Week 8 Mckay Chapter 3-4

It is desirable for me, non native English speaker, to acquire Standard English. In Outer Circle countries like Singapore or India, they have their unique English. In Singapore, it is called ‘Singlish’ and it is regarded as ‘bad English’. However, there are many controversies whether they locally use it or not. Some argue that ‘Singlish’ is part of the Singaporean identity and that ordinary people could relate to it.( Mckay p.55) On the other hand, others claim that children should not speak what they termed ‘bad English.’ I think the variety of language is necessary and language expresses our own culture or identity. In Japan, English is a kind of official language. We want to speak English like native speakers, but I have recently thought that our English is one of the forms of our culture. Japanese people often create new words from English. For example, a convenience store is called ‘konnbini’, and a digital camera is ‘degikame.’ It is a kind of a short form of English words. Maybe, English speakers will not be able to understand these words, but it is very convenient for Japanese people to say them. It may express the flexibility of Japanese people. I need the variety of English in the world.

However, it is important for us to learn and understand EIL as means of communication. As I told above, we also need to know the variety of English. According to Tay (Mckay p.58), Singapore consists of a basilect, mesolect, and acrolect. This type is also true of Nigeria.(Mckay p.58) Variety 4 like acrolect is internationally intelligible, but socially unacceptable. This is only one example that the English situation is diverse and complicated. As far as I am concerned, globalization is proceeding faster and faster in this century. English should play a role as International Language. Therefore, I argue that it is essential to learn Standard English.

In Chapter 4, I am interested in Figure 4, two contexts in which information about a target culture can be introduced in an EIL classroom. In Japan, teacher and students share the same culture and a textbook is a target culture. Teachers can empathize with the students if they cannot understand the cultural differences between their own culture and the target culture. However, how can teachers help students to motivate their interest to the target culture, and to understand cultural differences through such a context? In another context, teacher, student, and textbook are source culture, it is efficient for students to consider how they would explain elements of their own culture to others. Nevertheless, it is only one way communication. Students can understand their culture more deeply, but not other cultures. How can we solve this context?