The rise of English By the end of the twentieth century English was already well on its way to becoming

a genuine lingua franca, that is a language used widely for communication between people who do not share the same first (or even second) language. Just as in the Middle Ages Latin became for a time a language of international communication (at least in the Roman Empire), so English is now commonly used in exchanges between, say, Japanese and Argentinian business people, or between Singaporeans and their Vietnamese counterparts. English is also, of course, a mother tongue for many people in the world, though, as we shall see, such 'native speakers' are increasingly out-numbered by people who have English as a second or third language and use it for international communication. Estimates vary, but the ratio of native speakers to non-native speakers is anywhere between 1:2 (Rajagopalan 2004) and 1:3 (Crystal 2003), and this gap is widening all the time. In terms of numbers, Crystal suggests that there are currently around 1.5 billion speakers of English worldwide, of whom only some 329 million are native speakers. 'Moreover,' he writes, 'the population growth in areas where English is a second language is about 2.5 times that in areas where it is a first language' (2003: 69). A quarter of the world's population speaks English, in other words, and native speakers are in a proportionately ever-decreasing minority. Despite these uncertainties, it is clear that English is special, and for many people its inexorable rise has been something to celebrate, though for others it causes real unease. The future of English language 'superiority' is also called into question by some, and its growth may one day be halted. The status of English as one language is challenged by the many different 'Englishes' being used around the world, and the ownership of English has shifted dramatically, as the numbers quoted above will have demonstrated. All of these issues have a bearing on how and why English is taught - and indeed what type of English is taught. English as a global language We have already seen how the proportion of native and non-native speakers has altered in the last few decades, but the way this has happened, and its implications, need to be explored further. In 1985 Kachru described the world of English in terms of three circles. In the inner circle he put countries such as Britain, the USA, Australia, etc. where English is the primary language. The outer circle contained countries where English had become an official or widely-used second language. These included India, Nigeria, Singapore, etc. Finally, the expanding circle represented those countries where English was learnt as a foreign language - countries such as Poland, Japan, Mexico, Hungary, etc. We have already seen how Kachru's numbers have been dramatically surpassed. But something else has happened, too. It was once assumed that there was some kind of inbuilt superiority for inner circle speakers. They spoke 'better' English, and there were more of them. Among other things, this situation 'bred an extremely enervating inferiority complex among many a non-native speaker learner/teacher' (Rajagopalan 2004: 114). But since English is now used more often as a lingua franca than as a native language - and since the majority of competent English speakers are not native speakers, but second-language users - the inner circle has lost much of its linguistic power, real or imagined (though there are still many people who advocate using a native-speaker model to teach international English. As a result, a consensus has emerged that instead of talking about inner, outer and expanding circle Englishes, we need to recognise 'World Englishes' or 'Global English'. World English (in Rajagopalan's words) '...belongs to everyone who speaks it, but it is nobody's mother tongue' (2004: 111). Nobody owns English any more, in other words - or perhaps we could say that we all, 'native' and 'non-native' speakers alike, own it together in a kind of international shareholders' democracy since whatever English we speak Indian English, British English or Malaysian English - we have, or should have, equal rights as English users. This does not mean, of course, that there are not 'haves' and 'have-nots' in World Englishes (as there are in any language where 'conflicting interests and ideologies are constantly at play' (Rajagopalan 2004: 113)). But it does mean, suddenly, that native speakers may actually be at a disadvantage, especially if we compare less educated native speakers with highly competent and literate second-language English users. The speaker of World English is, perhaps, capable of dealing with a wider range of English varieties than someone stuck with native-speaker attitudes and competence; indeed, as Rajagopalan suggests, anyone who can't deal with a Punjabi or Greek accent or with an outsourced call centre operative in Delhi or Kuala Lumpur speaking their own special English variety is 'communicatively deficient' (Rajagopalan 2004: 115). This and other extracts in the future is taken from Jeremy Harmer, 2007, The Practice of English Language Teaching. (Harlow: Longman. 4th edition). I have simplified and abridged the extracts to remove irrelevant material. This book is probably the best introduction to teaching English as a foreign language. Kachrus distinction between inner, outer and expanding circles has been influential, but I think the distinctions I made in class between countries such as the US, Canada, India, Holland and Spain are more valid. The question of the ownership of English has been much discussed recently and Harmer presents the accepted view, one with which I disagree. However, it does seem useful to re-evaluate the concept of the native-speaker.