EIL

Over the past decades, English language teachers have become familiar with several terms which attempt to describe the role of English as a language of international communication. Presently, the term English as a lingua franca (ELF) seems to be one of the most favoured and adopted to depict the global use of English in the 21 st century. Basically, the concept of ELF implies cross-cultural, cross-linguistic interactions involving native and non-native speakers. Consequently , the ELF paradigm suggests some changes in the language classroom concerning teachers' and students' goals as far as native speaker norms and cultures are concerned. Based on Kachru's (1992) fallacies, this article identifies thirteen misconceptions in ELT regarding learning and teaching English varieties and cultures, suggesting that an ethnocentred and linguacentred approach to English should be replaced by an ELF perspective which recognizes the diversity of communicative situations involving different native and non-native cultures and varieties of English.

, 2011. xvii+244 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-437500-9 (pbk). £32. Barbara Seidlhofer's latest monograph, Understanding English as a Lingua Franca, comes at a moment when the English language, while serving this function since the first colonizations in the 16 th century (Jenkins et al. 2011), has truly established itself as a language of nearly global communication, a language for which the predominant reason for learning has become to interact primarily not with its native speakers, but with other non-native users. The past two decades have accordingly witnessed a burgeoning of articles, dissertations, conferences, corpora, and a dedicated journal devoted to the topic; yet in many circles the phenomenon has still remained unnoticed or unacknowledged, acquired many misunderstandings, is raising mixed opinions or encountering strong resistance. Barbara Seidlhofer, a long-time expert on the subject and one of the pioneers of research in the field, explores and elucidates the many facets and repercussions of the controversial topic at hand. For the purpose of her book, Seidlhofer defines ELF 1 as any use of English among speakers of different mother tongues and linguacultural backgrounds, across all three Kachruvian circles 2. In contrast to some earlier definitions and conceptualizations (e.g. House 1999, Jenkins 2007), this importantly includes native speakers of English (NSs), who for aims of intercultural communication may use ELF as their additional language. The opening chapter sets the scene by casting light on the familiar phenomenon of the growing masses of people learning English worldwide, on a scale unprecedented by any previous lingua franca. Chapter 2 makes readers aware of the deeply rooted and all-pervasive misconception-in both popular and scholarly discourse-that English is the preserve and asset of native speakers, the only legitimate and authoritative provider of standards. In her critique of this linguistic imperialism, Seidlhofer also devotes some space to interrogating the very concept of NS, showing how this stable, homogeneous and hypercorrect construct is an idealized notion and how difficult it is to agree on its satisfactory definition (let alone a definition of an 'educated' NS). Chapters 3 and 4 turn to the reified and equally elusive notion of 'proper', 'real', 'Standard English' (StE) and to why (contrary to Quirk 1985, for instance) it is an inappropriate objective for learning the language. The first interesting chapter for this reviewer is chapter 4, devoted to a discussion of how non-native users adapt and variably alter English ad hoc to suit their communicative purpose (rather than "adopt" it as a "franchise language", per Widdowson (2003:50)). Thus, they preserve their identity without striving to mimic NSs' communicatively irrelevant conventions, and therefore play an active role in the development and spread of the language. The aim of lingua franca interactions is communicative efficiency, which is achieved by accommodating to the interlocutor. This is different from grammatical correctness. In Chapter 5, drawing on data from the VOICE corpus and other empirical studies-though without adequately explaining annotation conventions used in VOICE corpus data-Seidlhofer provides numerous examples of authentic ELF talk that diverge from standard English to illustrate the processes and communication strategies at work. 1 Sometimes also labelled 'English as an International Language' (EIL). 2 'Inner', where English has historically been the mother tongue of the vast majority of the population, 'Outer', where its varieties function as official and second languages, usually owing to colonial history, and 'Expanding', where it is being taught in schools as a foreign language (Kachru 1985).

