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World Englishes, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 436440, 2002.

08832919

``International understanding'' through teaching world Englishes


AYA MATSUDA*

The fact that English is an international language makes it an attractive option for many
foreign language curricula in EFL countries. Some of such programs even specifically state
that one of their objectives is to promote international understanding. For instance, the
curriculum guideline put forth by the Japanese Ministry of Education for its lowersecondary level foreign language courses where a foreign language almost always means
English states:3
Overall Objectives: To develop students' basic abilities to understand a foreign language and
express themselves in it, to foster a positive attitude toward communicating in it, and to deepen
interest in language and culture, cultivating basic international understanding. (Monbusho,
1993: 227)

Whether it is possible and desirable to promote international understanding in English


classes is a reasonable question. Being a language class, the depth in which students can
explore different countries in the world as well as the relationship among them tends to be
limited. Being an English class, it typically does not deal with other languages and thus may
encourage students to internalize a view of the world created through colonial discourses
of English (Pennycook, 1998).
Yet, English classes could serve as a starting point for international understanding.
Students can be exposed to cultures different from their own through learning English, and
they can further explore them using the English they acquire in the course. With English,
EFL students can access parts of the world that are not accessible otherwise. English is by
no means the magic wand for international understanding, but it could contribute to it if
the language was presented appropriately and used effectively.
However, I began to wonder how exactly the English curriculum in Japan promoted
international understanding after conducting a qualitative case study of Japanese secondary school students' attitudes toward English (Matsuda, 2000; forthcoming a). One
striking finding in this study was that the participating students held a distinctly
western-centered view of the world.
For instance, for many students, the terms foreign countries and abroad were synonymous with ``the West'' specifically, North America and western Europe. When they
were asked about their interests in foreign countries, it was usually the US, western
European countries, and Canada that were mentioned. Asian, African, and Central and
South American countries are mentioned less often, and when they are, it is after students
discuss North American and European countries. It was as though other Asian countries
were too close to Japan geographically and culturally, in their mind and thus not
* Department of English, University of New Hampshire, Hamilton Smith Hall, 95 Main St., Durham, NH
03824-3574, USA. E-mail: amatsuda@unh.edu
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foreign enough, while other areas such as Africa and South America, were too far from
Japan and beyond their sense of reality.
The western orientation was also apparent in terms of their awareness or lack thereof
and attitudes toward different English varieties. Students told me that they knew that
different varieties of English existed but had little idea what they were like or how different
they were from each other. Questions about varieties of English confused students and
were responded to more often with ``I don't know'' and ``I'm not sure'' than any other
questions. Yet, they perceived American English and British English as the standard
varieties. Those are the varieties they wanted to acquire and they preferred them to Outer
Circle varieties such as Singapore English (see Friedrich in this issue for similar examples
from South America).
I found these findings problematic, especially when they were evaluated vis-a-vis the
curriculum's goal to promote international understanding. Not only the students'
awareness of the world was limited, to say the least, but they also seemed to have
internalized some stereotypes and prejudices against parts of the world that they were not
even familiar with.
The result of this case study prompted me to investigate how the EFL curriculum in
Japan actually attempted to facilitate international understanding. Specifically, I studied
the representation of English users and uses in seven EFL textbooks for seventh graders
that were approved by the Ministry of Education because they can be a significant source
of exposure to various users and uses of English. They may also significantly influence the
construction of students' attitudes toward and perception of the English language because
they play an important role in EFL classrooms (see Matsuda, forthcoming b, for more
detail of the study).
Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the language varieties, users, and uses of
English revealed that the current representation of English in these textbooks focuses
almost exclusively on the Inner Circle. For example, in terms of the variety, American
English had the almost-exclusive representation. All seven textbooks were based on
American English that is, main texts and sentences in the exercises followed the
morphological and syntactic rules of the ``standard'' American English, the selection of
vocabulary and its spelling were based on the American convention, and pronunciation
guides and tapes that accompanied the textbooks also represented the phonology of
American English. The only exception was a section called ``English around the world''
in Columbus (Togo and Matsuno, 1997), which included the drawings of speakers from
UK, US, France, Egypt, India and China. In the accompanying tape, each of these
speakers spoke in their first language (English, French, Arabic, Hindi, and Chinese)
and then, if that was not English, spoke their variety of English (e.g., Indian English,
Chinese English). In all other textbooks, American English was the only variety
present.
In order to understand the representation of the users of English, the nationality of the
main characters as well as the number of words uttered by each character were analyzed.
Of the 74 main characters, the majority were either from Japan or the Inner Circle; the
number of characters from the Outer Circle and Expanding Circle countries other than
Japan was relatively limited. The comparison of the number of words spoken by those
characters also illustrated a similar pattern, if not stronger the Inner Circle characters

