Empowering English Speakers Through Diversification and Promotion of World Englishes

Abstract

Proficiency in English language today doesn’t depend on the way language is taught or spoken in classrooms but on creativity and productivity of its diverse teachers and learners. Non-native speakers outnumber native speakers today calling for promoting equity and the concept of World Englishes through respecting diversification in language classes. English needs a paradigm shift as far as language learning and teaching is concerned because the need today is to address the socio-linguistic aspects of its diverse learners and teachers. A study was done on roughly 75 teachers both NNESTs and NESTs to prove the research question. Both native and non-native teachers agreed that being a native isn’t necessary to teach language better. Students were also questioned, and the results revealed they had no preference for native speakers or their accents. Therefore, these findings point to the necessity of having collaborative approaches to promote a stronger foundation of mutual respect, effective communication and interaction in TESOL classrooms. To improve the linguistic and literary creativity in English classrooms, language teaching needs a new rhetoric approach of world Englishes, thus respecting diversity in tones and accents of its learners and teachers both. The racist concept of native speakerism needs to be dismantled. A pluralistic view in daily pedagogical approaches and texts from varied socio-linguistic backgrounds will help improve productivity in classes. Mutual intelligibility and not accent should be the key to language learning in TESOL classrooms. It’s essential that intelligibility rather than accent be promoted to encourage mutual interaction in TESOL classrooms.