The introduction to this volume is intended to be a holistic introduction to international /intercultural  communicative competence.  In this introduction and part 1, the four
chapters on the meaning of EIL competence by four different authors present very different perspectives. We do not wish to attempt to resolve differences of perception, although I will
discuss some differences in this introduction. After all, the tolerance of different perspectives is an essential part of the epistemology of EIL. As Moser, (2002, p.17) eloquently suggests in
defence of his own epistemology, meta-epistemic instrumentalism,
Within the tolerant confines of meta-epistemic instrumentalism, we can welcome even as rational, much of the remarkable divergence we see in contemporary epistemology (p.17).
When faced with a broad and divergent body of knowledge, it would have been tempting to simplify the different accounts of knowledge into some kind of coherent whole. This can
sometimes take the form of rejecting scholarship that we cannot reconcile within our own paradigm. In our own field, we might want to reconsider whether a common target for rejection
(frequently also within this volume), Chomskian linguistics, is indeed really in opposition to holistic views of competence. For Moser (2002, p.6), holism is related to ‘epistemic coherentism’ as it “finds the ultimate source of justification in a system of interconnected beliefs or potential beliefs”. However, Moser does not support the artificial creation of a tidy fixed, impervious system of interconnected beliefs. Moser (p.16) argues instead that to characterize the present state of epistemic scholarship as ‘rational’, a tolerance of conceptual divergence is
needed that might not be encompassed in a coherent holistic model (coherentism). Moser coins the phrase ‘meta-epistemic instrumentalism’ (p.16) which “enables us to explain as rational
conceptual divergence what initially looks like perennial disagreement.” In Moser’s view, “the diversity hides a deeper rational unity” (p.17). As Sivasubramaniam suggests in this volume, we must therefore view all attempts a creating ‘final’ systems as temporary. The parts may come together in apparent coherence as with a kaleidoscope, but the ‘fixed’ outcome will only be
provisional. In the case of Chomskian linguistics, might we not need to acknowledge that EIL specialists have so far struggled to come up with an adequate characterization of linguistic
competence? As a result of this conceptual divergence in part 1, there is inevitably some repetition too. On closer examination, however, I have found that similar but very important concepts are
contextualized very differently in these chapters. This is perhaps most apparent in Sivasubramaniam’s contribution, which provides a much broader challenge to the concept of competence itself. Sivasubramaniam proposes a pluricentric view of community leading to a notion of competence that is enriched by its dependence on a plurality of contexts. His suggestion that we are actually in search of context-based confirmations rather than objective and context-free affirmations underline the difficulty of providing a meaningful definition of EILcompetence at all. My co-editor therefore provides a different angle on “rational diversity” as he underlines the need to broaden our perspectives, whereas as definitions tend to summarize and reduce. His strongly expressed views of social alignment and sociolinguistic sensitivity have, I
hope, helped me avoid reductionism in my own attempt to characterize (rather than definitively or narrowly define) EIL competence in this introduction. I have nonetheless responded to my own perception that the EIL literature has spent a lot of time pointing out what EIL competence is not, but less time suggesting what it is. If readers feel we have made a first step in this regard, we will be delighted.

The rising use of English as an international language has caused scholars in the field of culture pedagogy to question the relationship between the English language and the cultures of the English-speaking countries it has traditionally been associated with (Kramsch 1993, 1998; McKay 2002; Risager 2006, 2007). As a result, research into this area of language teaching and learning has been highly prolific in the twenty-first century as can be confirmed by the number of articles and books addressing the subject. This paper comments on some of the results obtained from a larger piece of research which considered the role played by culture in the learning of English as a foreign language in Majorca, Spain. Results indicate that much of the cultural knowledge of EFL learners is based on popular cultural stereotypes. This paper will discuss how these results can be understood within a theoretical framework of language socialisation theory (Shieffelin and Ochs 1986), social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner 1979) and stereotype theory (Gudykunst and Kim 1997) and how this may have consequences for the future of English language learning within the context of English as an international language.

Abstract
The use of English in Nepal was first recorded in the seventeenth century. Officially, however, it was adopted as a foreign language into the formal education system only in the first half of the twentieth century. Despite its “foreign” status until now, users of the language and related studies claim that it is anything but foreign. Its current use in all spheres of life makes the language indispensable and at par with Nepali, the only official language for wider communication. As such, its speakers advocate that English in Nepal deserves more veneration than the term offers. The article provides a socio-linguistic analysis of the English language situation in Nepal, and drawing from research and available literature, it assesses to what extent is such a claim justifiable. In the pretext of its growing popularity and dominance, the article examines its role, status and its position in the national language education policy and points out what implications its changing status has on the national curriculum and pedagogic resources.

Pronunciation, despite being an obviously important component of speech and anticipated communication, seems to enjoy little or no room in the policy and practice in Bangladesh. This study, therefore, aimed at exploring the issues of teaching oral proficiency specifically pronunciation at the HSC level in Bangladesh. The purpose of the present study is to determine whether students at college level encounter problems in English pronunciation. The present study also aims to unearth reasons working behind the negligence toward pronunciation. To do so, students were interviewed with the Reading Survey focusing on problematic utterance in terms of sound and orthography for Bangladeshi learners as suggested by some previous studies. The findings show that pronunciation teaching is inadequate in policy and practice. Finally possible remedial measure for integrating pronunciation with other skills with the help of a Balanced Approach to teaching pronunciation and same inquiries in other setting were recommended.

