I'm sure we've all heard, or can at least imagine, the horrors of English language textbooks written by non-native English speakers; however I have found that the problem does not solely lie with our non native teachers alone, but also in the circles of our own English speaking educational institutions.

Recently, I have been reading "Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, 4th edition," a book which is used here in my home country of Canada to train people for TESL (teaching English as a second language) certificates, and I have been duly horrified by what I have learned. Rather than expanding my ability to teach, I have found an exercise in critical thinking.

Some chapters in the book are extremely difficult to read, not due to difficulty or density of content, but due to overuse of jargon, and pretense of intelligence. For example, on page 49, under the heading "WHAT IS A CURRICULUM?" the text explains that, "A curriculum is a dynamic system of interconnected, interrelated, and overlapping processes," thus introducing no more than the idea that a curriculum is adaptable before finally defining the term over three paragraphs later with: "In summary, at its most basic, a syllabus describes what will be taught in a course. Curriculum is a broader concept than syllabus because it goes beyond planning and beyond the course level. That said, the term syllabus is also used to refer to the content of a program as in 'the program syllabus,' especially in British-influenced English language teaching. The term curriculum is also used to refer to the instructional content of a course, as in 'the curriculum for my course,' especially in American-influenced English language teaching."

The issue I take with this book today, however, is not of the absurdity of reading its bloated content, but the content itself. Specifically: chapter 5 "Teaching English in the Context of World Englishes."

Do not be fooled: the chapter is not weighing the pros and cons of the various native variants of English such as GA (general American), RP (Received pronunciation), or ones such as the less commonly taught Canadian, or Australian variants. No, the chapter is ostensibly about how the English teacher should allow incorrect pronunciation in the name of allowing the learners to maintain their cultural identity. It does this despite acknowledging that "pronunciation (or accent) was found by Jenkins (2000, 2002) to be the cause of communication breakdowns in about 70% of the L2 cases of breakdown." L2 being the second language. How the book can acknowledge that teaching incorrect pronunciation can in any way be a boon, despite admitting that it results in communication breakdowns between people who are not native speakers of the language is beyond me.

They do not even advise an allowance of the non-standard pronunciations, but instead, insist on actively teaching the local accent to the learners. In the conclusion of the chapter, the textbook claims that, "It is probably seldom appropriate to teach RP or GA pronunciation to students like Susan's, who speak an outer-circle variety of English," later stating that, "In Susan's case, there was a problem with the principal, who wanted her to teach RP; she should have discussed her dilemma with the principal and proposed a course curriculum that included but went well beyond the RP-based textbooks he had given her in hopes that she could convince him of her alternative approach."

It is worth noting that, "Susan is an American Peace Corps volunteer working at a regional teacher-training college in Nigeria," and that, "The principal of Susan's college, a Nigerian, gave her a class set of English pronunciation textbooks based on British Received Pronunciation and told her to teach a course in pronunciation to all the prospective English teachers since, in his opinion, their pronunciation was dreadful."

While I do agree with the book that it is important to explain the differences in regional variants of English to those who wish to learn it, I even made sure to demonstrate, in my own limited way, various English dialects to my students when I taught in Japan, I am firm in my belief that teaching the native pronunciation of a single dialect is to the benefit of the one who wishes to learn English. I taught alongside a man from Tennessee, as well as a man from northern England, who both had fairly subtle, standard accents, and the Japanese staff we worked alongside preferred the sound of the English from England. Interestingly, they could tell the difference between my Canadian English, and American English, but found it difficult to differentiate between my Canadian English and my coworker's English English.

The textbook, however, even ignores the wishes of the people in the areas they wish to teach. The Nigerian principal wanted to teach RP, but was demonized instead, and I'm sure that the Japanese that I worked with would be cast in a similar light for their preference order of English English, Canadian English, General American, and Scotts.

The author of chapter 5 seems to think that the solution to the fact that a majority of English teachers are now non-native speakers is to simply lower the standards of native-speakers when teaching. I assume this same author thinks that the schools in English speaking countries should stop teaching vocabulary, spelling, and grammar in their English language courses, so that the regional variance can accelerate within the Anglo-sphere as well. I, however, think that an increase in standards is the only solution to the problem. Ensuring that only those with near native levels of English proficiency are allowed to teach advanced classes would not only raise the prestige of said teachers, but also ensure fewer errors in communications between two non-native speakers of English. Chapter 5 only briefly mentions the fact that things such as 'Indian English,' 'Singapore English,' and 'Nigerian English' are viewed as lower status accents not only by non-native speakers of the dialects, but even by their peers who can speak a standard variant. It ignores that any school that enforces standard pronunciations would produce higher-status graduates who would be viewed more favourably by both native English speakers, and non-native speakers alike. I fail to comprehend why this book is pushing teachers to disadvantage their students in any potential future negotiations.

The book is more concerned with allowing people to "affirm their own national or ethnic identity," than actually being able to communicate effectively. The author thinks that, "the challenge is to find a good balance between the identity-intelligibility extremes." I say that any non-native speaker of English who wishes to affirm his or her cultural identity at the cost of intelligibility can simply switch back to his or her native language. What is the point of learning a variant of English that only people who also speak your native language can understand?

This textbook on how to teach English goes so far as to claim that "the following aspects that are typically a part of the ESL/EFL pronunciation curriculum are deemed unnecessary in the ELF pronunciation curriculum:

the two th sounds: th in thing, and th in that

dark l, in doll or milk

exact differences in vowel quality, as in ship versus sheep

pitch movement or tone, as in Do you prefer coffee, or tea?

word stress as in the verb reFUSe versus the noun REFuse

stress-timing as in Take a Bus to the Beach"

There seem to be a number of "researchers [who] believe that these sounds are both difficult to teach and are largely unesessary for intelligibility among lingua franca speakers of English."

As someone with experience teaching English to non-native speakers, I can say that, in my experience, teaching non-native sounds such as 'th' or 'f' is extremely easy, provided a rudimentary understanding of the shape the human mouth takes when producing said sounds. Something that these linguists should be extremely familiar with.

I found that some (children especially) seemed to enjoy the novelty of making foreign sounds, and I was even able to use the sounds as springboards for vocabulary, and other lessons.

Later, the chapter implies that the teacher's proficiency in the target language shouldn't be a criterion for judging teacher effectiveness, suggesting that "one must decide on the linguistic norm or variety to use for judging the teacher." Though the statement does not expressly denounce standard English, with the rest of the content as context, I can safely assume that standard varieties are not what the author wants to be used to judge the teacher. Especially considering the term "1,000 million" is used in the chapter.

The textbook notes that speakers of 'Singapore English' switch to speaking in a more standard variant of English when in a situation requiring greater intelligibility, and returning to the more local flavour of the language when at home. I would like to point out that it is much easier for someone capable of speaking English on the level of a native speaker to speak informally than it is for someone incapable of such a thing to suddenly increase his or her intelligibility significantly.

From the perspective of a language learner myself, I can say that I would never attend -let alone pay for- a school that followed such a philosophy. When I was in Japan I made sure to learn the regional dialect, as well as the local accent on top of studying the standard dialect, and formal speech. My identity as a Canadian is expressed in my English, and I probably won't be able to fully lose my English accent in Japanese, but I do not feel that my national or ethnic identity is in any way tarnished by the fact that I learned from native speakers, conversely, I would say that I gained personality from the specificity of what I learned. Why would non-native English speakers think particularly differently? There are enough standard English accents to choose from, all representing different cultures to be learned from. My message to teachers who value multiculturalism is that it is much more multicultural for people to learn about the world, rather than hole themselves up in their own cliques forever.