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EA JOURNAL ENGLISH VOL 23 NO 2 EA JOURNAL VOL 23 NO 2 AUSTRALIA ENGLISH AUSTRALIA E A J O U R N A L A TESOL Publication of English Australia Pty Ltd Volume 23 Number 2 2007 ISSN 1449-4496 English Australia, acting for and on behalf of ELICOS Association Limited (ABN 86 003 959 037) Contents EA Journal Vol 23 No 2 EDITORIAL 1 ARTICLES Stephen H Moore Linguistics, applied linguistics and research: the axis of evil for language teachers? 3 Peter Mackey The future Englishes of the world: one lingua franca or many? 12 Andy Kirkpatrick Teaching English Across Cultures. What do English language teachers need to know to know how to teach English 20 Guangwei Hu & Bo Chen A Protocol-Based Study of University-Level Chinese EFL Learners’ Writing Strategies 37 BOOKSHELF 59 Focus on Vocabulary Paul Nation and Peter Yonqi Gu 60 Conversation: From Description to Pedagogy Diana Slade and Scott Thornbury 63 Cambridge Grammar of English: a comprehensive guide to spoken and written English grammar and usage Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy 66 Creating Chants and Songs Carolyn Graham 69 Ship or Sheep? An Intermediate pronunciation course (3rd edition) Anne Baker 72 Academic Culture: A Student’s Guide to Studying at University Jean Brick 75 Insights from the Common European Framework Keith Morrow (Editor) 77 PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED FOR REVIEW 80 FROM THE EDITOR 84 ENGLISH AUSTRALIA Publications 86 Guidelines for Contributors 87 ENGLISH AUSTRALIA Member Colleges 89 EA Journal advertising 92 IV E A J O U R N A L Editor Germana Eckert Language Teacher Education, University of New South Wales Institute of Languages Bookshelf Editor Pauline Baylis School of Humanities and Languages, University of Western Sydney Editorial Advisory Committee Anne Burns Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University Jill Burton School of Education, University of South Australia Anne Campbell Division of Communication and Education, University of Canberra Jonathan Crichton Research Centre for Languages and Cultural Education, University of South Australia Jeremy Jones School of Languages and International Studies, University of Canberra David Li Department of English and Communication, City University of Hong Kong Clare McDowell University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, Sydney David Prescott Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics, University of Brunei Darussalam Rusdi Thaib Faculty of Languages and Arts, Padang State University, Indonesia Ruth Wajnryb Writer, teacher trainer and independent consultant in TESOL EA JOURNAL VOLUME 23 NO 2 V VI EA JOURNAL VOLUME 23 NO 2 Editorial Dear Readers Welcome to this, the current volume of the EA Journal. This volume has seen quite a few changes to the EAJ team. Pauline Baylis has taken on the role of Bookshelf Editor, replacing David Larbalestier. We thank David for his contribution to the Journal in his time as Bookshelf Editor, and give a big, warm welcome to Pauline. In addition, since the last EAJ volume Kath Brandon has joined EA as Project Officer. In this role, Kath supports the work the EAJ team does in creating the journal. In the short time since she has started Kath has already made a huge impact and been of great help and support to the team, so thank you to Kath for all the work so far. We look forward to continuing to work with Kath and Pauline in their new roles. I have also made a workplace change and have become much more involved with the training of new teachers and the ongoing professional development of existing ELT teachers, both in Australia and overseas. This move has caused me to reflect on the ever-changing face of our TESOL industry. We have grown from a small ‘cottage industry’, as it was once regarded, to a major economic player: international students learning English here in 2006 made an overall contribution of more than $1.2 billion to the Australian economy according to the 2006 EA Report, commissioned to study enrolment statistics in the ELICOS1 sector. Total ELICOS enrolments for 2006 were almost 122,000, an increase of 21% on 2005 numbers. The industry is indeed growing, and fast. Of course, such growth affects us in a number of ways, and one which I am encountering more and more frequently is the notion of TESOL as a career path. Teaching English was something many of us ‘fell into’ as a stopgap between ‘real’ jobs, but which turned into a profession where daily we are enhancing, if not changing, people’s lives, helping them realise their goals of study, employment or travel, among a whole range of things. I have heard teachers joke that no-one wakes up one day and decides “I think I’ll be an ESL teacher!” Think about it. How did you get into the industry? That trend of ‘being here by accident’ is definitely changing in an increasingly professionalised industry. In my work I speak to a growing number of teacher trainee 1English Language Intensive Courses to Overseas Students EA