Language is a cultural product that can signify one society from others since it symbolises and represents the identity of a society (Kramsch, 1998; Woodward, 1997). McKay (2000, 2002) supports this by responding to Smith’s idea that English learners do not need to internalize cultural norms of the native speakers by suggesting that there is no necessity to learn the culture of those speaking English as a native language. Inspired by scholars’ arguments regarding the importance of identity in language learning, I conducted a study that links language and culture by investigating how cultural contents are represented in recent English textbooks published in Indonesia. It specifically investigates how national character building (NCB), which reflects most of the principles of Pancasila, the philosophical foundation of Indonesia, which is the core of the draft of 2013 Curriculum proposed by the Indonesian government, is represented in textbooks. By employing Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) to dissect the eighteen values of NCB in the two textbooks chosen, this study found that NCB, was included in both explicit and implicit representations. The study concludes that the representations found in both English textbooks are intended to strengthen the national identity of Indonesia, as confirmed in the literature. Regarding the issue of national identity, the way of promoting national character through textbooks responds to current debates in EIL in the way the cultural contents allow learners to reflect their own culture to others through English. This corresponds to Dat’s (2008) idea that a textbook should put a concern with national identity. Accordingly, the representations of NCB values found in both textbooks imply a preference for using materials derived from the learners’ own culltural values, known as source culture materials (Cortazzi and Jin, 1999), to promote the national character of Indonesia. This paper organization comprises the introduction, the literature review, the research design, the findings and discussions and the conclusion.

Key words: EIL, Indonesian ELT textbooks, national character building, QCA


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The present study probed 409 Iranian English as foreign language (EFL) learners' motivation and attitude toward English as an International Language (EIL) by investigating the causal relationships of their facets via Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). To do so, the Persian version of the 'attitudes toward EIL' scale was designed and validated. It measures five constructs of: cultural realism, linguistic cultural disposition (negative), (dis)ownership of English, EIL posture, and localization. Then, the researchers utilized the validated scale along with the adapted Persian version of motivation scale designed by Taguchi et al. (2009) to explore the causal relationship among their facets. The latter scale measures seven dimensions of instrumentality prevention, instrumentality promotion, ideal L2 self, ought-to l2 self, learning experience, motivational intensity, and integrativeness. The findings of the study revealed that students' motivational intensity positively predicted by other motivational and attitudinal factors with 'ideal self' and 'instrumentality promotion' having the highest influence. It was also found that 'cultural realism' was a significant predicator of 'localisation', and 'localisation' was a significant positive predictor of 'disownership of English'. 'EIL posture' was also in a positive direct relationship with 'cultural realism', whereas 'linguistic cultural disposition' (negative) was found to negatively influence other aspects including 'motivational intensity'. This study has some implications for ELT professionals to revisit EFL motivation in light of attitudes toward EIL in expanding circle.

This paper investigates socio-pragmatic transfer of speech acts from Persian language into English language. The researchercompares the data gathered from Persian speakers of English and American native English in five different service situations. Persianspeakers of English have different semantic interpretations from native American speakers, they conform to different sociolinguisticnorms. So when Persian speakers want to speak English they consider their own cultural and social norms and transfer them in toEnglish. Misunderstanding and break downs in conversations are due to this socio-pragmatic transfer. Adhering to different speakingrules and models of accepted behavior can cause different cultural perceptions about the L2 speakers, some of which are not trueperceptions of course. So we should be careful about false cultural perceptions naming stereotypes without having knowledge about L2speakers' cultural and social backgrounds.

Since there have been few pragmatic studies, especially at the local level, that have dealt with the adolescents, and since the language and culture are inseperable, this study examines pragamtically requestive speech acts realizations patterns between English native and non-native adolescents in Dubai, UAE and Ismailia, Egypt. It looks at how the speech acts’ requesting strategies differ across different cultures in terms of the social distance, size of imposition and power. It also looks at the types of politeness strategies, which could increase or decrease the degree of the imposion on the hearer(s), employed by the two groups  in terms of the aforementioned sociolinguistic variables.

The subjects of this study were divided into two groups. the first group consists of 30 English native adolescents from UK, US and Canada while the second group consists of 30 English non-native adolescents from Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, India, Germany and Philippines.

The study have utilized the Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs) distributed to the voluntary students. It revealed significant differences between the two groups in employing the request’s strategies. Additionally, it revealed significant differences between them in employing the politeness strategies.

This study provides implications to the students, teachers, educational syllabus designers, decision makers, authors for preventing pragmatic failure/ error to happen and for facilitating effective communications across cultures, too.

Key words: Requesting strategies – politeness strategies- pragmatic failure- effective communications – social context.

