Samantha NG 660(1) Paper Dr Christina Higgins Oct 17, 2006 [email protected]

ESL versus EIL; and the NS/NNS Dichotomy. Now what?

This paper first looks at the two varieties of English commonly known as English as a

Second Language (ESL) and English as an International Language (EIL), and traces their respective developments; and second, examines the dichotomy between a native speaker (NS) of

English – assumed to be a member of Kachru’s Inner Circle1 – and a non-native speaker (NNS) of English – presumably a member of the Outer and Expanding Circles (Kachru, 1989), with its pedagogical and sociolinguistic implications, as well as in the context of teacher recruitment. It is my hope that a greater understanding of EIL and the gradual breakdown of the traditional notions of this NS/NNS dichotomy would eventually lead to increased recognition of the legitimacy of this ascendant ‘variety’2 of English and their respective native speakers, and their impact on the learning, use and teaching of the English language worldwide.

BACKGROUND OF ESL

English as a Second Language (ESL) is a well-established variety of English, ‘Second’ relative to English as a Native Language (ENL). It arose initially from the teaching of English to non-English speakers generally, and was earlier referred to simply as (the) teaching (of) English, the teaching of English as (sic) foreign language, or often as just language teaching (Nayar,

1997:10). Nayar (ibid, citing West, 1927) also stated that “[t]he expression English as a foreign language, which became popular only later with the advent of ESL…must have made good sense to English speakers at the time to refer to English language use and learning that was felt to be different from the native situation and that was physically outside the native-speaking countries.”

1 Terms used in this paper are italicized or in single quotation marks for the discourses they may represent, except as stated otherwise, and are used for ease of reference, and not necessarily because I endorse them. 2 EIL, by its very name, is pluralistic in nature. The use of the term “variety” to describe it in this paper is purely for ease of reference when contrasting it with ESL for instance.

. 1 Samantha NG 660(1) Paper Dr Christina Higgins Oct 17, 2006 [email protected]

Nayar (ibid) noted that Morris (1945) was one of the earliest authors who wrote on the teaching and learning of English as a second language when the latter realized that the teaching of English in the countries of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia was in many ways different from the teaching of a foreign language like French or German in the schools of Britain.

To reflect the fact that learners in the former situations already had numerous vernaculars and that English was for them “a vital medium of education giving access to a broader culture, and providing an auxiliary language for ordinary use” (p iii), Morris used the term second language.

Now, a learner of ESL is widely interpreted in the United States to mean someone who is not a native speaker of English.

Subsequently, Kachru (ibid) came up with the by-now well-known (and possibly, infamous) three concentric circles to represent the different roles English serves in different countries. The Inner Circle comprises the handful of countries where English has traditionally been the native language, for example, the United States, Britain, and Australia. The Outer

Circle is made up of countries in which English has official status, such as Singapore, India,

Ghana, and the Philippines. Countries where English has no official status, such as China, Japan,

Korea, France, and Germany, were termed the Expanding Circle.

These epithets (meant to delineate, and possibly alienate, for the sake of academic discussion) are not without problems of their own, as an increasing number of Expanding Circle countries have many more English-speaking bilinguals than those in the Inner or Outer Circles

(McKay 2002:11, citing Crystal, 1997).

FROM ESL TO EIL

English as an International Language (EIL) or English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) is not, at present, a ‘variety’ of English that has universal acceptance, unlike ESL. Smith (1976) was one

. 2 Samantha NG 660(1) Paper Dr Christina Higgins Oct 17, 2006 [email protected] of the first to define the term, but as Jenkins (2006) noted, World Englishes (WE – a common namesake of EIL) as a topic was “notable for its absence in the [1991] 25th anniversary issues [of the TESOL Quarterly]. Where it had any presence at all, this was either by implication or as a peripheral issue in articles devoted to other subjects.”

However, the tide is turning. Since then, the growing awareness of TESOL professionals has been reflected in refereed journals such as TESOL Quarterly, which has published more and more articles whose authors consider the teaching and learning of English in relation to the realities of the language’s current spread and use, as well as by the publication of Pennycook

(1994). As pointed out above, the fact is, there are countless more speakers of WE than those in

Kachru’s Inner and Outer Circles. And so, WE has earned the right to be assigned a dedicated slot in the 2006 40th anniversary issue.

