice for international students symbiotically accelerated by the growing dominance of English’ (2014: 1). This chapter introduces some of the core fields of research which underpin the concerns of TESOL researchers and practitioners associated with its global growth. The aim of this chapter is to develop a conceptual foundation for teaching English as an International Language in global contexts.

      Key Concepts in Capturing the Spread of English

      Research into the spread of English as a global language has resulted in the emergence of a number of interlinked academic fields of research within applied linguistics, which aim to explain the linguistic underpinnings of variation in English. Many of the fields also explore the sociolinguistic implications for the diverse contexts in which the language is now used. Paradigms for examining the spread of English include, but are not limited to:

      •World Englishes;

      •English as a lingua franca;

      •Global Englishes;

      •English as an international language.

      Even though each of these terms has emerged from research with slightly different areas of focus, they all contain overlapping ideologies. For example, all terms position the English language as globally owned, thereby divulging power from so-called ‘native speakers’ in terms of informing global English language norms. All paradigms also emphasise the implications of the global spread of English for English language teaching practices – the very focus of this book. In order to understand these terms in more detail, each of them is outlined in turn in this chapter. Building on this foundation, we hope to establish our preferred use of ‘English as an International Language’ throughout the remaining chapters in this book.

      World Englishes

      The theoretical work of Braj J. Kachru and Larry Smith in the 1970s and 1980s is largely credited with kickstarting World Englishes as an independent field of study (see Kachru, 1976). Historically, the field was mainly concerned with exploring linguistic variation in English used around the world, with a particular emphasis on phonological and grammatical variation of English in British post-colonial countries. Figure 1.1 shows that the areas of interest to most World Englishes researchers were the Englishes formed via Channel 2 (Slavery) and Channel 3 (Exploitation colony) spread. World Englishes research also had a sociolinguistic aim: by linguistically codifying varieties of English according to their patterned structures and prevalence of use, World Englishes scholars aimed to legitimise other forms of English beyond those considered as ‘standard’. In naming this emergent field of study ‘World Englishes’ scholars adopted a pluralisation strategy in their neologism, which emphasised the diverse and multiple forms that the English language had taken as a result of its global dispersion.

      World Englishes research also had a socio-political agenda at its core, which gave rise to the work of critical applied linguists. These scholars aimed to disrupt the status quo, due to observations of an unjustified power hierarchy of Englishes, which placed standards of British and American English at the top, followed by other regional ‘native’ standards, which were mostly confined to those that had emerged in settler colonies such as Australia and Canada (see Channel 1, Figure 1.1). Other nativised Englishes were seen to be treated as the ‘illegitimate offspring’ of English (Mufwene, 2001: 107), despite many of them being older, having a greater number of speakers, or being underpinned by more stable linguistic structures than other ‘native’ Englishes.

      This lack of legitimacy ascribed to nativised Englishes has had tremendous implications for language policy and educational curricula in many former British colonies, which in turn has caused harm to the identities of English language users. Through schooling, many students were told that the language they spoke at home was ‘broken’ or ‘inferior’. Adherence to standard norms of English was seen as a social status divide between educated classes and the general masses in many former colonies. World Englishes research has done much to rectify this by justifying new varieties in their own right.

      Over the years, there have been a number of attempts to theorise the spread of English around the world. Strevens’ (1980) World Map of English is an example of an early attempt to categorise varieties of English. This map, however, places American and British English at its top, and is problematic in its regional, rather than linguistic or sociohistorical, focus in organising other global varieties. McArthur’s (1987) Circle of World English organises varieties of English into a wagon-wheel formation, and places regionally focused varieties between each of its spokes. Its positioning of ‘World Standard English’ in the hub of the wheel is a positive movement in that power is taken from traditional standards such as American and British standard English, which are placed on par with other regional standards. While an ideology of equality underpins the model, its declaration of a World Standard and regional standard varieties of English is closer to fantasy than representing the actual messy reality of how English is globally used in the world today.

      The most influential model of World Englishes is indisputably