JOURNAL VOLUME 23 NO 2 1 applicants who tell me they have always wanted to be teachers of English as another language and who intend to stay in the profession. The move along any career path must include professional development, however it is often left up to the teachers themselves to be motivated to explore and learn about new areas of and approaches to language teaching and learning. Our profession lends itself to research into delivery to an ever changing student profile with ever changing needs and goals. The possibilities and opportunities for ESL teachers are thus endless. This is exactly what the writers of the articles in this volume and the reviewers of our new books have taken on. And I hope that their research and their work can motivate you and assist you to explore your own areas of teaching. Where can you go now from where you are? What will you read here in these pages which can help you to reflect on your current teaching practices? The natural progression from these questions is, of course, conducting your own research and having your own article published in the Journal. May you be inspired by your readings on the following pages. Germana Eckert 2 EA JOURNAL VOLUME 23 NO 2 Linguistics, applied linguistics and research: the axis of evil for language teachers? S TEPHEN H M OORE Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney This paper addresses the question of whether a language teacher can be effective with little or no knowledge of linguistics, applied linguistics and related research findings. From a logical, dispassionate perspective there can be no doubt that these three domains are vital contributors to the training and development of good language teachers. But, from the perspective of many practicing teachers, these fields are treated with some suspicion and seem largely irrelevant to their daily teaching needs or even as unwelcome intrusions delivered through obligatory professional development sessions. This paper makes the case for what linguistics, applied linguistics and research have to offer language teachers and then argues for the importance of meaningful, accessible ongoing professional development that takes account of developments in linguistics, applied linguistics and research as a key component in professionalising teachers, and indeed, the language teaching profession itself. Introduction The professionalism of teachers rests on their training and continuing professional development. Language teachers stand to gain enormously through their engagement with the disciplines of linguistics and applied linguistics and the research that emanates from these domains. The nurturing that such an engagement provides not only sustains the teacher, but also ultimately feeds through to students in the form of better teaching in a more stimulating environment. The boundary between (pure) linguistics and applied linguistics is hazy at best and a contentious issue for some linguists (for example, see Davies 1999). For the purposes of this paper, however, it is still a useful distinction to make. Likewise, the notion of research as being somehow separable from these disciplines is artificial but useful in the context of the argument that this paper is making. Indeed, that researchers themselves are sometimes viewed by language teachers as being parasites rather than, say, prophets, needs to be categorically addressed. Figure 1 conceptualises this trichotomy by placing research in an articulating role between linguistics and applied linguistics, suggesting that any given language research lies somewhere on the continuum between the two. EA JOURNAL VOLUME 23 NO 2 3 Many of the ideas presented in this paper are not new but their importance does need to be revisited from time to time to remind ourselves of the importance of situating language teacher education in its proper academic home. Research Applied Linguistics Linguistics Figure 1 Research as articulating linguistics and applied linguistics What linguistics has to offer language teachers Sampson (1980) dismisses outright the usefulness of linguistics to the English language teaching profession. He argues, in effect, that there is a complete disconnect between the discipline and the ELT profession. While there may be some evidence to support this claim (though Sampson offers none), there is also a compelling argument that linguistics does have something important to offer language teachers. Linguistics as a discipline provides knowledge about language and languages. Indeed, what we know about language is based entirely on what we know about individual languages. For example, the field of phonetics draws on the phonologies of all known human languages. Morphology, lexicogrammar, syntax, and semantics are all systems of meaning-making realised through other systems of sound (phonology), symbol (script) and gesture (signing). Knowledge of these systems leads to a better understanding of how languages work, and this surely cannot be irrelevant to people whose job is to teach languages.