English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity
Jennifer Jenkins
Oxford University Press 2007
ISBN 978-0-19-442237-6
In the final chapter of her book, Jennifer Jenkins neatly illustrates the state of play for English today: at the same time as Gordon Brown was visiting China in 2005, hoping to export the English language and its learning methods to this "key market" country, Korean Airlines chose a French company to supply its flight simulators because its international English was clearer and more comprehensible than that of the UK competitor. Jenkins‘ book unravels responses of native speakers and non-native speakers of English to this situation, to the development of English as a Lingua Franca and specifically to accents. It is not a sociolinguistic survey, neither does it attempt to investigate the political background of English in a globalising world.
Jenkins provides a wide palette of responses to ELF, by examining some work by Second Language Acquisition researchers, examples of teaching materials and teachers' magazines, and mainly with reference to her own and other's recent research. She looks at attitudes of learners and mainly NNS teachers from a variety of countries towards NS and NNS accents. Her own particular informants came mainly from expanding circle countries, such as Brazil, China, Germany. While NS accents were ranked top, NNS accents were ranked hierarchically, with Swedish English accent being perceived as most "native-like". Interesting is the ambivalence felt by many NNS teachers about their own accent and what and how they should be teaching their own students.
Attitudes towards ELF and the link with identity and self-perception are explored in detail and Jenkins considers that the latter will continue to play a critical role for NNSs in the future. The interesting section on "gatekeeping" in the final chapter shows clearly how mainstream research, language testing and teacher training control access to decision-making processes about legitimate English. There is a slow-growing recognition of ELF, however; for example Underhill has recently indicated how his phonemic chart could be adapted to suit any accent. Business English materials tend to be more open and to include samples of NNS English in listening texts, for example.
Jenkins makes it quite clear that neither she, nor other researchers in the ELF field, such as Widdowson and Seidelhofer in Vienna, are suggesting that teachers should begin to teach ELF (which has not, and perhaps cannot be codified). Rather, students need to know that ELF is not "deficient" and that in today's world they will need to be familiar with a wide range of English accents. Similarly, teachers need to be educated about ELF and to adapt and innovate curricula to ensure that classroom time is not spent on NS features that are not widely used in the ELF context.
This book is a timely contribution to the discussion about English in a globalising world, it is engaging, clear and gives a broad picture of attitudes and perceptions. While informants for Jenkins' own research and also for others cited in the book were from a variety of countries, the written material look at different aspects of email writing. Each unit begins with a warm-up to get the students involved from the start and make it more personal. There are a wide range of exercises to offer immediate practice of the newly acquired language. Every chapter has also a Tip-corner to demonstrate a remarkable amount of useful language. The typography is professional-looking and often imitating real computer screen images, which is clearly in harmony with the content, and thus appealing. At the end of the book, you will find a short glossary of relevant phrases and vocabulary. English for Socializing is one of these great books that make you want to kick off with the new classes as quickly as possible. It offers myriads of exercises, motivating speaking topics, and well studied and relevant language for socializing. The material is presented in six chapters: Making contact, Welcoming visitors, Getting Acquainted, Entertaining a visitor, Eating out and Networking at a trade fair. Besides language boxes and strategies for successful socializing, the book also presents many cross-cultural tips to help avoid embarrassing situations. The book comes to a neat close with a summarizing glossary of the language touched upon throughout the chapters.
Most of what has been written above applies also to English for Marketing and Advertising. However, this book is much more business orientated and is clearly aimed at a marketing and advertising personnel. The language presented is incredibly rich and a real treasure box for the target group. Because of the relatively high level of English and very specific lexis, you will find at the end of the book four pages of words accompanied by their pronunciation and space for the student to add the translation. Similarly to the other two books, English for Marketing and Advertising ends with a glossary of vocabulary and expressions.
In case any of the mentioned books is used in a group, pair work is also available in the form of partner files. The latter give students the chance to act out real life situations putting their newly acquired language into immediate practice.
And last but not least, as appropriate to the new hi-tech age each express series book is accompanied by a MultiROM which offers a lot of interactive practice as well as topicrelated listening.
Sirja Bessero