This article offers a response to the comments and claims made in Jennifer Jenkins' article, "The spread of English as an International Language: a testing time for testers." It examines some assumptions underpinning her views and responds to claims about current policy and practice in English language testing. It goes on to explain the key…

There can be little doubt that one of the main reasons for the present interest in the study of the varieties of English and their implications for language teaching is the way in which these varieties impinge on one another. Mixed populations from different ethnic sources, geographical areas, and language backgrounds find their representations in…

Scholars tend to explain or predict China English's rhetorical strategies on the basis of Chinese discourse and cultural preferences. This inference model, I argue, falls short in studying the Chinese variety of English because, first, it essentializes both China English and Chinese, treating their discursive strategies as two easily…

Suggests that the use of collections of authentic, thematic resources can facilitate research writing for English for academic purposes students and can form a unifying curricular thread in a variety of English teaching settings. (Author/VWL)

Analyzes the difference between "ultimate-target language" (authentic English in all its varieties), "learner's language" (with its limitations), and "learning-goal language," this latter referring to differentiated instruction with graded "input" steps. Teaching suggestions are given. (IFS/WGA)

Discusses the significance of communication in the present-day world and the various factors affecting the comprehensibility of spoken English. Warns aqainst stressing fluency at the cost of correct pronunciation and against dogmatic preference for certain varieties of English. (IFS/WGA)

Examines the future spread of English around the globe and the challenges of maintaining common standards and mutual intelligibility among different varieties of English. Discusses changes in Kachru's three circles of English speakers, and features of English as a global language. (Author/VWL)

Offers brief excerpts from oral history interviews with eight National Council of Teachers of English leaders on a variety of topics, including: formative years; becoming interested in teaching; experiences as a beginning teacher; teaching writing; being an African American teacher; literature and humanness. (SR)

The characteristics of the standard and non-standard varieties of English as spoken as a first language in Britain are discussed. The discussion focuses on 20 comparisons made between the standard and non-standard varieties. It is suggested that many of the local forms of English and the international standard English constitute a potential…

Shares insights of an English teacher gained through a variety of teaching experiences. Describes how the Bay Area Writing Project provided effective strategies to improve the teaching of writing. (NH)

Describes the way one English teacher used a variety of stories to introduce students to the conventions of narrative fiction, with specific attention paid to the problem of the unreliable narrator. Claims that teaching the truth of fiction depends upon a clear appraisal of the story's narrator. (HB)

Examines the nature of interlanguage as it affects second-language learning and teaching, focusing on the language transfer phenomenon, fossilization, how error analysis and error correction can be improved through understanding of interlanguage, native speaker norms, international varieties of English, and the contribution of interlanguage to…

Postcolonial African, Indian, and West Indian literature, written in varieties of English that reflect individual cultures, is a rich source of material for teaching about diversity in college courses. Careful selection of texts and attention to their placement in the course are important to their successful use. (MSE)

Suggests that, in countries where a particular nonnative variety of English is spoken, literary works used in English language teaching should be of this variety. It is argued that the integrative goal in language teaching, involving enhancement of sociocultural awareness, self-identity, and local community communicative competence, is more easily…

Argues that instruments normally applied to the analysis of discourse, and that originate in the Western tradition of analyzing language, must be used with extreme caution in analyzing new varieties of English. To substantiate this claim, the article uses as an example the recent work on the emergence of Batswana English. (Author/JL)