Some Critical Issues on English in East Asia and Their Pedagogic Implications

Abstract

In this study, we evaluated the current situation of English use and English language education in East Asia in conjunction with some critical issues relevant to ELT, such as EMI education, the recruitment of native speaker teachers, and the popularity of English Village. The role and status of English are changing with the globalisation for political, economic, cultural and business cooperation among nations. In several current contexts, English is no longer used to communicate only with native English speakers but is also employed as a common means of intercultural communication or English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). Although the development of Asian ELF studies is at the early stage as compared to European ELF research, some research projects such as the Asian Corpus of English (ACE) have produced empirical findings on Asian ELF. Asian ELF studies provide pedagogic implications including the need for flexible and effective language use rather than native-speaker norms or grammatical accuracy. Therefore, from a curriculum development perspective, English education policy, classroom teaching methods and teacher education programs should take this changing nature of English use under consideration. From a marketing perspective, English language education and teaching approaches in East Asia need to raise student awareness regarding the opportunity English can provide for intercultural communication, which is characterized by variability and diversity, which is what is particularly important for engaging in effective and successful communication.