6. Raciolinguistic Identities: The White Foreign Body of the Native English Speaker

2021 ◽  
pp. 144-172
2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 1340-1351
Author(s):  
Françoise Brosseau-Lapré ◽  
Wan Hee Kim

Purpose The aim of this study was to investigate the ability of preschoolers with speech sound disorder (SSD) and with typical speech and language development (TD) to understand foreign-accented words, providing a window into the quality of their underlying phonological representations. We also investigated the relationship between vocabulary skills and the ability to identify words that are frequent and have few neighbors (lexically easy words) and words that are less frequent and have many neighbors (lexically hard words). Method Thirty-two monolingual English-speaking children (16 with SSD, 16 with TD), ages 4 and 5 years, completed standardized speech and language tests and a two-alternative forced-choice word identification task of English words produced by a native English speaker and a native Korean speaker. Results Children with SSD had more difficulty identifying words produced by both talkers than children with TD and showed a larger difficulty identifying Korean-accented words. Both groups of children identified lexically easy words more accurately than lexically hard words, although this difference was not significant when including receptive vocabulary skills in the analysis. Identification of lexically hard words, both those produced by the native English speaker and the nonnative English speaker, increased with vocabulary size. Conclusion Considering the performance of the children with SSD under ideal listening conditions in this study, we can assume that, as a group, children with SSD may experience greater difficulty identifying foreign-accented words in environments with background noise.


English Today ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan James Runcieman

The position of ‘E’, for English, has always been at the forefront of all the acronyms of language learning and descriptions of world trends in English language teaching and acquisition, EFL, ESL, ELT, ESP, EIL, ELF, or second only to ‘T’ for teaching, TEFL and TESOL. We have become so used to seeing the letter ‘E’ out there in front, the Theme rather than the Rheme, that we do not even seem to question that position anymore. Despite developments in the study of World Englishes (Kachru, 1985, 1990, 1991, 2005; Jenkins, 2003; Bolton, 2005, 2006; Canagarajah, 2006, 2007, 2009) and a supposedly secondary role for so-called Native English and the Native English speaker, we continue to place the ‘E’ at the front, as though we have no option but to accept its primacy in every concept. If we always place ‘E’ at the beginning though, as the defining Theme, surely we are giving both it and its origin England a leading role in all conceptual beginnings. The Theme after all is always the principal actor, the familiar, whilst the Rheme is the unfamiliar and undefined object (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), but what English is now, in its global context, is exactly that, the unfamiliar and undefined object. In the following article I will argue for a rethinking of our terminology, particularly regarding the use of the acronym ELF (English as a Lingua Franca), and how perhaps we should be thinking more carefully about our choice of acronyms in order to be more precise about our approach to the study of English in the changing world.


Author(s):  
V. Borshcheva ◽  
E. Efland

Errors and mistakes are a natural part of the process of learning a language, but the attitudes to them by students and teachers differ. The article is based on the results of the survey devoted to this issue. The value of the research is the contribution of a native English speaker that provides a different angle on the nature of errors and mistakes. The authors point out the importance of the psychological component and the creation of the cooperation learning environment for the effective learning process.


Author(s):  
Flora Debora Floris

Masaki Oda is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at Tamagawa University in Tokyo, Japan, specializing in Sociopolitical Aspects of Language Use. Prof. Oda got his PhD program from Georgetown University, where he also taught Japanese for several years. He returned to Japan in 1990 and began teaching EFL and training EFL teachers at Tamagawa University. He was the 2003 – 2004 Chair of the NNEST Caucus and is now the Director of Center for English as a Lingua Franca (CELF) at Tamagawa University and the AsiaTEFL Vice President. This interview highlights Professor Oda’s experiences and opinions regarding NEST (Native English Speaker Teacher) and NNEST (Non-Native English Speaker Teacher). He attempts to raise awareness among the professionals that there should be no divide between NEST and NNEST in the ELT profession. 


2017 ◽  
Vol 05 (06) ◽  
pp. 1257-1268
Author(s):  
Aissa Boudjella ◽  
Mukti Sharma ◽  
Deepti Sharma

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document