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Devısıng Classroom Actıvıtıes for Englısh as an Internatıonal Language Pedagogy
Dr Ahmet Acar
Assıstant Professor
Dokuz Eylül Unıversıty Buca School Of Educatıon Department Of Englısh Language Teachıng
0543 727 99 66
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Devısıng Classroom Actıvıtıes for Englısh as an Internatıonal Language Pedagogy
Abstract: This paper exemplifies activities devised to raise awareness of EIL students in monolingual classrooms. The ultimate aim is to prepare students for intercultural communication with English users of different varieties of English from different cultural backgrounds by first exposing the students in their monocultural classroom to Englishes from multicultural contexts. The activities reflect a pluri-centric view of English and embrace different cultures. The global spread of English from inner circle countries has spawned a large number of different varieties of English in the world. This sociolinguistic reality of English has led ELT researchers to question the validity of teaching just a native variety of English. While there is now a general consensus in the field of English as an international language pedagogy that the students should be exposed to different varieties of English in their local classrooms, the challenge is to rethink our classrooms to create ways to do this. This paper has attempted to help fill this gap by presenting a few awareness raising activities that I have used in my own classroom.
Keywords: English as an international language pedagogy, world Englishes, proficiency in EIL, culture in EIL, classroom activities in EIL pedagogy
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Introduction. In the ‘method’ era, many ELT classroom activities aimed to equip the students with
native speaker-like communicative competence (often through the so-called communicative
approach). Thus native speakers’ linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse and strategic norms used to
be the ultimate target to be achieved by the English learners. This trend reflected the nature of
learning English as a foreign language, with the assumption that the students would learn English
for interaction with native speakers, achieve native speaker-like proficiency and learn the culture of
the native speakers. With the global spread of English in the world, the needs of EFL classrooms
have changed. At present, the number of non native speakers exceeds the number of native speakers
and these non native speakers mostly use English among each other without the intervention of
native speakers. Arguably, they do not need the norms of a target culture, if they are to use English
mainly for cross cultural communication. Changes in the nature of English go hand in hand with
changes in English pedagogy. ELT researchers now need to consider how to develop an appropriate
EIL pedagogy which embraces a pluri-centric view of English and multiculturalism in ELT classes
(Nunn, 2011).
Brief General Background
Standards in EIL.
Teaching English as a foreign language tended to promote so called native speaker standard English
in the classroom all over the world (e.g., Canale, 1983). Thus the students were considered
successful to the extent that they approximated a native speaker standard English (Alptekin, 2002,
Nunn, 2005). Any variation in the non natives’ use of English from the native Standard English was
considered as an error which should be corrected to avoid fossilization. The global spread of
English in the world, however, resulted in varieties of English in different sociocultural contexts.
Kachru (1985) defined this sociolinguistic profile of English in terms of three concentric circles
“representing the types of spread, the patterns of acquisition and the functional domains in which
English is used across cultures and languages” (p.12). These were classified as the inner circle, the
outer circle and the expanding circle. The inner circle includes countries where English is used as
the native language like the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The outer circle
refers to the institutionalized non-native varieties of English in such countries as Singapore, India,
Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana. English is mostly the official language in these countries and it is used as a
language of wider communication in the daily lives of many people, as a result of which it has
formed many new forms and variations, which make them different from the inner circle native
speaker standard English norms. The expanding circle, on the other hand, includes such countries as
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Turkey, Japan, China and Russia, where English has no offical status and is mostly used as an
international language.
Kachru’s three circle model of English has advocated the recognition of the outer circle Englishes
as new Englishes in their own right without comparison to the native speaker varieties of English.
This led to a pluricentric view of English by coining such Englishes as Singaporean English,
Pakistani English, Indian English, Nigerian English. Thus English is no longer the sole property of
the native speakers but it is also the language of non-native speakers who adapt it to their own
sociolinguistic and sociocultural contexts (xxx, 2010, p.14).
