Teaching Grammar - Week 8 - Grammar of English as an International Langauge

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 8 of the course Teaching Grammar for the Bachelor's in English Teaching at ULACIT Term IIIC 2023. In this class we will do several activities to explore the topic of English as an International Language and see strategies to exploit authentic texts for their cultural and linguistic content.

Today's Goals:

• Discuss the Circles of English model and the concept of English as an International Language (EIL).
• Participate in a demo lesson sequence designed to raise students' awareness of the features of a non-standard variety of English.
• Share your Teaching-Learning Cycle activity sequence.

Guiding Questions:

• What is the importance of teaching English as an international language?
• What teaching strategies can we use to increase students' awareness of English varieties?
• How can I increase my students' awareness of genre conventions?

Warm Up: Who does English belong to?

Click your group link below and work with your partners to match the vocabulary words that mean the same thing. For each pair of words, put the British word on the left and the American word on the right.

• Group Link: CLICK HERE

Now, CLICK HERE to check your answers. Which of these differences were you already familiar with?

Task 1: What is EIL?

Click the link below and complete the discussion activites in the worksheet.

• Group Worksheet: CLICK HERE

Task 2: World English Demo Activity

Work with your partners to complete the activity sequence below to discover strategies to exploit the cultural and linguistic content of authentic texts and raise students' awareness about global varieties of English.

Instructions: In this activity, you will listen to the song "Computer" by Walter Ferguson, a Costa Rican calypso artist, cacao farmer, and native English speaker born in 1919 and died this year at the age of 103.  Walter was born on the Panama border near Sixaola but lived his entire life in Cahuita on the southern Caribbean coast. His first language was Limón Creole English, a variety of English that is similar to other varieties spoken in the Caribbean basin.

CLICK HERE to access the worksheet.   

Focus on Pronunciation

• Listen to the above video. How does Walter pronounce words that begin with a voiced "th" sound (the, this, that)? This is a characteristic of Caribbean Englishes. Think of some other words that begin with a voiced "th" sound. How do you think a speaker of Walter's variety of English would pronounce them?

• Play this video. How does Walter pronounce the word computer? How is it different from the standard North American pronunciation? This characteristic is typical of Caribbean and British English varieties. Think of other words that finish with an "r" sound. How would a British or Caribbean English speaker probably pronounce them?

• Listen to the three video clips above. What similarity do you notice about the way Walter pronounces the words understand, all, and executer?
• This is another typical characteristic of some Caribbean and British Englishes. H-adding occurs when speakers add an "h" sound at the beginning of words that starts with a vowel. They might say "h-ignorant" instead of "ignorant" or "h-understand" instead of "understand". The opposite phenomenon, H-dropping, is more common. This occurs when speakers do not pronounce the "h" at the beginning of a word and say "ospital" or "elp" instead of "hospital" or "help". 

• Finally, listen to Walter's pronunciation of the word "going". He says it twice in this clip. Reducing this two syllable word into a single syllable (/gwain/) is common in Caribbean Englishes and also some older varieties of African American English from the southern United States.

Focus on Grammar

Now, CLICK HERE to read the lyrics of the song again with your partners. Imagine you wanted to use this text to raise your students' awareness about some of the grammatical features of Walter's variety of English. What are some aspects that you could focus on?

Additional Resources

If you are interested in learning more about Walter Ferguson's life and hearing him speak, CLICK HERE to watch the documentary "Ferguson: El Último Trovador de Cahuita". It has interviews with him in English with subtitles in Spanish. 

Task 3: Share your Creations

Last week we learned about the Teaching-Learning Cycle to help raise students awareness of discourse patterns and genre conventions when writint texts. Let's see the activity you prepared.

References:

Mckay, S. (2016). Teaching Grammar: English as an International Language. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Teaching English Grammar to Speakers of Other Languages (pp.19-37). Routeledge.