‘Make the diversity of the language come alive’: Impacting pre-service teachers’ intentions to apply Global Englishes Language Teaching
Abstract
This exploratory qualitative study investigated pre-service teachers’ intentions to enact Global Englishes Language Teaching after engaging in the Global Empowerment Project, an overseas teaching and service-learning program. This is important because the prevalence of global Englishes renders a traditional, first-language-normative approach to English language teaching inadequate since it does not reflect authentic English communication. Eleven Hong Kong-based participants traveled to Indonesia where they taught English and worked with international peers on a community service project. Thematic analysis applied to their written reflections suggested that the Global Empowerment Project experience enhanced participants’ intentions to include Global Englishes Language Teaching in their future teaching. Three interconnected themes influenced these intentions: authentic global Englishes communicative experiences, awareness raising about global Englishes, and a concomitant change in attitudes towards standardized and global Englishes varieties. Engaging in guided reflection was a critical component. Language teacher education programs can consider adopting similar interventions, in person or online, to support pre- and in-service teachers’ knowledge of global Englishes and ability to incorporate Global Englishes Language Teaching into their classrooms. The study demonstrates practices that contributed to the success of the program which can be built upon, including a three-stage framework with a reflective experiential component built around Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle.