Educational Implications Of Teaching English As An International Language

Educational Implications
After presenting different views of the role of the English language in the world nowadays, we should question what kind of teaching would be most appropriate to the learning of English as an International Language. McKay (2002:12), based on the ideas of Smith (1976), summarizes some important aspects that should be considered to the teaching of an international language.
1) As an international language, English is used both in a global sense for international communication between countries and in a local sense as a language of wider communication within multilingual societies. 2) As it is an international language, the use of English is no longer connected to the culture of Inner Circle countries. 3) As an international
This, she says, implies that there is no need to internalize the cultural norms of the inner-circle countries and, furthermore, EIL becomes de-nationalized. Learning English may be seen as possibilities for learners to communicate their ideas and culture in a new language. McKay (2002) affirms that the most important point when teaching English as an international language is intelligibility among interlocutors. This means that it should emphasize the aspects of the language which could hinder communication and those which may lead to negative attitudes and misunderstandings. Learners should develop a sense of tolerance towards other cultures and learn to feel comfortable with diversity. At the same time, she says, students should acquire a pragmatic competence, implying that following a native model may not be relevant at all. As McKay (2012) sees it, materials that focus exclusively on the norms of an Inner Circle country will not adequately prepare such individuals to deal with the diversity of English they hear, and that the teaching of EIL should respect the local culture of
As Pederson (2011, p. 64) states, mutual intelligibility considers the vastly global world of the 21st century and redistributes some of the power relations by taking the authority away from the Inner Circle varieties and placing it in the hands of all English users. Nevertheless, the author states that a question remains: who decides who is intelligible and in what contexts? (p. 64). Similarly, Rajagopalan (2010: 467) affirms that no matter how one tries to define intelligibility from a neutral standpoint, the question that cries out for an answer is: intelligible for who?. The author questions whether what someone dismisses as unintelligible may well sound perfectly intelligible to another (p. 468). According to him, mutual intelligibility is not guaranteed by the availability of a common language, but rather a willingness or need to understand one another (p. 469) which implies that speakers should learn how to cope with any initial communication difficulties they may