This paper is about developing practice rather than theory. Nunn (2011) points out that there is a
need to move beyond the difficult task of defining EIL competence, to the still more difficult task of
finding ways to develop it in what are often mono-cultural classrooms. One of the goals of EIL
pedagogy is to make the students aware of the fact that there is not just one standard English in the
world but that there are a variety of English standards. The students should also be informed of the
fact that it is necessary because, given the international status of English in the World, they will
communicate not only with native English speakers but also with English speakers from a variety of
cultural contexts. Such an awarness can be achieved by exposing the students to a variety of local
varieties of English in the classroom. Thus although the students will follow one basic variety of
English depending on their context in the classroom they will also be familiar with different
varieties of English and show respect to English use and usage without displayling any negative
attitude toward such varieties. The students familiar with the vast amount of variation in the use of
English in the world will also be more successful in intercultural communication with English users
from different countries and they will also develop more negotiation strategies to use to make the
intercultural comunication more successful. Besides the students will develop an undertsanding that
the so called native speaker standard English is not the privileged form of English which should be
followed. Hence, they will consider all the varieties of English in the world as equal legitimate
forms and uses of English. They will come to an understanding that native Standard English is not
the only valid pedagogic model in all cultural contexts but that different varieties of English would
be more appropriate as pedagogic modes in different local cultural contexts.
Proficiency in EIL. The current target proficiency level of teaching English as a foreign language
tradition is defined in the theoretical concept of communicative competence as outlined by Canale
(1983) which “reflects a monolithic view of the native speakers’ language and culture, making NS
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standard English norms, NS authentic communication and NS culture the ultimate focus of
curriculum design and classroom practice within the communicative approach.”(Acar, 2010, p.13)
In such an orientation, the students must continue learning English up to the level at which they can
pronounce words and sentences just as native speakers, use English appropriately in appropriate
social contexts and get invloved in native like coherent discourse successfully. In short, teaching
English as a foreign language assumes that English users all around the world must be profient in so
called native speaker standard English. Non-natives’ English language knowledge, on the other
hand, was considered as “interlanguage” on the path to native speaker competence. While
traditional teaching English as a foreign language assumed that the English learners would
communicate with native english speakers and thus aim to achieve native like proficiency to be able
to be intelligible to them, EIL pedagogy assumes that the students will communicate mainly with
English users from different cultural contexts and thus it formulates different competencies in place
of the native speaker based notion of communicative competence (e.g. Alptekin, 2002; McKay,
2002, 2003; Nunn, 2005, 2011). These English users, on the other hand, either speak a local variety
of English as depicted by Kachru’s outer circle Englishes or speak English as an international
language for cross cultural communication. Thus the English learners in today’s world will be
communicating with English speakers each of whom speaks a different variety of English or will
use English with different norms than that of native English speakers. Such being the case,
proficincy in EIL now requires active competence in a local variety and passive competence to
understand different varieties. The activities presented in this paper therefore aim to ‘break the ice’
in terms of accepting the notion of multicentricity (Nunn, 2005 & 2011) by raising the students’
awarness of the diversity in English. Proficiency in EIL will subsequently necessitate equiping the
students with the necessary negotiation strategies to cope with the variability in English and raising
the students’ cross cultural awareness for them to be effective communicators in international
cnotexts (Nunn, 2011), but the activities prioritized here focus on the intial steps of awareness
raising with the aim of motivating students to want to explore further.
Cultural Awareness in EIL Activities
McKay (2002) argues that “it cannot be assumed that the culture of any one particular country,
especially an inner circle country should provide the basis for cultural content when teaching EIL…
and…that if one of the goals of using culture in EIL teaching is to help individuals interact in cross-
cultural encounters, then merely knowing about a culture will not be sufficient to gain insight into
how to interact in cross-cultural encounters” (p.82). I assume that the cultures of the inner circle, the
outer circle and the expanding circle countries should all be represented in an EIL classroom. This
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does not necessarily mean that the students will learn all the cultural features of every country in the
world, which would certainly be impossible. The focus, however, should be on raising the students’
cross-cultural awaraness by exposing the students to different cultures, while also viewing the
students’ own culture from this multi-cultural perspective as McKay (2002) also points out:
“Since…one of the major reasons for using EIL is to enable speakers to share their ideas and culture
with others in cross-cultural encounters, it is beneficial for learners to be asked to reflect on their
own culture in relation to others, or as Kramsch puts it, to establish a sphere of interculturality. This
requires two essential steps. First, learners need to acquire knowledge about another culture and
then they need to reflect on how their own culture contrasts with it” (p.83). EIL activities should be
fun to make students want to extend their knowledge of different world cultures in relation to the
students’ own culture. What happens in the classroom can only be a starting point, so thqt students
will then use the huge range of online resources available to engage with other cultures in-depth.
