World englishes (WE) and english as lingua franca (ELF): Implications for english teaching and learning

Abstract

The worldwide use of English nowadays has promoted the development of WE and ELF, which have brought about certain challenges to traditional concepts of English education. Although with different interpretations based on various literature，in WE and ELF, both a variety of English around the world and effective communication in the language are thought highly of. In this sense, there are three measures that need to be taken. First, instead of sticking to native speaker model which merely values one variety of English, teachers should assist students achieving intelligibility among different speakers during interactions, promoting communicative approach and holding communicative activities in order to achieve the goal. Second, teaching methods and contents as well as assessment are supposed to correspond to needs of students, who probably learn English as a second or foreign language and use it for specific purpose only. Third, compared to native monolingual teachers of English, local bilingual teachers, who could perform better towards the two measures above due to characteristics such as local cultural insights, sympathy for students’ learning problems and the ability to use first language for assistance of teaching, are probably more suitable for successful English teaching in some cases. In this essay, after characteristics of WE and ELF are synthesized, implications on English teaching and learning will be discussed. In conclusion, the target of intelligibility, contextualized teaching and the selection of local bilingual teachers with high proficiency, all of which result from influence of WE and ELF, should be promoted in English education.