‘Do as WE Do’: Teaching World Englishes in a General English Course to Thai Students

Abstract

The spread of English throughout the world has led to the language acquiring the status of an international language and has also led to the emergence of many varieties of English in different parts of the world, commonly referred to as world Englishes (WE). In this regard, WE advocates are making efforts to raise awareness of English diversity and have highlighted the need for learners and educators to develop positive attitudes toward such diversity. In order to promote greater awareness and more positive attitudes in language-learning classrooms, various WE-informed pedagogical principles for language teaching have been developed by WE practitioner-researchers. However, research building on the growing body of reports on English language teaching (ELT) classroom innovation and how to better share such innovation in practice remains scarce in some under-researched contexts, such as Thai classrooms. Consequently, the present study aims to address a gap by offering a practical example of how to incorporate WE into an English language learning course for university students in the English as a foreign language context. To further justify its significance, the study also shares the written reflections of students on their experiences with WE-oriented learning activities. These reflections revealed positive attitudes toward linguistic diversity and their improved understanding of the sociolinguistic reality of English after taking part in the innovative WE-oriented learning activities. The present study showcases innovative classroom practice that differs completely from the traditional classroom in terms of its particular focus on raising the awareness of WE, and it is also hoped that such classroom practice may provide some guidance for the further implementation of WE in other ELT contexts.

Which English Should We Stand For? Voices from Lecturers in Thai Multicultural Universities

“…Teaching activities that help increase awareness of WE are recommended. For instance, teachers could give students the freedom to explore different English varieties and let them choose a variety to discuss with peers in class (Galloway and Rose, 2018; Rajprasit, 2021). Furthermore, teachers could introduce ELF situations, ask the students to analyze them and debate controversies, given that they must avoid judging which English varieties are superior.…”

English as an International Language: Perceptions of EFL Preservice Teachers in Higher Education Institutions in Indonesia

“…The term WE refers to the global spread of English and the heterogeneity of English across the world [17]. To put it in another way, it has to do with numerous English varieties in various parts of the world [18]. WE has three perspectives [19].…”

A Showcase Study on ELF-oriented Classroom Practices in a General English Course

“…In the light of complexity approaches to ELF, teachers are expected to inform learners that these corpora are not intended to codify a particular variety, nor to be used for the purpose of prescribing a new set of English norms, but instead are intended to be used for research purposes and to prepare the learners to be accustomed to diversities. Rajprasit (2021) highlights ELF-oriented practices on linguistics diversities for an English language classroom. Wang et al (2021) incorporates critical intercultural literacy into an English language learning course.…”

“…The present study attempts to fill this gap by reporting a pedagogical practice that incorporates ELF-oriented dimensions into an English language learning course for university students in Saudi Arabia, and it reflects critically on the efficacy of the course from the students' perspectives. What distinguishes this showcase study from previous ELF-oriented showcases (e.g., Rajprasit, 2021) is its complexity theory-informed perspectives.…”

“…Still, many teachers are concerned about how to incorporate these dimensions into ELT (Dogancay-Aktuna & Hardman, 2018;Rajprasit, 2021;Wang et al, 2021) and into the Saudi context specifically (Bukhari, 2019). Although research in Global Englishes is established in European and Asian region, recent studies have reported the scarcity of Global Englishes-related research in the conservative context of Saudi Arabia (Bukhari, 2019;Elyas & Mahboob, 2020;Elyas et al, 2021).…”