EIL classroom activities.
This paper is based on a presentation in which the activities were illustrated on video recordings of
my own classes. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLyYj9VSGac ) I believe that these videos
indicated a high level of enthusiastic participation from the university students. This paper will
attempt to describe the activities in a less persuasive written form. It is intended not only for those
who attended the presentation, but also to share ideas that you can adapt to your own EIL
classrooms.
The EIL classroom needs to look the part. My room is decorated with posters of countries from the
inner circle, the outer circle and the expanding circle (including the students’ own culture). Each
poster embodies the flag of the country and five cultural features of that country. These posters
could be prepared by the teacher on the computer and then printed out poster size for the students to
see easily during the activities. The EIL classroom is also equiped with different objects
representing the cultures of these countries such as souvenirs related to these countries (e.g.
souvenir drums of Ghana, souvenir arrow of South Africa or the souvenir wood carved objects of
Kenya). It is best to buy these objects, collecting them regularly overtime, since it would almost be
impossible for the teachers to create these objects for the EIL classroom. Over time, the number of
artefacts need have no limits. Potentially, they provide different cross cultural materials for the EIL
classroom. Some of these are used in the following EIL activities.
I have not attempted to specify an ideal age for these activities, expectibng that the type of activity
is adaptable to differnet age groups. This activity, which involves physical movement, may appear 109
to be aimed at primary age children, but (as demonstrated in the video in my ESBB presentation),
university students enjoyed engaging in it wholeheartedly.
Floor game activity.
For this activity the teacher prepares a big dice from cartons. On the Wall, there are 25 posters of
the inner circle, outer circle and the expanding circle countries. The poster countries chosen for this
activity are The USA, The UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand from the inner circle;
Singapore, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, The Philippines, Malaysia, Kenya, South Africa, Bangladesh,
Ghana, Sri Lanka from the outer circle; and Indonesia, China, Egypt, Turkey, Japan, South Korea,
Russia, Thailand from the expanding circle. As discussed in the previous section, in each poster
there is the flag of a country and five pictures depicting five cultural features of that country. For
example on the poster of India, there is the flag of India, the pictures of the Great Buddha Statue,
Taj Mahal, famous cobra dancing, traditional Indian dance and costumes and the Ganges River:
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There is no written explanation on the posters. Each poster, however, has a number above or below
it on a separate card so that if asked which poster is the poster of a country a student can indicate it
with its number. This activity requires the students to move around ther classroom, in a sense
travelling across cultures within the classroom. The teacher writes the names of these countries on
sound foot-sized yellow plastic cards and sticks these cards on the floor one after another. Some
empty dark blue cards are also placed among these yellow country cards which would serve as
punishments for the students if they set foot on them (like “kiss your classmate”, touch the door
with your nose”, “jump five times”), which would make the activity more fun. There are also two
red plastic cards which order the student to go back two steps. These are written in small yellow
cards put beside each space. Besides the yellow country cards there are also small yellow cards in
which there are some questions related to the cultures of poster countries on the wall and related to
some vocabulary or sentences from the variety of English spoken in that country.