What then is this World Englishes? There is as yet a consensus, and I shall use the terms

EIL, ELF and WE interchangeably, although EIL or ELF usually refers to the English used by non-native speakers of English who have different native languages of their own. According to

Jenkins (ibid), there are three possible interpretations: First, WE serves as an “umbrella label” covering all varieties of English worldwide and the different approaches used to describe and analyze them; second, it is used in a narrower sense to refer to the so-called new Englishes in

Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean (Kachru’s Outer Circle); and third, it is also used to represent the pluricentric approach to the study of English associated with Kachru and his colleagues, and often referred to as the Kachruvian approach, although there is considerable overlap between this and the second interpretation of the term.

And where does ESL stand? How did EIL come about? Was it created, and by whom?

If so, was EIL meant to replace, supplement, or modify ESL? What are the implications? These

. 3 Samantha NG 660(1) Paper Dr Christina Higgins Oct 17, 2006 [email protected] are some of the questions this paper seeks to throw some light on. Before we move on to addressing these issues, we need to define what a ‘native speaker of English’ is, to help us arrive at some possible answers.

NATIVE SPEAKER/NON-NATIVE SPEAKER DICHOTOMY?

The Longman Online Dictionary defines a ‘native speaker of English’ as someone who has learned English as a ‘first’, rather than ‘foreign’, language. However, the definition of what a ‘first’ language is, is uncertain, especially in the case of plural and multilingual societies. Must it ordinally be the first language learnt; does it depend on a continued use of the language in a person’s life; does it also refer to a high level of competence in the language; or must it be a variety used by the educated class in an Inner Circle country?

Tay (1982: 67-68) argued that an NS not from an Inner Circle country is “one who learns

English in childhood and continues to use it as his dominant language, and has reached a certain level of fluency.” She noted that “[a]ll three conditions are important. If a person learns English late in life, he is unlikely to attain native fluency in it; if he learns it as a child, but does not use it as his dominant language in adult life, his native fluency in the language is also questionable; if he is fluent in the language, he is more likely one who has learned it as a child (not necessarily before the age of formal education but soon after that), and has continued to use it as his dominant language.”

Rampton (1990) pointed out that someone may be an NS of more than one language, especially if that person belonged to more than one social group. And, the social group(s) one belongs to can change over time. Davies (1991) corroborated Tay’s hypothesis by suggesting that an NS is someone who has a “high degree of competence in the language, and linguistic intuition of it”, as well as agreed with Rampton that language is related to one’s identity.

. 4 Samantha NG 660(1) Paper Dr Christina Higgins Oct 17, 2006 [email protected]

Comparing Kachru’s theory of the three concentric circles where an NS of English belongs to one of the countries of the Inner Circle, the foregoing views seem to point to a gradual breakdown of the traditional notions of who, or what, constitutes an ‘NS of English’. In fact, Rampton (ibid: 98-99) urged his audience to reconsider the usefulness of the term, because one, a person’s expertise is different from his identification; two, that expertise is and can be learned, and not innate or fixed; three, however the term might suggest otherwise, no one – yes, not even an ‘NS of English’ – is omniscient, he may be an expert but he does not write the infallible or incontrovertible bible of English; and four, even if he were certified, standards of assessment can be reviewed and disputed. In her study of whether Outer Circle speakers can be viewed as equivalent to speakers of mother-tongue varieties in terms of their ownership (the researcher’s emphasis) of English, that is, the degree to which they project themselves as legitimate speakers with authority over the language, Higgins (2003) found many similarities across Outer and Inner Circle groups despite variation in degrees of ownership among both groups (and ownership is almost entirely subjective).

Yet, a cursory survey of ESL jobs on popular websites such as www.eslcafe.com/joblist and www.tefl.com suggests that this term – ‘NS of English’ – is still readily and widely used, as if it were unambiguous, especially in teacher recruitment advertisements for Expanding Circle countries such as China and South Korea. But if it were truly clear as day, then there is absolutely no need (for any of these recruiters) to also put in parentheses the countries whose citizens are (considered) ‘NSs of English’. After all, who or what else can an ‘NS of English’ be?