Thomson (2011) highlights the prominence of English as an international language (EIL) and stresses its use as a form of communication that implies a sense of multi-directionality of flow and mixing between speakers. This has led scholars to use the terms ‘translingual’ and ‘transcultural’ to refer to the competences required by speakers of EIL in order to function at a more global level (Ting-Toomey, 1999; Jongewaard, 2001; Slimbach, 2005), especially concerning the use of English between non-native speakers. One important area of transcultural competence is the ability to bond with those from a different cultural background. One of the most widespread ways of achieving this is though a ‘stay abroad’. Nevertheless, since this is not always feasible, especially with younger learners, the use of a virtual space is becoming a familiar tool in foreign language teaching as it provides that essential experience of tertiary socialisations for learners (Bretag, 2006). Drawing on intergroup contact theory and, in particular, the concept of ‘friendship’ (Pettigrew, 1998), and socialisation theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), this paper discusses the formation of emotional links through a positive process of ‘bonding’ in a group of EIL learners from Spain and Poland who used a blog as part of a transcultural approach to English language learning. It was observed that through the use of colloquial language features, along with other typical characteristics of computer-mediated communication, the community of speakers on the blog gradually changed from ‘common-identity’ to ‘common-bond’ blog users, which is typically acknowledged as being more personalised in nature (Schwämmlein & Wodzicki, 2012).

The importance of cultural content in ELT (English Language Teaching) materials is strongly related to the current role of English as an International Language (EIL). Furthermore, as English is now internationally spoken, a need to learn the culture is also inevitable. However, many recent theories suggest that learning EIL does not have to be associated with learning the culture of the ‘Western’ countries where English is spoken as a mother tongue. As Smith (1976; as cited in McKay, 2002, p. 7) assumes that the ownership of English is now de-nationalised, the cultural norms of native speakers not need to be internalised by EIL learners. Then, whose culture should be taught to Indonesian learners? I have examined several aspects related to what implications the cultural contents have in relation to the role of English in Indonesia, which can be of importance for many educational practitioners. This paper is divided into two major sections, the theoretical background influenced by theories that connect between culture and ELT materials and to what context English plays its role in Indonesia and what cultural content Indonesian ELT should adopt in relation to the role of English in Indonesia.

Key words: cultural contents, EIL, English materials, Indonesian ELT context


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—During the last decades, the role of mother tongue in language teaching has been the subject of a host of research studies ;however, quite rarely have researchers addressed such issues as comparing the use of mother tongue and other teaching techniques like paraphrasing and translation effects on students' reading comprehension ability and their ability in learning new English vocabulary. This study aimed to explore whether paraphrases vs. translations of new words in general English passages make any significant difference in intermediate proficiency level learners of English new vocabulary learning. It also aims to examine whether paraphrases or translations of texts at intermediate proficiency level affect significantly students' level of reading comprehension. The data for this study were collected through one proficiency test, 3 comprehension tests and one vocabulary test from 60 English students who study at SADR Private Language School in Isfahan. The data were analyzed descriptively and also inferentially. The overall findings of the study indicated that there was no significant difference between the comprehension of those who received Persian translation of new vocabulary and those who dealt with the paraphrase of the same new words and those who did not receive any L1 translation or paraphrase. The results for vocabulary test showed those who received the mother tongue definitions in front of each new word in the passage did perform significantly better on the vocabulary test than the other two groups. However study would help teachers and teacher trainers to construct and implement L1 and paraphrase in English classes more effectively. Index Terms—L1 (here assumed as mother tongue or language that a child adopts by birth), learning L2 vocabulary, intermediate

Since there have been few pragmatic studies, especially at the local level, that have dealt with the adolescents, and since the language and culture are inseperable, this study examines pragamtically requestive speech acts realizations patterns between English native and non-native adolescents in Dubai, UAE and Ismailia, Egypt. It looks at how the speech acts' requesting strategies differ across different cultures in terms of the social distance, size of imposition and power. It also looks at the types of politeness strategies, which could increase or decrease the degree of the imposion on the hearer(s), employed by the two groups in terms of the aforementioned sociolinguistic variables. The subjects of this study were divided into two groups. the first group consists of 30 English native adolescents from UK, US and Canada while the second group consists of

