English Circles and the ELF Class
Michael Philips
Philips reviewed his pechakucha presentation, English Circles (November 2013) to continue a discussion of including world Englishes in teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL).
English Circles are the different conceptual layers—or varieties—of English as a Lingua-Franca (ELF), with non-native English speaking countries represented by outer circles and native English-speaking countries at the core. The split between teaching to native-speaker proficiency within the reality of non-native speaker experience was clarified by a TED clip, which pointed out that, while there are two billion people in the world presently fervently studying English, actual perfection in the language is unattainable. There is an expanding circle of non-native speakers escaping allegiance to the core and regional variants are getting increased identity. These English as an International Language (EIL) learners need intelligibility more than native speaker similitude and, as Widdowson (1994) says, English is the property of those who speak it.
Globish is the name applied to the emerging language code evolving into a simplified lingua franca; whether it is a descriptive or prescriptive term seems to depend upon the success of those enterprises trying to market it.
All this begged the question of which Standard English should define Globish and opened a very lively discussion to finish the presentation.
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