PERCEPTIONS OF GLOBAL ENGLISH IN TAIWAN BY COLLEGE FRESHMEN
INTRODUCTION
The population of English users has been growing rapidlysubsequent to the development of technology (e.g. airplanes and internet) which shortens the distance of people all around the world and increases the frequencies of international communication (Crystal, 2003). The population of non-native English speakers may have been outnumbered native speakers. “English” itself is also being developed numerous varieties as “world Englishes” to be used in different regions of the world (Kachru, 1992; Kachru, 2006).
The concept of “English as an international language”(EIL) was initialedunder such spectrum. The scholars who advocate EIL also have developed innovative materials and ways of instructions based on English to be used for international communication (Mckay, 2000;Sharifian, 2009). Another significant movement in this field is “English as a lingua franca”(ELF). ELF breaks the national borders to see English as a “shared” language for people with different linguistic backgrounds to use it for mutual understanding (Jenkins, 1995, Jenkins, 2006; Seidlhofer, 2001).With such interpretation of English use and users, the primary objective of English teaching and learning is to acquire communicative competence to accommodate different language use and cultural discrepancies through negotiating meaning in social occasions. English is seen as a tool for communication and culture may be co-shaped by interlocutors instead of being prescribed in teaching materials.
Despite the different tendencies among these different terms such as English as a global language, World Englishes, EIL orELF, it is remarkable that English teaching and learning in a globalization era have shifted from traditional norm of seeking native-like English proficiency to aiming at successful communication using English among English users, no matter native or non-native speakers.
Since the study was conducted in Taiwan, to conform to the terminology adopted by Ministry of Education of Taiwan, the researcher chose the definition stated in the new guidelines of compulsory English education, estimated to implement in Taiwan in 2018, where English is describe as “Global Englishes”(GE)(MOE,Taiwan, 2016). The term indicates the plural form “Englishes” instead of “English”to embrace varieties to be used in worldwide contacts.
As an EFL region in East Asia, English education in Taiwan is implemented compulsorily from K3 to K12. English learning and teaching in the middle schools tends to prepare students to be successful in the College Entrance Exam(Chung, 2012). The test-oriented practices make communicative approach difficult to be realized in the classrooms. Hence, the researcher aims to investigate the college freshmen’ perceptions of GE to collect their opinions on English use inworldwide landscape. Through reading articles and watching video, the research tried to facilitate the participants’ exposure of topics related to GE and then acquired what their perceptions towards GE is and how GE affects their anxiety level towards speaking in English.
METHODS
A pilot study was conducted in September 2015. The collected data shows not only participants’ anxiety level in speaking in English but also their perceptions of English as well as their learning experience and expectations. The successful pilot study triggered the researcher to include more participants in the project when having the opportunity to accessstudents with similar proficient level and age in July 2016.
The number of participants in 2015 was thirty-one in which sixteen of them were male and fifteen of them were female. The number of participants in 2016 was twenty-eight, including eighteen girls and ten boys. The total number of participants is fifty nine with age spanning from nineteen to twenty-four.They were non-English majored students in a private university in Taipei.
All the participants took a required freshman English course where articles related to current English-dominated phenomenon and endangered languages in the world was introduced. In order to enhance students’ understanding of GE, the researcher chose a 25-min video where Taiwanese professor Mr. C.M. Chen interviewed the founders of GloblishMr. Jean-Paul Nerrière and Mr. David Hon during their stay in Taiwan in 2013. The reason to select this video is to let students have more exposure to different accents and English use since Mr. Chen’s native language is Mandarin Chinese, Mr. Nerrière’s is French and Mr. Hon’s is American English. Two of them are non-native English speakers. The interview was conducted in English and the video was with Chinese subtitles so that students had no barrier to understand their conversations. In the video, the interviewees describe “Globish” as simple but correct English with non-complicated sentence structure used forcommunication in worldwide occasions (Nerrière & Hon, 2009).
The video was played in the classroom and an open-ended question was answered after watching the video. At the same time, ten true or false questions on describing the content of the interview were assessed to ensure the participants’ understanding of the viewpoints in the video. Student answered T/F questions and wrote their answers to the open-ended question: “Do you feel less stressful to speak in English after watching this video? Why or Why not?”
Data analysis was implemented using qualitative method to analyze the participants’ answers on the question. Content analysis (Corbin& Strauss, 2008) was applied to have the data coded into categories. The results were shown by the accumulated number coded into each category. Statistical graphs were produced by Microsoft EXCEL software.
