Approaches to English for Academic Purposes for Non-native Speakers of English

Abstract

The role of English is recognized in many countries officially and unofficially, in everyday life and professional contexts. In 2003, David Crystal numbered a variety of historical, political, commercial, cultural, and technological factors for why English is considered a global language. This widespread use of English has been demonstrated by Kachru (1985) who classified its speakers into belonging to one of three main circles: The Inner Circle, the Outer Circle, and the Expanding Circle. The Inner Circle represents the regions where English is used as a principal language, for example, in the UK, the USA, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. The Outer Circle represents the regions that were colonized by Britain and the USA where English is an acknowledged formal language used in different everyday life situations as India, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Singapore. The Expanding Circle which is China, Europe, Japan, Korea, and the Arab world. In 2012, it was estimated that four of the ten countries with the highest proportion of international students (relative to the total university enrollment) were in the Inner Circle: Australia, UK, New Zealand and Canada (Charles, & Pecorari, 2016). Although these students may not be majoring in English, most of their studies are in systems that adopt English as a medium of instruction. It is not surprising then that statistically, in 2016, 1500 million people worldwide were speaking English, and only 375 million of them were native speakers (Statista). It is likely that English is used more among those who have been traditionally termed as nonnative speakers than among its native speakers. Therefore, it is of necessity