This paper explores the relationship between international communicative competence as a global concept and the development of competence in academic literacy in a local context. Competence in English as an international language is a rapidly developing construct, but it is already clear that it is not definable as one standard for all local contexts. There is no one centre to define a universal standard of English competence. While ‘multi-centricity’ is a vague concept, ‘competence’ is certainly a holistic construct that might best be pluralized to reflect the broad diversity of international settings in which it is used. However, if there is a constellation of ‘centres’ and ‘competences’, it will be difficult to compare them or cross reference between them unless we assume they all have something in common at some level of abstraction. I will first reconsider the distinction between BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) and CALP (Cognitive/Academic Language Proficiency, Cummins 2008). The binary distinction can be challenged in that the two are not mutually exclusive constructs. This does not mean that the distinction has no value for analytical purposes. (Cummins, 2008, p.10) argues that “[o]ne can accept the perspective that literacies are multiple, contextually-specific, and constantly evolving (as I do) while at the same time arguing that in certain discursive contexts it is useful to distinguish between conversational fluency and academic language proficiency”. I will consider CALP in relation to the notion of “Communities of Practice” (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Communities of practice are very different from speech communities as they are increasingly globalized communities which cross international and cultural borders. While standards for either type of competence cannot be defined globally for any local context, CALP, as used and negotiated within communities of practice, lends itself better to considering the existence of universal constructs which may be applicable across contexts assuming that some level of local redefinition will always be required. After discussing the meaning of competence, I will consider in detail some examples of academic argumentation and critical reasoning generated by well published professors in a research and teaching university from one multi-national and multi-cultural local community and discuss some commonly used terminology to explore the extent to which some critical reasoning/argumentation concepts and skills cross borders and may achieve a degree of context independence. I will then briefly illustrate how competent examples generated by professors can be exploited to prepare freshman students for participation in the community of practice.

This paper investigates socio-pragmatic transfer of speech acts from Persian language into English language. The researcher compares the data gathered from Persian speakers of English and American native English in five different service situations. Persian speakers of English have different semantic interpretations from native American speakers, they conform to different sociolinguistic norms. So when Persian speakers want to speak English they consider their own cultural and social norms and transfer them in to English. Misunderstanding and break downs in conversations are due to this socio-pragmatic transfer. Adhering to different speaking rules and models of accepted behavior can cause different cultural perceptions about the L2 speakers, some of which are not true perceptions of course. So we should be careful about false cultural perceptions naming stereotypes without having knowledge about L2 speakers' cultural and social backgrounds.

In software engineering, several formal models and tools are proposed for defining system requirements and constraints formally. Such formal  definitions can help in the automatic checking and verification for them. It can also help in the automatic test case generation, execution and verification. In this paper, we will demonstrate and evaluate the usage of Spec Explorer from Microsoft for defining and checking examples of software controlled system such as cruise control. Such formal requirements can be eventually embedded in the developed system or can help in exposing important elements to test in the testing stage or through the usage of the application

The rising use of English as an international language has caused scholars in the field of culture pedagogy to question the relationship between the English language and the cultures of the English-speaking countries it has traditionally been associated with (Kramsch 1993, 1998; McKay 2002; Risager 2006, 2007). As a result, research into this area of language teaching and learning has been highly prolific in the twenty-first century as can be confirmed by the number of articles and books addressing the subject. This paper comments on some of the results obtained from a larger piece of research which considered the role played by culture in the learning of English as a foreign language in Majorca, Spain. Results indicate that much of the cultural knowledge of EFL learners is based on popular cultural stereotypes. This paper will discuss how these results can be understood within a theoretical framework of language socialisation theory (Shieffelin and Ochs 1986), social identity theor...

The term ‘New Englishes’ attempts to cover the large number of varieties of English, far from uniform among themselves in their features and use and different from the historically and culturally established British and American standards. Over the past years, these New Englishes have been more acknowledged in the foreign language class. Linguists have called attention to the importance of increasing the learner’s linguistic awareness by covering topics of “linguistic variation and varieties of many types: national, regional, social, functional, international” (Gnutzmann 167). This paper aims at discussing the advantages and possibilities of teaching native and non-native English varieties in the foreign language class. It presents some data included in a Foreign Language and Translation course which attempted to integrate linguistics and translation by analysing the features of African American Vernacular English, Singapore English, Indian English and Australian English in terms of their phonological, morphological, lexical and syntactic levels.

A shift is happening in languages used in Indonesia, especially in English as a foreign language that must be taught as a compulsory subject in Indonesian formal education institutions from primary to tertiary levels. English takes a place in the third position after Bahasa Indonesia and the regional languages. Since English as an International Language (EIL) paradigm appears, some debates burst up whether it is native speaker or non-native speaker teacher who should teach English in outer-expanding countries. This paper provides a discussion about the issue of native and non-native speaker of English related to the selection of English teachers in Indonesian context. The issue is analysed by using a list of teaching behaviours between native English speaker teachers (NESTs) and non-native of English speaker teachers (NNESTs) examined by Medgyes (1994). A few recommendations about the issue of selecting English teacher in outer-expanding countries are presented in the end of the pap...

This study investigates some Saudi university level English teachers’ attitudes towards the English as an International Language paradigm and its influence on their identities as English speakers and teachers. The study used a qualitative case study approach. The data was collected from six Saudi English teachers in College of Language and Translation at Princess Norah University, Saudi Arabia through in-depth semi-structured interviews. The study identified a strong relationship between identity construction as a legitimate speaker and teacher of English on the one hand, and embracing cultural and linguistic diversity of English on the other, which resulted in high self-confidence among some of the participants. The research findings revealed that the participants have different perceptions regarding EIL principles and the legitimacy of different varieties of English. Most interestingly, although all of them agreed upon the advantage of using EIL for international communication, th...