RESULTS
In answering the researcher’s question “Do you feel less stressful to speak in English after watching this video? Why or why not?”, 69% of the participants showed decrease of anxiety level to speak in Englishin their written response while 31% of them did not.
Answers / Number of Participant / %Yes / 41 / 69%
No / 18 / 31%
Total / 59 / 100%
For those who remain their anxietylevel to speak in English, the reasons are categorized into following codes where A1-A3 are affective factors, L1-L3 are linguistic factors.The statistics and graphs are shown as below.
Categories of Reasons with “No” Answer / NumberA1 Worries to speak something incorrect in front of other people. / 7
A2 Worries not to find appropriate vocabulary or phrases to express my ideas. / 4
A3 Being a shy person, it’s hard to talk to strangers. / 1
L1 English is very different from my mother tongue so it is difficult to use it as I wish. / 4
L2 English grammars are difficult. / 1
L3 English is better than GE. / 1
The result shows that twelve answers were coded into the affective factors and six ones into the linguistic factors. Among the affective factors, the results show the participants were worried to make mistakes while speaking in English (A1) and/or find appropriate vocabulary or phrases to express their ideas (A2). Regarding the linguistic factors, the leading reason is L1 where the participants declare that English is not their mother tongue and they have difficulty to use English as they wish. Following excerpts are examples of the participants’ thoughts.
“No, I still feel stressful to speak in English. Mr. Nerriere and David Hon is used to speak in English. They can say “Don’t afraid”, “I wish you to talk with me” “Don’t be shy” easy, but I don’t say English often I still afraid in saying English” (Lin)
“I don’t’ think I feel less stressful to speak in English, because I am shy to talk to strangers and I feel I don’t have enough words to talk to others.”(Sun)
“No, because English is not my mother tongue. I afraid to speak English if I meet what I don’t know how to say. It’s quite difficult to me, but I’ll try to learn more and more and make myself great than before.(Chen)
“No, I still feel speak English is difficult. I afraid to say false sentence or vocabulary. Grammar is difficult, too. I want to learn more grammar and vocabulary to speak correct English.”(Wang)
The worries of insufficient linguistic resources and making mistakes might result from the educational culture pursuing standard and correct answers in the test papers and classrooms. Above excerpts actually show they are capable to explain why they remain their anxiety level toward English conversationsdespite some minor grammaticalerrors shown in their written response.
For participant given the opposite answer, the researcher uses following codes to analyze collected data. The reasons why they reduced their anxiety are stated as follows:
Categories of Reasons with “Yes” Answer / NumberA4 The more I know GE, the less my anxiety is to speak in English. / 1
A5 When English is no more a “subject”, I feel less stressful. / 1
A6 The concept of GE increase my confidence to speak in English. / 2
C1 To understand interlocutors’ request or idea is more important than correct grammar. / 3
C2 I can use simple English to communicate with people from different countries and cultures. / 9
C3 GE makes the communication between people to be easier. / 8
C4 Apply strategies may remove some communicative barriers. / 2
L4 Grammatical errors are tolerated once communication goes well. / 4
L5 I don’t need a lot of vocabulary to speak in English. / 5
M1 It is unnecessary for a non-native English speaker to speak like an American. / 1
M2 English is just a tool for communication. / 1
M3 Practice makes fluent. / 5
P1 Inaccurate pronunciation sometimes does not hinder communication. / 1
P2 For people struggling with accents, the concept of GE allows them to have equal right as other English users. / 1
S1 I can make friends with foreigners through simple English. / 1
S2 Americans are friendly. No need to be afraid to talk to them. / 1
U1 The users of GE are both native and non-native English speakers. / 4
U2 GE makes non-native English speakers can communicate well with each other. / 2
Different from those participantsdiscussed earlier, these participants who declared decrease of anxiety after exposure to the concept of Globish provide reasons including affective(A), linguistic(L,P), user(U), social(C,S) and ELT(M) categories. For linguistic aspect, the participant showed tolerance of grammatical errors(L4) and pronunciation/accent varieties(P1, P2) and supportive attitude towards using simple vocabulary (L5, C2) as advocated by the interviewees in the video. The less strict linguistic requirements seem to release the participants’ anxiety in English conversations and further motivate them to become successful English users rather than possessing native-like accent or proficiency, especially five of them describe the code of M3 which means constant practice of speaking English may help them become fluent English speakers.In addition, the participants were aware that the role of English users are not only native English speakers but also non-native English ones (U1, U2).
