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Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

© Brenda Townsend Hall

As a truly global activity, English language teaching benefits greatly from the ease of access to material on the Internet. The well-heeled learner of English has always been able to travel to an English-speaking community for an immersion course, probably the most effective means of learning. Millions of the less affluent, however, have had to make the most of what is available and affordable on their own doorstep. For these learners and their teachers, the Internet offers limitless resources: opportunities for practice for learners and materials and teaching ideas for instructors.

These resources fall into three broad categories:

• Sites dedicated to English learning and teaching;
• Sites rich in authentic English texts such as newspapers and journals, and
• Interactive resources such as newsgroups and chat rooms that allow individuals to communicate with total strangers across national boundaries.

For teachers, the first category is an enormous boon. Sites maintained by universities, professional organisations and bodies, as well as publishers, offer a wealth of research, data, teaching ideas, discussion, professional development, news about and excerpts from the latest publications in the field that can be accessed no matter how remote their teaching post may be. These sites also provide exercises and practice materials for learners so that the individual student can have an additional and autonomous learning aid to supplement classroom work.

The second category benefits each group too. There is no longer a need for news be several days old before the teacher can obtain an English language newspaper to base a lesson on. This category is a liberating force as well. If we see dedicated texts and materials as usually emanating from a small group of powerful publishers, then easy access to news and other sources of "free" text, enables teachers to set their own agendas and to reflect more faithfully the interests of their students. Learners can also access the authentic materials of their choice without the intervention of an intermediary.

The third, interactive, category represents a revolution in attitudes to the role of the English language. English language teaching has always had a political and ethical dimension. Some have seen the predominance of English in the fields of business, technology and science as a form of linguistic imperialism and even as a threat to some of the minority languages. Arguments rage about the relative merits of different varieties of English, about grammatical correctness, about gender bias, about the corrupting influence of slang or new vocabulary, about correct pronunciation. Yet these very arguments demonstrate how exciting language is. It is organic, flourishing in some directions, withering in others, in reflection of the needs of its speakers. Attempts to control, curtail or direct the development of languages are always futile.

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