I taught English for 6 years in Bogotá, Colombia, to non-native speakers in various contexts, including at the high school level, university level, and at the British Council. From all these experiences, I found my students fixated on accent and worried about not sounding like natives. As a response, I would tell them that every single person has an accent and that is not what they should focus on. Rather, it would serve them well to focus on understanding and being understood, in any English-speaking context and setting, regardless of accent.
And to reinforce this point, I would tell them that probability-wise, it is more likely that outside of this classroom/academic setting, they would go on to speak the English language to people who are also non-native English speakers. Current estimates suggest there are around 400 million native English speakers globally. And if we include non-native speakers, that figure ranges from 1.5 – 2 billion. Whatever the exact numbers are, it is clear that the number of non-native English speakers dwarfs that of native speakers. So, I advise my students to take ownership and claim the English language as their own rather than be worried about “sounding like a native”.
It is no doubt that English is today’s lingua franca that connects the world. Throughout history, we have not seen any other language that has reached the breadth that English has. On doing business, a Colombian and a Chinese will not speak Spanish or Mandarin with each other. They will speak English. Similarly, an Israeli and an Icelander will not speak Hebrew or Icelandic with each other. They will speak English. There are many other permutations and combinations I could provide, and they all lead to the same conclusion. English is the global language.
As an ELT professional, I have thought a lot about the issue of ownership of the English language. I wonder if anyone can own a language that is so global. Is there a culture, community, or group of people that can claim its ownership? Is it the people of Britain, from where the language emerged? Or is it all the people from all corners of the world, who use it in their daily lives, that should collectively take its claim?
On investigating theories on the ownership of English, I came across an article titled “The Ownership of English” by British linguist HG Widdowson. Widdowson summarizes quite succinctly how English today has a new face: “The very fact that English is an international language means that no nation can have custody over it. To grant such custody of the language is necessarily to arrest its development and so undermine its international status. It is a matter of considerable pride and satisfaction for native speakers of English that their language is an international means of communication. But the point is that it is only international to the extent that it is not their language. It is not a possession which they lease out to others, while retaining the freehold. Other people actually own it.”
To conclude, I’d like to invite all English language teachers to a call to action. We need to adjust our expectations of what is correct English and what is not. We need to educate ourselves on the incredible diversity the English language inherently has and need to be able to understand and tolerate its accents and varieties with the intention of having our students do the same.
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