Global Trends: Challenges and opportunities Christian Duncumb British Council

research-englishnext.htm

A world in transition Society Demography Economy Communications Languages

The educational revolution Changing needs of society Changing basic skills Changing nature of knowledge Social cohesion

Higher Education Globalisation of universities International student mobility Transnational education

Global change The growth of English

Which model? What variety of English is regarded as authoritative? Which language skills are most important? (Reading? Speaking? Interpreting?) What is regarded as a suitable level of proficiency? How and where will the language be used? What is the motive for learning? At what age should learning begin? What is the learning environment (classroom only? Family? Media? Community?) What are the appropriate content and materials for the learner? What will be the assessment criteria? What kind of exams? Graddol 2006: 82

A post-method world? “There is no single way of teaching English, no single way of learning it, no single motive for doing so, no single syllabus or textbook, no single way of assessing proficiency and, indeed, no single variety of English which provides the target of learning” Graddol 2006: 82

Global trends But, there are some clear trends which have evolved and are emerging: English for Young Learners (EYL) Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)

EYL Age at which children start with English is lowering and being introduced with greater compulsion Idea that it is easier for young children to learn languages It gives students longer to learn English over their school careers. Critical mass? Provides a potential transition to CLIL at secondary school and English medium learning later

EYL dangers Needs specialist teachers who understand child development and are good at English. There can be a lack of such teachers Expansion must be met with corresponding changes elsewhere in the curriculum Will result in a very mixed abilities entering secondary school Children need to be motivated for 10 years or more Failure at the early stage might have profound implications later So, “the expansion in TEYL signals a potentially major shift in ELT that needs to be taken seriously” (Cameron 2003: 106)

CLIL CLIL is different – focus on both content and language learning. Not the same as English medium education Combining language and content can help give more space to language to achieve ‘critical mass’ Can be seen as the ultimate communicative methodology and fits in with global trends Growth has dangers

But….. Relies on basic language skills having been learned, usually at Primary level Requires different skills of teachers Changes the working relationships in schools Difficult to implement unless the subject teachers have enough language. Dangers if not done effectively. Students may end up not learning content and language Potentially excluding

ELF Fewer global interactions in English now involve a native speaker. New target models – the fluent bilingual speaker Search for a lingua franca core

ELF The ‘th’ sounds as in ‘thin’ and ‘this’ The contrast between long and short vowel sounds Weak forms such as the words ‘to’, ‘of’ and ‘from’ Articles Idiomatic expressions

ELF Change in materials and syllabus content Change in expectations – intelligibility not native-speaker accuracy The death of the native-speaker?

The English escalator Increase in English-medium university courses School-leavers need higher English proficiency English increasingly used to teach curriculum at secondary school English introduced earlier and earlier at Primary school

Expected proficiency increases AgeFromto A1 (IELTS 2.0) 14A2 (IELTS 3.0) 16B1 (IELTS 4.0) A1 (IELTS 2.0) A2 (IELTS 3.0) B1 (IELTS 4.0) B2 (IELTS 5.5) C1 (IELTS 6.5) C2 (IELTS 7.0)

Some possible long-term implications of trends Teachers working with ever younger learners The recent growth of English medium-courses at Universities will move down to secondary school. Increasing use of CLIL at secondary school Ultimately English teachers may ‘lose’ their subject English is increasingly seen as a basic skill Increasing irrelevance of native speakers and the doom of monolingualism There are dangers in not keeping up but also dangers in not implementing effectively

“ The key to understanding the impact of global English probably lies in how well and how strategically its implementation is managed in each country. There is scope for great success but also for great disaster.” Graddol 2006: 120

For Russia? What variety of English is regarded as authoritative? Which language skills are most important? (Reading? Speaking? Interpreting?) What is regarded as a suitable level of proficiency? How and where will the language be used? Is the motive for learning largely ‘instrumental’ or also ‘integrative’? At what age should learning begin? What is the learning environment (classroom only? Family? Media? Community?) What are the appropriate content and materials for the learner? What will be the assessment criteria? What kind of exams? Graddol 2006: 82