Looking Beyond English: Language and Development for 2015

Paper presented at: "Language and Development"
8th Annual CamTESOL Conference on English Language Teaching, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
25-26 February 2012.

Paper published in Humanising Language Teaching, Year 18, Issue 3, June 2016.

Access website here: http://hltmag.co.uk/jun16/mart05.htm

Abstract

With the impending ASEAN Free Trade Agreement scheduled for 2015, the push for English language proficiency has been gaining momentum.  An increasing number of native English speakers are being employed in the belief that the standards of English language teaching can be increased at an exponential rate.  This influx of perceived foreign talent tends to lack the experience of English language teachers from the host country in that they have not had to study English as a second or foreign language; in particular the understanding of how a particular L1 influences the acquisition of English in given contexts.

This paper looks beyond English (Ginsberg, Honda & O’Neil, 2011) and focuses on the incorporation of linguistics into English language syllabi in one university in north-eastern Thailand by demonstrating to the pre-service and post graduate teachers taking the courses that their bilingual skills are an advantage (Finn, 2011) and not a hindrance.

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