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Aya Matsuda

tended to utter more words than characters from other contexts, suggesting that they were
assigned ``bigger roles'' in dialogues than others.
Furthermore, the analysis of the participants in different types of English uses also
suggested that the Inner Circle English speakers were the key players. For instance, the
majority of the intranational uses, or the uses between people from the same country,
involved exclusively the Inner Circle English speakers, such as a conversation between an
American boy and his parents. Furthermore, they were often accompanied by pictures and
texts that refer to the customs and cultures of the Inner Circle countries and people.
Contrastively, the representation of intranational uses in the Outer and Expanding Circle
was limited; the use of English as a lingua franca in the Outer Circle was acknowledged in
sections other than regular chapters (e.g., a map indicating the use of English as a lingua
franca in the Outer Circle) but completely absent in the main texts.
Similarly, the majority of the international uses, or the uses between people from
different countries, involved speakers from the Inner Circle. The overwhelming majority
of chapters represented international uses between a native speaker (or speakers) and a
nonnative speaker or speakers of English. In two textbooks, dialogues between Japanese
students and their American teacher or friends were the only type of international uses
represented.
Although five of seven textbooks did included the representation of English uses
exclusively among nonnative speakers, it was considerably less represented than the use
between native and nonnative speakers. Most of the dialogues that were exclusively among
nonnative speakers took place in Japan, between Japanese speakers and other nonnative
speakers who were visiting or living in Japan.
One might ask: why is this problematic? While I do not intend to claim any causal
relationship without an empirical verification, the English representation found in this
study the dominance of English uses and users from the Inner Circle and the absence of
others, especially the Outer Circle and the perception of English shared by Japanese high
school students suggest a striking similarity. And considering the important roles of
textbooks in EFL classrooms and their possible influences in students' attitudes and
perception, it may be possible to say at least that the current representation of English in
textbooks is problematic from the perspective of international understanding, which is the
topic I try to address in this paper.
If students are exposed only to a limited section of the world, their awareness and
understanding of the world may also become limited, too. Without an exposure, students
may not become interested enough to further explore the parts of the world they are not
familiar with. A curriculum that presents English as an international language is capable of
providing opportunities for the exposure to various parts of the world, and it would be
unfortunate if the exposure was limited to the Inner Circle, taking away a valuable learning
opportunity.
An incomplete presentation of the English language may also lead to confusion or
resistance when students are confronted with different types of English users or uses.
Students may be shocked by varieties of English that deviate from Inner Circle English,
view them as deficient (rather than different), or grow disrespectful to such varieties and
users, which seems counter-productive to facilitating international understanding.
Furthermore, an English curriculum that promotes international understanding must
address the colonial past and possibly present of the English language somewhere along
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the line. And the awareness of the variety of users and uses of English in the world would
be prerequisite for such critical discussion.
In order to promote international understanding through a more thorough representation of English varieties, users, and uses in EFL curriculums, the field of world Englishes
has a lot to offer.
First, findings from world Englishes research can inform EFL teachers and learners
about different varieties of English. Studies on nativization and codification of transplanted English, mostly from the Outer Circle and even a few from the Expanding Circle
(e.g., Bokamba, 1992; Cheng, 1992), have illustrated that those varieties are as rulegoverned as American and British varieties, which are still commonly perceived as ``the
correct'' form of English. Even if the US variety is chosen as the dominant target model,
students need to be aware that it is just one of many varieties of English that they may
come in contact with in the future. Students can learn about other varieties through
audiotapes or CDs accompanying the textbooks as well as movies or interaction with
international visitors and residents in the community.
World Englishes research also provides insights on various important roles that English
plays outside the Inner Circle. In order to represent such users and uses, textbooks can
include more main characters from the Outer Circle and the Expanding Circle and assign
them bigger ``roles'' in chapter dialogues than they currently have. This may seem a trivial
issue, but it is worth considering a twelfth grader who participated in the case study I
discussed earlier said he knew that English was spoken in Singapore because there was
``Cindy from Singapore'' in the textbook he used in junior high school. Not all students
may pick it up, but the message may not be as subtle as some of us may think.
The presence of such characters also makes it easier to include cultural topics and
pictures from their countries. Some dialogues that either represent or refer to the use of
English as a lingua franca in multilingual Outer Circle countries can also be added to
chapters. Such exposure to Outer Circle and Expanding Circle countries other than
Japan would help students understand that English uses are not limited to the Inner
Circle.
World Englishes research also informs us that many interactions in English today take
place exclusively among ``nonnative speakers'' of English (e.g., Graddol, 1997; Smith,
1983; Widdowson, 1994). English is not used exclusively among native English speakers or
between native and nonnative English speakers anymore, but also often for communication exclusively among nonnative speakers of English. What this means is that the
assumption that EFL speakers learn English in order to communicate with native English
speakers and learn about their culture does not always hold true anymore. Such use of
English should be represented in the textbooks and EFL curriculum in order to help
students understand that the world they can access with English is not limited only to Inner
Circle countries and also that their future interlocutors may be nonnative speakers just like
themselves.
This paper focused on one issue related to EFL instruction, which is the promotion of
international understanding through English language teaching. There are some questions
and assumptions that I took for granted for the purpose of this paper for example: What
does ``international understanding'' really mean? How does the representation of English
in the classroom influence the perception and attitude of students? Should an EFL
curriculum try to facilitate international understanding in the first place? If we were to
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promote international understanding, what else needs to be done outside the EFL
classrooms? Obviously, such questions need to be addressed in order to further explore
this topic.
I do believe, however, that a good understanding of the worldwide spread of English is
beneficial to any EFL learners, whether or not their curriculum specifically aims at
promoting international understanding. And this is one area where our understanding
of world Englishes can be especially useful.

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