Advocating World Englishes: An Interview with Dr. Mario Saraceni : ELTWorldOnline.com
... most people in the UK consider themselves native speakers anyway, so it makes no sense to idealize the ‘native speaker’ since the whole idea of ‘native speaker’ as the (concept of an) ideal speaker of the language is just not there so much.
“While they say ‘English is our language,’ many people also know that they cannot really use the language that well, especially in international situations. To many people in the country, their grasp of the English language is often very poor and insecure,” he further observes.
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“Let’s throw the link between England and the English language to a dark corner where only irrelevant historical anecdotes are kept. Let it be covered with dust and forgotten. If we are able to do that, then the whole NEST/NNEST nonsense will cease to concern us. If we do not, we will keep discussing about who is a better teacher, who has a whiter skin and who holds the best passport to teach English. It is a mentality that needs to change. Student-teachers need to adopt a new understanding of ‘English’ and then, equipped with that understanding, resist all the old, stale views that are still so prevalent around the world.”
... teacher-educators need to be role models: “They don’t have to preach, necessarily. But by demonstrating that they consider English their own language and by never mentioning irrelevant words like “England” or “United States” as part of their teaching, then they can show that, hey, it’s got nothing to do with the West, white people, blah blah, but it’s got everything to do with you, me, and anybody else that we care to talk to.”
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