What does EIL stand for?English as an International Language
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English as a tool for international communication, with a focus on intelligibility.
Communication with people from different L1 backgrounds, dealing with different kinds of accents.
(Less of a focus on by the books "correctness" or "native" pronunciation)What is the ‘nativeness principle’?Older idea of the goal of language teaching/learning being to achive native-speaker accents (British or American accents, to be specific).
. Communicative approaches and later the intelligibility principle questioned these ideas and put a greater emphasis on international communication.What are intelligibility, comprehensibility and actedness?Intelligibility: How accurately you are understood (how accurate a transcription of your speech would be, for example)
. Comprehensibility: How much/little effort/ concentration it takes the listener to understand you (-> which may cause listeners to judge your language skills as poor, even if you are very intelligible)
. Actedness: how "standard" the speakers accent sounds to the listener. This does not hinder intelligibility, unless the listeners bias against the speakers accent makes them not listen properly. Even speakers with heavy accents can be transcribed very sucessfully, actedness doesn't need to be a barrier to intelligibility.What is the goal of international intelligibility?Helping students to become intelligible in international communication. Effective and efficient communication.
. CEFR (common European Framework of Reference) now also defines successfull pronunciation in those terms, wheras (older idea)EFL (English as a foreign language) assumes that "good pronunciation" equals "near-native-speaker accent".What are the 3 possible options for suitable EIL pronunciation models?- 1. Native-speaker models, as already exists in lots of study materials
- 2. Expert users of EIL, provided online
- 3. The teacher. As long as they are internationally intellgibile, any teacher is a suitable model.What are the advantages and disadvantages of computer-assisted pronunciation teaching (CAPT)?+ Fast, immediate (no sheduling needed)
+ Portable (accessible from anywhere)
+ Wide range of speakers of different backgrounds
+ Cheap, computers don't get tired
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- No face-to-face feedback
- quality of feedback is limited by technology (though some apps have human instructors)
- Often natvie-accent normative, rather than focusing on intelligibilityWhy do teachers sometimes lack confidence when teaching pronunciation in general?- Feel unfit to properly teach pronunciation
- As role models, they feel they should have native-speaker accents, even when they are aware of EIL ideas
- Perceived inadequacy of their own accent (due to stronger focus on those ideals by previous generations of teachers)
. BUT:
- Students put less emphasis on those ideas.
- Having the experience of being a non-native speaker, thereby relating to their students, can be seen as an advantage for teachers too!What might be the difficulties in implementing EIL in the classroom (and what are potential fixes)?- Time pressure: Pronunciation practice can be integrated into existing lessons (grammar and vocab), and it's a foundational skill that can improve listening, speaking, even reading. It will accelerate their learning in general, so it's worth it!
- Class size: Exercises with the whole class as a start, then students work in pairs to correct each others mistakes. If there is a disagreement or uncertainty, the teacher can join.
- Student goals: Students often want to sound native. EIL does not hinder that; good intellgibility and the Lingua Franca Core are a solid foundation toward their goal!
- Teacher accent: Since the goal is intellgibility, the teacher's own accent is not a hinderance, and the students are to come into contact with many different accents anyway.Why might a non-native speaker prefer to not have a native-sounding accent?Their own accent might be tied to their sense of identity and heritance, which they might not want to lose.
In the attempt of changing one's accent, there is a certain implication of a "superiority" of one accent over the other, and, thereby, one culture over the other.What might be advantages to having a non-native speaker as an L2 teacher?- They understand where you're coming from/ relate better to your experiences & strugggles
- Demonstrates to students that you do not have to be a native speaker to be a competent, even very competent, speaker of a language, as well has normalising the idea of having a noticable accent to the learner