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Robert J. Dickey |
Robert J. Dickey
The days of ``The Queen's English'' are long since past. English is now a global language, shared not by only the British, N. Americans and Australians, but S. Africans, Singaporeans, Filipinos, Indians, Jamaicans, and many others. In this situation, we can say that English is ``owned'' by no one. Or everyone. Including Koreans.
One of the big questions becomes how to ensure that everyone, everywhere, can continue to communicate well with each other. The old joke, that the Brits and Americans are a common people separated by an ocean and a language, is no less true today, and we can now include Aussies, Kiwis, and many others.
David Graddol, author of the groundbreaking report ``The Future of English?'' in 1997 wrote that more people outside of traditional English-speaking countries will soon speak English than the number of people in those ``inner-circle'' lands. It will probably also become true that more people will speak English than those who don't!
How does this impact us here in Korea? More than half the visitors to Korea who speak English while they are here are not from the US, Britain, or Australia. English is changing now, in our lifetime, from the language of the few, to the language of the world. People in Korea who can't understand English users from Germany, Hong Kong, Spain, and Egypt are already missing out.
Graddol, who pointed out that various trends in English will dictate major changes in how the language is used and taught around the world, is a plenary speaker at the KOTESOL conference in October. He explained in his 2006 report ``English Next'' that as more and more countries lower the age where English learning begins, the gap between English as a Foreign Language (EFL) countries and English native-speaking countries will continue to decrease.
Adding more accents and diversified vocabulary to the classroom is not without risks though. Some question whether the differences in grammar and vocabulary will be confusing to students. But as others have noted, only a dead language, such as Latin, doesn't change. For Korea to survive and thrive on the world stage, Koreans need to be able to adapt to many styles of English, such as meeting Egyptian engineers at a business reception in Hong Kong, or speaking with German travelers in Bangkok. Studying only ``Huckleberry Finn'' or ``Anne of Green Gables'' is not a step in the right direction. Listen to CNN, many of the reporters are from places like India, Sweden, and Lebanon. ``Hollywood English'' is now passe.
The world is marching in the ``World English(es)'' direction, and Korea can't afford to be a late-comer. TOEIC, for example, has always labeled itself the ``Test of English for International Communication,'' but only recently has it added non-American accents to its listening sections. The high-stakes TOEIC, TOEFL, and IELTS tests will always be among the last to make changes, so when they do, we know that the change is real, widespread, important, and irresistible.
The Korean educational authorities and immigration officials are starting to realize the need to include teachers from other English communities. Recent statistics show that over 75% of the native-speaker English teachers in Korea are from North America, and if we include Australia and New Zealand, we are well over the 95 percent mark. But English teaching assistant programs in the provinces have begun the push for diversity, with Gyeonggi leading the fight to include teachers from the Philippines and India in the E-2 visa eligibility pool.
The question about where to recruit teachers shouldn't be the nature of the English, but the quality of the teacher. Language teaching is comprised of knowing the language, knowing how to teach, and being able to use the language to communicate with others, most particularly, with the learners. We can call these the ``science,'' the ``pedagogy,'' and the ``skills'' of teaching English.
Once we accept that teaching English is more than an accent and an instinct, the argument for varieties of teachers is much more obvious. If you just want a blue-eyed, blond ``walking tape recorder'' then just watch a video! Of course they can't actually tell the learners how to improve, only show a model form. As soon as the learner has to actually talk with a real person, they will discover that this ``perfect English'' exists only in the classroom.
We don't talk in the same way we write, and we seldom speak in life as we would in a scripted recording. Real English is sloppy and imperfect. Imperfect! So we can certainly say that a Korean with good language skills, not perfect, with ``a Korean accent'' and some deviation from the English of the imagined ``typical American speaker'' is not so very far ``wrong.'' In fact he or she may be an excellent teacher because they have mastered the pedagogy and the skills, and their science knowledge, if we consider the rules that learners must learn, might be better than many who grew up speaking English without thinking about it. A Korean teacher is a good role model for Korean learners, because ``if I can do it, you can do it!''
So, what is the future of English(es) in Korea? We can make some reasoned guesses. And with futurists like Graddol and John Cashman visiting Seoul for the Korea TESOL ``Responding to a Changing World'' conference from Oct. 25 to 26, we can expect to see the future a bit clearer. Over 1,000 English teachers from across Korea and Asia will gather at Sookmyung University to share ideas on how we can improve the quality of English education in Korea, participating in over 150 workshops and presentations, and visiting more than 20 publishers displays. The 18 hours of language talk will surely add to teachers' toolkits in terms of teaching ideas and language awareness.
After all, where else will you find a room filled with teachers from Australia, Canada, China, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, The Philippines, Puerto Rico, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States, and the United Kingdom all talking about teaching Korean learners of English the things they will need to know over the next 50 years?
Rob Dickey teaches at Gyeongju University, he has visited a half-dozen "English speaking" countries as well as a dozen lands where they are speaking their own kind of English(es). He can be reached at rjdickey@content-english.org
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