10.2 Unit 4
Unit IV: Global Trends in English Language Education Globalisation, which is the tendency to world-wide convergence in education and other sectors(Held et al., 1999), is changing the environment in which English is learned as a foreign language (EFL) or second language (ESL). First, economic and cultural globalisation includes the globalisation of language, and in particular the spreading role of English as a universal global lingua franca (Crystal, 2003): It is English that stands at the very centre of the global language system. It has become the lingua franca par excellence and continues to entrench this dominance in a self reinforcing process. It has become the central language of communication in business, politics, administration, science and academia, as well as being the dominant language of globalised advertising and popular culture. (Held et al., 1999) At the same time the balance of emphasis in the use of English as a com...