Lingua Franca

I have read some very interesting texts in the post graduation course that I am attending. Here, there are two thoughts that I had during my readings that I would like to share. They are related to the idea of considering the native pronunciation as the only good one, and the idea of facing English as a lingua franca.

Considering English as lingua franca means not having the native speaker as a model/example to follow. The number of people around the world that do not have English as their first language and can speak it is much more than the number of native speakers of English from any country. It means that the audiolingual method could maybe be considered old school (which does not mean it is ineffective; it just does not match the contemporary ideas of TEYL).

Instead of American English or British English, we, Brazilians, maybe could say we speak International English, as a Chilean or Hungarian would speak, as we have different perspectives and way of expression than a native. And this is the English we are teaching at school. The concept of English as lingua franca brings new reflections about the way we relate to other nationalities and the way not native teachers teach that language.

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