Performance' is used in my characterization only to mean a unique spoken or written outcome produced at one particular time and in one particular place in a particular set of circumstances. Proficiency is normally measured on a range of tasks which therefore encompasses several performances. In assessing levels of 'proficiency' on particular tasks, we need to appeal to a super-ordinate global concept of 'competence', as a holistic, multidimensional construct. Competence is seen as a combination of the knowledge and the ability to use the knowledge that underlies every performance. This implies that a competent person will normally be expected to perform well, but may sometimes perform badly in a particular situation without allowing a valid long term judgment to be made on that person's competence. I attempt to use one further construct or term, 'achievement', only to refer to particular courses. We might ideally expect achievement over time to reflect competence, but achievement is a limited concept. It is associated only with the requirements of particular courses or tests or parts of courses or tests. These might highlight quite limited aspects of competence. It is possible to achieve a very high pass in an achievement test on limited components such as the form of past tenses of English verbs without being able to use these meaningfully beyond the test or beyond the course. Based on this discussion, we argue here that designing learning to develop competence in EIL has much in common with designing learning to develop competence in Intercultural Communication. We have in part 1 of this volume first considered the characterization of EIL by summarizing and discussing some of the different aspects related to both EIL and intercultural competence which need to be addressed in planning learning experiences. Previous Tentative Definitions of Competence (Nunn, 2007a & 2007b) Competence and community-A summary Training for EIL competence involves more than just skills and attitudes although these are important aspects. EIL competence implies an ability (not just a readiness) to interact in unpredictable multicultural contexts and the ability to adapt to a variety of communities and types of community. Some of these will be temporary multi-cultural communities, while others will be monolingual and mono-cultural speech communities. Standards of competence are related to the composition of the membership of the community and are not definable in terms of 'native', or educated 'native' as members may not be native. In some mono-cultural speech communities that EIL students may need to participate in, 'native' or 'near-native' norms will still be important. Other communities may have no 'native' members and natives will not Five Characteristics of ICC Global Holistic, interlocking, inclusive. Partial No individuals or local communities can possess holistic competence totally. Compensatory Strengths compensate for weaknesses. Adaptive and transferable to other contexts Competence depends on adaptive ability. Strategic skills of adaptation are not optional. A locally owned variety must always be adapted for international use. Notions such as a tolerance, open-mindedness, broad-mindedness are all related to a notion of competence that is based on adaptive ability, not origin. Creative Second language users have the right and need to use English creatively. Global definition of ICC International Communicative Competence remains too broad a concept to define briefly. I proposed the following initial approximation in Nunn (2007b) to stimulate further debate. Competence in communication is a holistic, global and international concept encompassing various interlocking components of usable knowledge and the skills and abilities needed to put these into practice within a variety of communities and types of community. The main components are pragmatic, discourse, strategic, intercultural, interpersonal and linguistic. Competence includes skills in areas related to both written and spoken language and certain adaptive skills such as the ability to negotiate meaning with people of different backgrounds. Creativity is also a characteristic of competence. The sum of these components amounts to something very large and only certain aspects of it will be called upon in any one context. Individual competence is always partial and subject to compensation and development both for local and global use. Total competence is beyond the range of any individual, or indeed of any single community, but competent users and members of communities will compensate for weakness in one area with skill or knowledge in another. In an international sense, an ability to transfer competence acquired in one context, adapting it to a large variety of cultural contexts across discourse and speech communities is also implied together with the ability to use at least one variety of English in a manner which is intelligible to users of other varieties and which can be adjusted to the needs of intercultural communication. Users in different contexts may be at very different levels of competence and have very different needs. Certain needs are global and others local. Crossing borders-"Inviting foreigners" and beyond If we intend to view English as an international means of communication, it is necessary to provide experience of EIL communication with members of other cultures. This could be by meeting members of expatriate communities in one's own country. It could be through travelling and studying in other countries. However, students studying in their own countries are not all able to travel or meet foreigners on a regular basis. These students need not be deprived of communication opportunities beyond their own culture. Crossing virtual borders is one way to provide students studying in a mono-cultural environment with an experience of international communication. Al-Jarf's contribution (this volume and 2006), Cross-cultural Communication: Saudi, Ukrainian, and Russian Students Online, describes an innovative cross-cultural writing project involving three EFL college instructors in Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and Russia and their undergraduate students who crossed borders in cyber space. Naturally, EIL journal authors and Cultural simulation games Simulation developers state that the purpose of the games is to simulate culture shock. They maintain that experiencing cultural shock prior to field experience will cushion actual shock by increasing awareness of cross-cultural problems (Gudykunst, Guzley & Hammer, 1996; Krasnick, 1984;). Therefore, students can become sensitized to the helplessness of people from different cultural backgrounds when confronted with a totally new and foreign situation. The preparation for intercultural interaction provided by rehearsal and practicing in the games "can make a measurable difference in the stress inherent in these situations" (Fowler, 1986, p. 73). Discussion Discussion involves various topics about intercultural aspects, contributing greatly to learner's motivation and critical thinking (Gudykunst et al, 1996; Tomalin & Stempleski, 1993). Inviting Foreigners People from other cultures and people who are recently returned expatriates are invited into the class to talk about their culture or their experience. This activity is useful in helping students experience real life intercultural interactions (Argyle, 1982). He then outlines a convincing intercultural approach pointing out that this "can improve … general English reading and discussion skills as well as enhance … intercultural competence" (p. 147). Further advantages of using literary texts identified by Nault are both emotional and intellectual enrichment and establishing important humanistic educational goals. Cultural assimilators-Studying critical intercultural incidents The critical incident approach (Lingley, 2006) is proposed as a vehicle for providing learning opportunities that develop these abilities, attitudes and skills. Lingley describes in detail an example of a critical incident that illustrates a highly mediatised example of failed intercultural communication between Japan and America in 2001. A US submarine on a training maneuver near Hawaii surfaced and accidentally hit the Ehime Maru, a Japanese high school training ship. Nine crew members including several students were killed. What followed was a media dispute about appropriate forms of apology for such an incident. Lingley used authentic materials (media reports, opinion pieces and letters) as a starting point for analyzing culture's influence on communication problems. Lingley's approach acknowledges the influence of Bennett's (1998) Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS). Bennett's (1993) DMIS model of intercultural sensitivity is rooted in developmental psychology and views understanding of cultural difference in terms of personal growth spanning a continuum from Ethnocentric Stages (denial, defense, minimization) to Ethnorelative Stages (acceptance, adaptation and integration). The "acceptance" level has been described by Bennett (1998, p. 28) as follows: People at the acceptance stage enjoy recognizing and exploring cultural differences. They are aware that they themselves are cultural beings. They are fairly tolerant of ambiguity and are comfortable knowing there is no right answer (although there are better answers for particular contexts). 'Acceptance' does not mean that a person has to agree with or take on a cultural perspective other than his or her own. Rather people accept the viability of different cultural ways of thinking and behaving, even though they may not like them. (cited in Lingley, 2006) Lingley illustrates with a specific and meaningful example in the context of his students how culture and language are interrelated. He shows how a two-culture misunderstanding might be used to challenge students to see the potential for even greater difficulties in...