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The class is divided into two groups such as group A and group B. At first one student from group
A goes to the start to begin the game. One other student from group A (not the student who will
move on the spaces) throws the dice. If the number is two, for example, then the student jumps on
the cards beginning from the first space to the second space on one foot and picks up the card
beside the yellow country card (Singapore) and reads the question or order written in the card aloud
(In Singaporean English, what does the sentence “I oso like dis one” mean?) and tries to answer the
question. If his/her answer is correct then another group member throws the dice again and the
students keep moving forward on the countries till they reach the last country. If the student fails to
answer the question correctly or the other foot in the air touches the floor he/she looses and another
student from the other group takes the turn and begins the game from the start. If the student sets
foot on the dark blue space, he/she picks up the card near that space, reads the punishment (e.g.
touch the door with your nose) serves it and goes back to his/her space and moves forward
according to the throw of the dice. If the student sets foot on a red space, then he/she moves two
spaces back. The teacher throws confetti on the group that wins (an optional award).
Here are some sample questions on the yellow cards near the yellow country cards:
The USA: Which object in the classroom represents the culture of the United States? (two Indian masks)The UK: Find the poster of the UK and tell us about three characteristics of the British culture.Canada: Find the poster of Canada and tell us about one characteristic of the Canadian culture.Australia: Find the poster of Australia and tell us about three characteristics of Australian culture.Ireland: Find the poster of Ireland and tell us about one characteristic of the Irish culture.New Zealand: Find the poster of New Zealand and tell us about three characteristics of the culture of New Zealand.Singapore: In Singaporean English, what does the sentence “I oso like dis one” mean? (I oso like dis one: I also like this one)India: In Indian English, what does “opticals” mean in the sentence “I left my opticals in my office so I can’t read the newspaper.” (opticals: glasses)Pakistan: In Pakistani English, what does “pass out” mean in the sentence “I passed out of the university in 1995.” (pass out: graduate)Nigeria: In Nigerian English, what does “stick” mean in the sentence “I smoked two sticks today.” (Stick: cigarette)The Philippines: In Philippine English, what does “I am ashamed to you” mean in the sentence “I broke your plate so I am ashamed to you.” (I am ashamed to you: I am embarrassed.)Malaysia: In Malaysian English, what does “send” mean in the sentence “Can you send me to the airport?” (Can you send me to the airport? Can you take me to the airport?)Kenya: In Kenyan English, what does “Are you getting me?” mean? (Are you getting me?: Do you understand what I am saying?)
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South Africa: In South African English, what does “gogo” mean in the sentence “My mother used to work so my gogo raised me.” (gogo: grandmother)Bangladesh: Find the poster of Bangladesh and tell us about one characteristic of the culture of Bangladesh.Ghana: In Ghanaian English, what does “barber my hair” mean in the sentence “I am going to barber my hair.” (I am going to barber my hair: I am going to have my hair cut.)Sri Lanka: In Sri Lankan English, what does “batchmate” mean in the sentence “Ali is my batchmate. We are in the same class.” (batchmate: classmate)Indonesia: Which object in the classroom represents the culture of Indonesia. (a wood carved souvenir)China: Find the poster of China and tell us about two characteristics of the culture of China.Egypt: Find the poster of Egypt and tell us about two characteristics of the culture of Egypt.Turkey: Find the poster of Turkey and tell us about four characteristics of the Turkish culture.Japan: Find the poster of Japan and tell us about two characteristics of the culture of Japan.South Korea: Find the poster of Russia and tell us about two characteristics of the culture of Russia.Russia: Find the poster of Russia and tell us about two characteristics of the culture of Russia.Thailand: Find the poster of Thailand and tell us about two characteristics of the culture of Thailand.
These questions are not an end in themselves. Depending on the level of the students, they can be
used as stepping stone to deeper investigation using the wealth of online resources available. Thery
can also be used to stimulate discussion, with more advanced students, on important topics such as
cultural stereotypes.
Whisper game activity. The famous whisper game activity can also be turned into an EIL activity.
The teacher divides the class into two groups and requires the students to line up with their seats.
The students at the front of the line will hold a board marker. The teacher writes sentences from
different varieties of English on the big yellow cards which can be read easily by the students
beforehand. When the activity begins the teacher gives two cards with English sentences from
different varieties on it to two students from two different groups at the back and a student reads the
sentence on the card and whisper the sentence to the student in front and this continues until the
person at the front row has heard it and they write the sentence on the board. Then the students at
the back of the row stick the sentence cards next to the sentences the students wrote on the board.