Liu (1999:91) considers “[i]dentifying an individual as an NS or an NNS of English…a difficult if not impossible task. A fundamental question is, ‘Who is doing the labeling and for

. 5 Samantha NG 660(1) Paper Dr Christina Higgins Oct 17, 2006 [email protected] what purposes?’” There seems to be very little in current literature which also defines an ‘NS of

English’ by the variety of English he or she speaks, not surprising because that, too, is near impossible. Generally though, an NS of English speaks ‘Standard English’. In turn, ‘Standard

English’ has traditionally been a variety spoken by members of the educated class in any one of the Inner Circle countries, such as Received Pronunciation (RP). Therefore, one expects, or presumes perhaps, that ‘American English’, ‘British English’ or ‘Australian English’ (whatever these mean) to a standard used by say, a lawyer, in any of these countries is ‘Standard English’; in which case, there might as well not be a definition, since all these countries are not so tiny that there is a clear understanding even within themselves as to which particular variety, or indeed register, constitutes a ‘Standard’, and certainly most lawyers I know do not speak the same way all the time! Can you imagine, or bear, hearing legalese even while socially interacting with a friend who happens to belong to the legal fraternity? How pompous, you must think! Besides, there are different registers – including technical or professional jargon of one sort or another – that can be ‘Standard’.

I was born, and raised multilingual, in one of the Outer Circle countries – Singapore – in which I lived for some 30 years. I learnt a British sort (for want of a better description) of

English in school, have been exposed to various varieties of English – generally classified as

British, American or Australian – and still use English to communicate with friends and family; I continue to use it as my dominant language; and have reached a certain level of fluency in the language, viz, I was trained as a lawyer in the English medium and have worked successfully with international lawyers from major jurisdictions such as New York, England and Wales.

Ordinarily, I would be counted as a member of the educated class. Unfortunately however, I was not born in, and do not owe my allegiance to, an Inner Circle country. No thanks

. 6 Samantha NG 660(1) Paper Dr Christina Higgins Oct 17, 2006 [email protected] to Kachru; and the government of Singapore which maintains an official policy along ethnic rather than linguistic lines, so that while English is taught as a first language and used as the medium of instruction in school, no Singaporean is an ‘NS of English’ (see Higgins, 2003:622, supra). It matters not to the Singapore government or such recruiters that I consider myself not just an NS of Standard English (and clearly state so in my job applications), and a competent one, but am also a trained and experienced ESL teacher. Never mind that the distinction is more political and racial, which essentially degenerates into racism in favor of the Caucasian ‘NS of

English’, than anything else. Indeed, some distasteful recruiters even have the gall to express the same in no uncertain terms in their advertisements! But only where it is not illegal for it to appear in such media or within such national boundaries of course. I am such a miniscule minority who seeks to teach ESL in places other than my own country that my government pays nary a hoot as to how strongly I might, and do indeed, feel against being so unjustly discriminated.

My personal encounters with such recruiters and experience from first-hand anecdotes recounted to me by my friends and acquaintances tell me that these recruiters (who are themselves usually ‘NNSs of English’) routinely undermine, if not altogether weed out, trained teachers like me who are also ‘native speakers of internationally acceptable or intelligible

English’ simply because I do not hold a passport of the ‘right’ country, and have too much melanin to even remotely look other than ‘colored’! Looking back, it was a miracle that I even got hired to teach ESL in China for 15 months, a motley mix of experiences I am looking forward to repeat! I guess my only saving grace is that I sound like an ‘NS of English’ (as if I am not!).

. 7 Samantha NG 660(1) Paper Dr Christina Higgins Oct 17, 2006 [email protected]

Any real or perceived dichotomy between a teacher who is an ‘NS of English’ and one who is not, even ‘native-like’, and indeed, who is one, and who isn’t, is important only if we accept that the non-native learner of English is interested and desires to achieve a standard or style of English, whether written, spoken or otherwise, that is similar, if not identical, to an NS’s from an Inner Circle country, a standard or style that is loaded with inherent meanings. As

Holliday (2005:4) noted, “One problem is that the use of ‘non-’ usually signifies a disadvantage or deficit. Especially when the terms are reduced, as is often the case in common talk and even writing, to ‘native’ and ‘non-native’, the identity of the latter is further weakened by appearing

‘not native’ to anything.” This brings us back to the development of ESL as described above.