Resumo: Neste artigo, apresento a construção da pesquisa que resultou na tese de doutoramento intitulada O deslocar de horizontes: um estudo de caso da leitura de textos literários em língua inglesa. A base teórica para o trabalho é a etnografia de sala de aula, a hermenêutica filosófica e a abordagem que considera a resposta do leitor na construção da leitura. No presente trabalho procuro mostrar a maneira em que a pesquisa foi organizada e a maneira em que a análise dos dados foi realizada. Palavras-chave: texto literário; etnografia; filosofia hermenêutica; resposta do leitor. 1 Todas as traduções são feitas por mim.

The present study probed 409 Iranian English as foreign language (EFL) learners' motivation and attitude toward English as an International Language (EIL) by investigating the causal relationships of their facets via Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). To do so, the Persian version of the 'attitudes toward EIL' scale was designed and validated. It measures five constructs of: cultural realism, linguistic cultural disposition (negative), (dis)ownership of English, EIL posture, and localization. Then, the researchers utilized the validated scale along with the adapted Persian version of motivation scale designed by Taguchi et al. (2009) to explore the causal relationship among their facets. The latter scale measures seven dimensions of instrumentality prevention, instrumentality promotion, ideal L2 self, ought-to l2 self, learning experience, motivational intensity, and integrativeness. The findings of the study revealed that students' motivational intensity positively...

Pronunciation, despite being an obviously important component of speech and anticipated communication, seems to enjoy little or no room in the policy and practice in Bangladesh. This study, therefore, aimed at exploring the issues of teaching oral proficiency specifically pronunciation at the HSC level in Bangladesh. The purpose of the present study is to determine whether students at college level encounter problems in English pronunciation. The present study also aims to unearth reasons working behind the negligence toward pronunciation. To do so, students were interviewed with the Reading Survey focusing on problematic utterance in terms of sound and orthography for Bangladeshi learners as suggested by some previous studies. The findings show that pronunciation teaching is inadequate in policy and practice. Finally possible remedial measure for integrating pronunciation with other skills with the help of a Balanced Approach to teaching pronunciation and same inquiries in other setting were recommended.