The group who write the sentence correctly in its original form from the culture in question wins the
game. Here are the sentences which could be written on the cards:
She had a baby last week, isn’t it? (South African English, means “didn’t she”)
He went to different different places. (Sri Lankan English, means “many different places”)114
I am alighting. (Kenyan English, means “getting of the bus”)
I am so sian. (Singaporen English, means “so tired”)
Why are you so high-blood again? (Philippine English, “so agitated”)
I will meet him at the bus stand. (Indian English, means “bus station”.)
I am drinking a cigarette. (Pakistani English, means “smoking a cigarette”)
I talked to him on the public phone. (Malaysian English, means “payphone”)
Let’s go to a chop bar for lunch. (Ghanaian English, means “restaurant”)
My son pasted before going to bed. (Nigerian English, means “brushed his teeth”)
Sentence - poster match activity. This activity is linked to the previous activity. In addition, there
are balloons on the strings at the top of the classroom on which different varieties of English are
written. After the whisper game there are ten sentences (the sentences above) from different
varieties of English on the board. The teacher divides the class into two groups and calls one student
from each group to the board. The students probably does not know which sentence belongs to
which variety of English. The teacher reads one of the sentences on the board and gives some
cultural clues from the poster of the country in which this sentence is used to the students and the
students try to guess the country correctly by saying the number of the poster. For example, the
teacher says the sentence, “She had a baby last week, isn’t it?”, gradually providing more
information as needed. (It is used in the country in which Zulu people live… whose capital is Cape
Town … and which is famous for Vuvuzellas …and whose president was Nelson Mandela.) All this
information is already in the poster of South Africa in the classroom and as soon as the teacher
gives this cultural information, the students can use their memory of the posters they have viewed,
or can look around in the classroom to find the poster of South Africa. If the student finds the poster
of South Africa, he/she says the number of the poster and takes the card on the board on which the
sentence is written and sticks it under the poster of South Africa. Then he/she punctures the balloon
on which South African English is written. If the student guesses the wrong poster number then
he/she loses his/her right and the other student from the other group is given a chance to guess the
correct poster of the country in which this sentence is used.
Sentence betting activity. Sentence betting is also an activity used in ELT classes and it can easily
be incorporated into EIL pedagogy. The teacher divides the class into two groups and gives the two
groups th same amount of money (fake money designed for such activities can be used to make it 115
more realistic). He/she writes sentences from different local varieties of English on yellow cards a
day before and gives three options to the students as to which English variety the sentence belongs
to. The teacher then sticks the card on the board so that the students can see it and discuss it with
their group members. Then each group bets a certain amount of money on the variety of English
and the other group has to bet the same amount of money. The teacher then gives the correct answer
and the group who wins get the money. If no-one provides a correct answer then each group takes
their money back. Here are sample sentences that can be used in this activity:
He always go to the shopping centre. (-goes, Singaporean English)-Singaporean English-Ghanaian English-Malaysian English
Open the radio (Turn on the radio, Philippine English)-Malaysian English-Philippine English-Kenyan English
Turn on the fire! (Switch on the light, Nigerian English)-South African English-Sri Lankan English-Nigerian EnglishWe saw Billy and them in town. (We saw Billy and the others in town, South African English)-Ghanaian English-South African English-Sri Lankan EnglishIt is your shot (It is your turn, Malaysian English)-South African English-Kenyan English-Malaysian EnglishI am elder than you ( I am older than you, Pakistani English)-Indian English-Pakistani English-Nigerian EnglishThere is a lot of equipments being sold at the shop (equipment, Kenyan English)-South African English-Kenyan English-Indian EnglishI will meet my co-brother at the bus station. (brother-in-law, Indian English)-Indian English-Ghanaian English-Singaporean EnglishWhere are you from? (Where are you coming from, Ghanaian English)
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-Ghanaian English-Sri Lankan English-Malaysian EnglishKeep it on the table (Put it on the table, Sri Lankan English)-Sri Lankan English-Malaysian English-Kenyan English
Wrong one out activity. The teacher writes a series of expressions, words or sentences from
different varieties of English on yellow cards beforehand. One of these, however, is wrong in that it
does not belong to any variety of English. The teacher divides the class into two groups. Two
students from two groups come to the board and pick up a card and stick the cards on the board.