ESL versus EIL?

ESL was constructed because one, English speakers thought that non-English speakers learning English differed from them because they already had a different, first language (which meant that they were not monolingual, unlike the overwhelming majority of English speakers, who have to one degree or another remained monolingual); and especially because these learners were not living in an English-speaking country. The idea was that these learners needed to be taught differently from English speakers who were living in their own countries to become like their ‘native English’ teachers.

As much as the world has become smaller through the interdependency and rising number of cross-border transactions among nations, as well as that many Expanding Circle countries are now teaching their own children English from an ever younger age, resulting in scenarios being no longer so clear-cut, the Inner Circle countries of the United States, Britain and Australia continue to attract many immigrants who have not learnt English from childhood, who did not continue to use it as their dominant language, or reached a level of fluency.

. 8 Samantha NG 660(1) Paper Dr Christina Higgins Oct 17, 2006 [email protected]

Given these statistics, it seems reasonable to preserve ESL as a distinct variety of

English, at least pedagogically, because these Inner Circle countries indeed have official policies that expect, if not actually demand, that these immigrants, or current descendants of earlier immigrants, integrate fully into the societies they or their forebears have chosen to migrate to and settle down, and this includes not just a functional ability in English, but to eventually achieve a standard of academic competence and socioeconomic standing, comparable to the locals (for largely political reasons). There is, of course, considerable ongoing debate about allowing room for ESL to maneuver to become more pluralistic like EIL. After all, a common language within an immigrant (and therefore plural) society has of necessity to take into account the diverse constituents making up the melting pot.

On the other hand, the rapid and apparently unstoppable ascendance in the use of English as a language for wider and global communication, such as between a member each of the Inner

Circle countries and either the Outer or Expanding Circle countries, or between two members of the Outer and/or Expanding Circle countries, has created varieties of English that are affected by these latter speakers’ other language(s).

World Englishes is the collective term used to describe the naturally occurring phenomenon that multifarious varieties of English have been created by the community of speakers that may or may not belong to the Inner Circle countries. With such a name come the associated features that WE are pluralistic, such that each variety is legitimate and acceptable, an equal standing on its own two feet and standing tall, and that speakers of any, or for that matter a bag of mixed, varieties of English are not obliged, nor indeed do they wish, to attain a standard or style that is commonly recognized as belonging to one of the Inner Circle countries.

. 9 Samantha NG 660(1) Paper Dr Christina Higgins Oct 17, 2006 [email protected]

Studies such as those carried out by Labov (1958, 1963, 1966), and cited in Mesthrie

(2000), have consistently shown that even within the Inner Circle countries, there are differences in the way people speak depending on their gender, socio-economic stratum to which they belong, and simply because they want to be seen to be belonging to a certain community.

Within the Outer Circle countries, people who speak a standard or style of English that is perceived to be ‘native’, rather than ‘indigenized’, face the very real likelihood of being ostracized by their own community because they are thought to be phony or display a higher- than-thou attitude which is socially, if not nationalistically, unacceptable. What results is code- switching, as I do with a Singaporean audience if I do not want to be ostracized for my anglicized accent, for example. Even so, not many can code-switch effectively. If they could, the Singapore government would not be pouring an inordinate amount of money and energy into the annual “Speak Good English” campaign to encourage Singaporeans to speak “good”, internationally acceptable or intelligible English, for instance, which by the way, has not been as successful as the government would like (see infra, p11).

Besides, these Outer Circle countries have been independent from British or American colonial rule for decades at least, and have been successfully taught by their own local teachers who may be in every way equal, if not superior (I defer), to English language teachers imported from the Inner Circle countries (all belonging to the Caucasian West with a very different set of social and cultural norms, lifestyles and values for instance, and who are likely to be paid exorbitant salaries relative to their counterparts from the host countries who could be better trained and more experienced as a means to attract them to ‘hardship positions’). Their varieties of English differ from region to region, even country to country. Importing them as inimitable standards also run counter to the current prevailing ideology of pluricentricism, which places

. 10 Samantha NG 660(1) Paper Dr Christina Higgins Oct 17, 2006 [email protected] mutual intelligibility and the richness of diversity before the plain old vanilla flavor of uniformity that used to exist, or even favored, as recently as 10, 15 years ago.

