Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University WORLD ENGLISHES AND CULTURE ELT TASK COVERSHEET MIDTERM 2 TASK A 1. Watch David Crystal's speech on World Englishes. Identify three key points of his speech and give examples of 'nativization' from Turkish English. Video Title: David Crystal-World Englishes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_q9b9YqGRY Adapting English for different countries around the world is a topic David Crystal discusses. The author claims that as English has developed into a global language, it has taken on a more universal quality by incorporating words and vocabulary from different cultures across the world that reflect their unique cultural heritage. As Crystal illustrates, different countries adapt English according to their own needs, using examples such as American English and South African English. Additionally, he stresses how important it is to recognize that “Englishes” is a valid term since it reflects how the language has evolved over time due to its use by a variety of communities throughout history. As Crystal emphasizes throughout his speech, it is crucial to adapt language to the context in which it is used and to embrace the diversity of language usage to make it truly effective. Crystal also argues language exists to let us talk about what we want to talk about. When countries start using English, they quickly adapt it to their conditions and the topics they wish to talk about. It hasn't been new for a long time that English has been a vehicle for talking about local things. Over the past 400 years, English has evolved in many ways with the rapid creation of new variations. Although new Englishes has been evolving rapidly in recent years, it is not certain how the English language will remain and develop so for years to come. There is a clear point in the speech that emphasizes the importance of embracing linguistic diversity and acknowledging that different communities have contributed to the evolution of English in unique ways. In his speech, Crystal talked at length about the nativization of English and gave an example from his trip to South Africa. Examples of this nativization can be given in terms of Turkish English. For example, a Turkish English speaker might use an expression like "The man is looking for a mouth" to say "The man is trying to gain knowledge". This is a case of cultural situations. In terms of phonetics, a Turkish English speaker can localize the /θ/ sound with the Turkish sound /t/ or /d/, since the /θ/ sound is not found in the Turkish language. So a Turkish English speaker might read the word three as "tri:" instead of "θriː". 2. Watch David Crystal's speech on teaching World Englishes. Summarize his point of view on the issue, and explain how his perspective reshapes your understanding of teaching World Englishes? Should English language teachers be expected to teach the culture of the speakers of the target language? Video Title: David Crystal - Should English be taught as a 'global' language https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLYk4vKBdUo Based on David Crystal's observations, the reality of English-speaking countries should be considered and the learners should be exposed to a wide range of different variations of English in reading and listening comprehension. However, it is impossible to teach every dialect or accent in terms of production. So, the focus should be on identifying the dialect or accent appropriate for the circumstances, instead of trying to teach every dialect or accent. It is not possible to teach every dialect or accent. To be honest, my initial thoughts about this issue were similar to David Crystal's. So, while I cannot claim that my understanding of this issue has been completely reshaped, I am confident that I have gained a greater understanding. Crystal's perspective is on embracing the linguistically diverse variations, in other words, the richness of English as a global language. So, it can be said that this perspective also challenges the traditional approach to teaching English that focuses only on standard variations such as British Standard English or Received Pronunciation (RP). Therefore, it should be acknowledged that teaching English to students involves more than just teaching grammar and phonetics; it also involves helping them become more aware of other cultures. Of course, this is up to the teachers. TASK B Research the curricula and course contents of ELT departments within the Turkish universities of your choice and conduct a survey on how much World Englishes or variations of English are included in their curricula. Briefly summarize your findings by giving examples. I surveyed the curricula and course contents of the ELT departments of the major universities in Turkey and the university I studied at (Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University) and saw that there were "World Englishes" courses in these universities. This course is an elective course at my university but it is also a required course in some universities, like as Marmara University. Apart from this course, some courses and course contents can be included in the field of World Englishes. To give an example, there is a course called "Variations of English" that I came across in the curriculum of Boğaziçi University and may be available in other universities. The course covers the factors that contributed to the emergence of varieties of English, the development and diversification of these English languages, and the linguistic, cultural and ideological issues of various uses of English around the world. Just like the "Variations of English" course, there are courses that are quite similar in content apart from the name. In addition to these, some courses are more indirectly related to the issues that the World Englishes course also mentions. For example, World Englishes describes how language changes depending on situations (such as culture or language structure). Accordingly, the "Language and Society" course can be given as an indirect example since it explains the relations between language, society and culture. Besides all these, I cannot say that I found enough examples while surveying the curricula. In fact, as in the second example I tried to mention, some courses can indirectly contribute, although they do not fully address the variations of English.