First the student from group A reads the sentence, word or expression aloud and tries to guess
which one is wrong. Then the other student from group B reads his/her card and tries to guess
which one is wrong. This goes on until all the group members have made their guesses. The teacher
gives points to the correct answers until the winning group is announced. Here are the words or
sentences written on the cards:
1.petrol shed (Sri Lankan English)petrol shell (Ghanaian)filling station (British English)petrol stock (wrong)
2.How are you? (British English)How are you doing? (American English)How are you living? (wrong)How are you going? (Australian English)
3. handphone (Malaysian English)head phone (wrong)mobile phone (American English / British English)cell phone (American English / British English)
4. “cafe” may mean-a convenience store (South African English)-restaurant (Indian English)-bakery (wrong)
5. booties (wrong)trainers (British)sneakers (American English)
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takies (South African English)
6. outstation (Malaysian English)out of office (American /British English)off the station (wrong)
7.highway (American English)straightway (wrong)freeway (South African English)motorway (British English)
8. scholarship (American /British English)studentship (American /British English)freeship (Indian English)schoolship (wrong)
Auction game activity. There are different objects representing different countries in the
classroom. The teacher gives fake money to the students. In the auction the students can buy any
item. The teacher picks up an object in the classroom. First he introduces the object and says which
country it belongs to. S/he then goes near the poster of that country in the classroom and gives brief
information about the status of English in that country and about some cultural characteristics of
that country in the poster. The auction then begins and the students start bidding. Whoever gives the
highest price buys the object. As an example, the teacher picks up the wooden Indian water monitor
in the classroom and goes to the poster of India in the classroom and says “This beautiful water
monitor can be found in India. India is an exciting country with more than 1.3 billion population. It
is a multilingual country. Twenty-three langauges are officially recognized by the Indian
constitution, although about two hundred and sixteen languages are spoken in India. English is one
of the offical languages. The English that is spoken is a recognized international variety called
Indian English. As you see in the poster the Taj Mahal is an important landmark and symbol of
India. some other representative characteristics of the Indian culture are the Great Buddha Statue,
the famous cobra dancing, and the Ganges river. So this beautiful Indian water monitor can remind
you of India. Who wants to buy it?” The other objects that can be used in the auction could be wood
carved souvenirs of Kenya, drums of Ghana, a bow and arrow of South Africa, wood carved
animals from Indonesia. Where artefacts are not available, pictures or slides could be shown.
Conclusion. The activities that I have briefly illustrated here have all been used in my own classes.
They are intended only to give a flavour of the kind of activities that can be used to break the ice in
an EIL class. They are intended to be lively and colourful. They are not an end in themselves, but 118
when they are successful in the classroom, they can stimulate class discussion. They can also lead to
more in-depth activities such as project-based research.
With the global spread of English in the world, many varieties of English have evolved, shaped by
the cultures of countries in which it is used. This sociolinguistic profile of English has had many
implications for English pedagogy. It is therefore important to find ways of raising awareness of the
fact that a varied range of World Englishes are actually being spoken. We can of course inform our
students that there are now more ‘non-native’ English speakers than native English speakers and
these non native speakers mostly use English for a variety of purposes including cross cultural
communcation. However, it is becoming equally important to divise classroom activities that reflect
sociolinguistic realities. Thus ELT classroom practise should encompass a variety of English norms
and cultures in the classroom. By exposing the students to varieties of English and cultures in the
classroom, we are attempting to sensitize he students to the challenges of cross cultural
communication in international contexts. This paper is an attempt to make a small contribution to
the field, based on my desire to bring variety to my own classroom.
References
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