With One Voice: Disambiguating Sung and Spoken Voices Through a Composer’s Experience.

Mary Midgley has pointed out how our drive towards specialisation has led us to value the differences between things over their connections. The voice is largely dislodged from educational development and has been divided by isolationist practices in and within music and speech. Technology has allowed microscopic details of the voice to become public property whilst the athletic, full-voiced singer moves ever closer to Lucie Manén’s  “…one timbre, according to their own psychological make-up.” I will discuss my experience of these issues in my work with singers of all styles, actors and the synthetic voice. . In relation to the title of this paper, I propose the disambiguation of spoken and sung words requires re-synthesis.

This paper discusses "diplomatic language" with reference to linguistic theories, especially theories of pragmatics involving the Politeness Principle. In this paper the researcher tries to investigate the 3 presidential debates in 2008 between Senator Mc Cain and Obama. After checking the accuracy of transcripts against the videotape, the researcher through sentence by sentence analysis of the text, examines to what extent each candidate contributes more to Leech politeness maxims. The results of the paper show that in all three debates incident of maxim contribution is preceded by Obama. The researcher closes the paper with discussing the positive impact of these 6 maxims in face saving and group connectedness. She points to politeness maxims consideration as one of having crucial importance which helps diplomatic language to be more effective and successful.

The present study investigates the effect of metacognitive vocabulary learning strategy instruction on the recall of collocations. To this end, 75 extravert and introvert students were selected. The participants, then, were randomly assigned to two control and two experimental groups based on the TOEFL test score at upper intermediate level and Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ). Both experimental and control groups (each group containing two extravert and introvert sub-groups that totally form four groups) received the same type of collocation instruction, but the experimental group, in addition, received the metacognitive 195 explicit strategy instruction. Meanwhile, our control groups received placebo. A pretest measuring the subjects" knowledge of collocations was administered. During the first parts of sessions, the class time was allocated to teaching collocations. The last thirty minutes of each session was dedicated to metacognitive strategy instruction in the experimental group. Treatment continued for eight weeks. At the end, a two-way ANOVA was run to compare the two groups plus the effect of personality on such performance. The results indicated that treatment did have an effect on the recall of collocations and also the extravert students enjoyed better performance compared to their introvert counterparts.

This set of papers started off as one section of the proceedings of the 2006 Asian EFL Journal Conference held in Pusan, Korea in March but has rapidly developed into a collection of full academic papers on Task-based Learning in Asian contexts. Teachers, curriculum developers and researchers working in Asian contexts, and some of the world's top specialists on Task-based Learning, have all contributed their insights based on extensive experience of task-based learning. It is important to emphasize that task-based learning is not presented in this collection as an ideology,
or indeed a "method" except in the very broadest sense of the term. As a coherent contextualized curriculum framework, it enables us to have meaningful and useful discussions that combine insights from extensive practical teaching experience,
learning theories and practice-based research. When these three are combined, improved learning almost inevitably follows. A task-based framework can also help situate consideration of key issues relevant to all language teaching. One such issue is the relationship between focus on meaning and focus on form, a central concern of
many of the papers in this collection. Arguably achieving the appropriate balance in this respect is the most important factor of successful implementation of task-based learning.

When opposed to communicative language teaching, teacher-fronted classroom discourse is sometimes devalued, represented as a rigid and ritualistic process of eliciting pre-planned responses. The analysis of a data sample of 12 teacher-fronted language lessons revealed highly repetitive structuring in the flow of discourse, frequent verbatim repetition in the collective reconstruction of texts, and restrictive turn-taking norms. However these "ritual" features of discourse need to be considered alongside the essential negotiation which takes place during the continuous process of adjustment and re-adjustment between participants. This paper will use discourse analysis to redefine the relationship between ritual and negotiation in "lock-step" teaching in the light of research findings and recent re-evaluation of the notion of ritual in educational settings.

This paper discusses " diplomatic language " with reference to linguistic theories, especially theories of pragmatics involving the Politeness Principle. In this paper the researcher tries to investigate the 3 presidential debates in 2008 between Senator Mc Cain and Obama. After checking the accuracy of transcripts against the videotape, the researcher through sentence by sentence analysis of the text, examines to what extent each candidate contributes more to Leech politeness maxims. The results of the paper show that in all three debates incident of maxim contribution is preceded by Obama. The researcher closes the paper with discussing the positive impact of these 6 maxims in face saving and group connectedness. She points to politeness maxims consideration as one of having crucial importance which helps diplomatic language to be more effective and successful.