Language is rightly seen as constantly evolving, and shaped by the people who use it, in ways ranging from extending its vocabulary or stretching its grammatical structures to permitting a variant pronunciation. It is unsurprising then that the recent proposal to hire British teachers to pull up the perceived slipping standards of English in Singapore raised such a hullabaloo.

Singapore may be puny and dependent on other countries for resources of one sort or the other, but the very thought of reverting to a vestige of colonialism to teach us how to speak and write

‘proper’ English certainly raised a stinker among the general public who could not believe that the government, which has been autonomous and independent-minded for the last so many years it has been in power, should even consider going back to the ‘vomit’, so to speak, given that the

British themselves graduate from public schools these days with questionable standards of

English! There is some truth to the saying that language is better preserved in the destinations that it has been taken to than in its home country, possibly because its speakers, now forming the minority in the new host countries, tend to take it upon themselves to preserve its ‘authenticity’.

In respect of English, Gorlach (1991:15) put it succinctly as follows: “Old mother countries exhibit much greater regional diversity of speech than the colonial societies that developed from them.”

With all the modern-day technological advances that have allowed us to live, as we are living, in a world that is increasingly shaded by different grays, it is crucial to recognize that while EIL is on the ascendance even if nothing else but solely by virtue of English speakers in the Expanding Circle countries outnumbering those in both the Inner and Outer Circle countries combined, there remains a need to retain, and fine-tune, our understanding of ESL and its

. 11 Samantha NG 660(1) Paper Dr Christina Higgins Oct 17, 2006 [email protected] pedagogy, which have no doubt been influenced by the various prevailing social, economic and political factors, so that it may better cater to both ESL and EIL, and even ENL, learners and speakers.

NEW VARIETIES OF PEDAGOGY?

My own humble view is that as the world becomes more interdependent, it too is becoming increasingly common for trained teachers who are ‘NSs of English’ from Outer and

Expanding Circle countries to be teaching both ESL and ENL in Inner Circle countries. There is no reason why they should not be qualified or acceptable alternatives to their counterparts from the Inner Circle countries to teach in the latter’s very own backyard, just as teachers from the

Inner Circle countries used to do, and are still doing. This is especially given the currency of the popularity of WE, however unentrenched this concept may be at the moment, or however it may be defined in the future.

I submit that it is purely a matter of learner preference and expediency as to who should be teaching whom. Now that Asia is on an economic uptick, requiring many professionals who may not speak English as a native language, and in ever greater demand of English teachers, I say that any cat, black or white, which is capable of catching the mice, is a good cat.

Of course, I am not insensitive to the sociopolitical and economic imbalances that still exist between the Inner Circle countries and the others. The fact is, the United States will remain a superpower for years to come; and even with a Hispanic population growing faster than any other ethnic group, as mentioned earlier (ibid, p9), there does not seem to be any bureaucratic intention at the highest policy-making level to do away with English as the only official language despite that pockets near the Mexican borders may be bilingual in English and

Spanish, or really only Spanish-speaking. This may be seen to be due to the hegemony of the

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“old, white men”, largely monolingual, middle- to upper-middle-class senior conservatives who occupy the highest echelons of policy-making in the country, and the effects of that hegemony trickling down. Based on this fact alone, we can conclude for the time being that it is unlikely for ESL to be done away entirely any time soon. What I would suggest is for example re- thinking certain popular and unquestioned approaches to teaching ESL, in particular

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), especially in the context of teaching ESL (or increasingly, EIL) in the Expanding Circle countries.

CLT, a prototype of the Anglo-Saxon ENL pedagogy, has been overhyped to the extent that it is considered the panacea to any language teaching, ESL, EIL or otherwise (see Tan, 2005; and Hu, 2005). No approach, learner, teacher or education system exists in a vacuum. CLT, like any pedagogical approach, works well only under its own set of parameters, such as having a student population who responds to a student-centered teaching style, who sees the teacher more as a facilitator than repository of knowledge (antithetical to the cultures of countries in the Far

East with a Confucianistic bent for instance), who is able and willing to participate actively and maximize learning and retention through actual use, such as task-based learning for instance. Let us not forget that learners are not equally endowed whether by virtue of nature or nurture. Even if they were, they would still have different learning styles. I am very much a westernized

Chinese Singaporean. I have been taught, as I have enjoyed and succeeded learning, different

European and Asian foreign languages using a combination of CLT, ALM (Audio-Lingual

Method) and to a much smaller extent, GTM (Grammar Translation Method), even rote! None of these pedagogies was employed using a clear-cut division down the lines of the linguistic family each language I was learning belongs to. Different strokes work for different folks at different times!