Here are some answers the participant wrotein their answers.
“I think it is less stressful for me to speak English after watching this video. Honestly speaking, I think it is strange to ask a non-native speaker to speak English like he is American, because when we talk to a foreigner we won’t criticize his pronunciation. Sometimes, we even think it is so cute for a foreigner to speak Taiwanese although his pronunciation was a mess. So, is it necessary for us to be afraid of speaking English? I think the answer is no.” (Chien)
“Yes, I feel less stressful to speak in English, because English is just a tool between human to communicate. To know what people want to do is more important than the grammar.” (Tsao)
“Yes, because Global English is not focus on grammars and use few words that can communicate with each others. Globish English makes us express our thought more easy.” (Wang)
From the given statistics and excerpts, the participants all provide explanations to support their choices. The mental barriers to worry mistaken language use or insufficient word bank were held by almost one third of the participants but the rest held the opposite position where their anxiety level was reduced and they were aware of the communicative and social functions as a language user.
DISCUSSIONS
The norm of English teaching and learning for EFL learners is shifting from pursuing native-like English proficiency to fulfill the communicative purpose in worldwide settings. The equivalent number of native and non-native English users has shaped a scenario where people with different linguistic background are using English as a media to convey ideas or exchange opinions.
For a language learner, the factors influence his or her estimate language proficiency depends on his or her attribute and mental barriers to some extent. A speaker who is willing to communicate, take risks and with lower anxiety level tends to be successful learners rather than those without such quality (Horwitz, Horwitz, CopeHorwitz, 1986; McCroskey, 1992). The research explored young EFL adults’ perspective of English being a global language, and the result shows that almost two third of participants declared their anxiety level reduced after the exposure of the concept of GE. They not only reduced their mental barriers to speak in English because successful communication is more important than accurate language use but also acknowledge that the responsibility of successful communication should be shared both by speakers and listeners, either native or non-native speakers. Their worries of insufficient lexical or grammatical skills may be formed by frustrated experience in exams they took in the past. However, according to the data collected, even though there were some fragmented sentences, incorrect spelling or false usage shown in their written answers, it is obvious that they were able to express their opinions and thoughts. That is, they have sufficient linguistic competence but low confidence to use English in real conversations. The reasons of such outcome may be the educational paradigm which is based on native-like norm and learners are hardly encouraged to use English in the real life or in creative ways.
In East Asia, English teaching and learning is highly influenced by the way how English proficiency is assessed (Chou, 2008; Chung, 2012). In Taiwan, for students who intend to undertake higher education, English proficiency is an important index to the placement of their ideal universities or colleges. Such mechanism facilitates the prosperity of private institutions to train students to master skills needed in the examinations. The age to undertake such training may start from kindergarten level if the family could afford it and last over ten years until K12. English seems not to be learned to use it for communication but be seen as a subject and students are trained to attain high scores in written exams where reading and writing skills are assessed but listening and speaking ones are absent.
Reshaping the overall educational paradigms on English teaching, learning and assessment is essential to conform to the reality that English is used as a global language worldwide. In the meantime, it may also build learners’ confidence to use English with low mental barriers by emphasizing on communicative function rather than accurate language use.
This study has provided evidences from students’ side that their attitude towards GE is open-minded after exposure to GE-related discussions. For teachers who may hold conservative attitude towards GE or English varieties, understanding English’s position in contemporary world is the first step. It may be achieved by pre-service and in-service teacher education both on acquiring updated information and further taking actions. It is expected that teachers may be open-minded to integrate Englishes in the classroom tasks. Choosing different English varieties in listening audios or written materials could be a feasible way. In addition, the assessment should also be reformed under a flexible standard to pay less attention to minor grammatical errors so that students might be willing to take risks to explore language use and at the same time build confidence to use English in real conversations.
CONCLUSIONS
The research of world Englishes and English as a lingua franca is aiming to embrace English used in various settings worldwide and at the same time weaken the position of American or British English in EFL classrooms. However, not only the understating of English being used a global language is essential, but also practical measures in pedagogical settings should be developed. Integrating different linguistic varieties or approaching communicative purpose through authentic materials, appropriate assessment, and classroom activities may contribute to cultivate successful English users to communicate with either native or non-native English speakers. It has been over a decade to advocate the ownership of English is worldwide users rather than English native speakers. The further development is to conduct on-site experiments to build successful models so that EFL teachers may refer to in their teaching sites and learners may benefit from it to have confidence to use the language they learn.
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