. 13 Samantha NG 660(1) Paper Dr Christina Higgins Oct 17, 2006 [email protected]

An interesting example of when CLT may not be appropriate was quoted by Shamim

(1996:113) in which she described a teacher breaking out of the mold of traditional pedagogy in

Pakistan, and assuming a new role. Her students were so thrown off by the new, alien style of teaching that they, feeling that they too could assume new roles, took it as a license to behave in ways totally antithetical to how they would normally, and should, respond. These new roles, which at times reflect the students’ resistance to the change, can defeat the whole purpose of such modern and ‘advanced’ techniques or approaches.

What really matters is looking at the goals of the actual teachers, the students’ parents, the local education authorities, the school administrators, and ultimately the students, and not herd these stakeholders into an idealized or ‘post-modern’ approach or mold, because they are the ones who determine the success of any pedagogical method or style. Practitioners of CLT for instance, need to realize and appreciate that in many Expanding Circle countries, the true purpose of learning English (a global language) is often not for its own sake, but to pass examinations, to get into a good program in a decent college, and ultimately to make a comfortable living. As such, the students are only interested in what works, and the less painful it is, the likelier it is that that is the path they will ultimately gravitate toward and tread on, however well-meaning their teachers or the other stakeholders may be.

Teaching is all about the students at the end of the day, and it is imperative that as teachers, we are fully cognizant of what individual students bring to the table, so that we are best put to help them get where they want by maximizing the resources at our disposal. The true expert is one who is willing to take chances with the students, perhaps through incremental steps, but always well-equipped with reflective practice to gain enough foresight and daring to expect the unexpected, and to negotiate a consensus without being overwhelmed, or overwhelming.

. 14 Samantha NG 660(1) Paper Dr Christina Higgins Oct 17, 2006 [email protected]

References

Davies, A (1991). The Native Speaker in Applied Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Gorlach, M (1991). “English as a world language – state of the art”. Gorlach, M (Ed): Varieties of English Around the World. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Higgins, C (2003). ‘“Ownership’ of English in the Outer Circle: An alternative to the NS-NNS dichotomy”. TESOL Quarterly 37/4: 615-644.

Holliday, A (2005). “The struggle for new relationships”. The Struggle to Teach English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hu, G (2005). “Contextual influences on instructional practices: A Chinese case for an ecological approach to ELT”. TESOL Quarterly 39/4: 635-660.

Jenkins, J (2006). “Current perspectives on teaching World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca”. TESOL Quarterly 40/1: 157-181.

Kachru, B B (1989). “Teaching World Englishes”. Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics 15/1: 85-95.

Liu, J (1999). “Nonnative-English-speaking professionals in TESOL”. TESOL Quarterly 33/1: 85-102.

McKay, S L (2002). Teaching English as an International Language: Rethinking Goals and Approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mesthrie, K (2000). “Social Dialectology”. Mesthrie, K (Ed): Introducing Sociolinguistics. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Nayar, P B (1997). “ESL/EFL dichotomy today: Language politics or pragmatics?” TESOL Quarterly, 31/1: 9-37.

Pennycook, A (1994). The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. NY: Longman.

Rampton, M B H (1990). “Displacing the native speaker: Expertise, affiliation, and inheritance.” ELT Journal 44: 97-101.

Shamim, F (1996). “Learner resistance to innovation in classroom methodology”. Coleman, H (Ed): Society and the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Smith, L (1976). “English as an international auxiliary language”. RELC Journal 7/2: 38-43.

Tan, C (2005). “How culturally appropriate is the communicative approach for primary school children in Singapore?” The Reading Matrix 5/1: 21-35.

Tay, M (1982). “The uses, users and features of English in Singapore”. Pride, J B (Ed): New Englishes. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

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