In the modern world, we emphasise that there are many ways of speaking English, and insisting on one external model such as British or American English is not advisable so long as the speaker can make themself understood.
Consistent with this English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) approach, I always tell my students that they should speak clearly and well, but that does not mean imitating me. If you don't come from England, then there's no need to pretend that you do. And there are better ways of speaking.
For example, if you say 'as' and 'of' with a full vowel instead of the schwa ([ə]) that I use, then keep it. Use of a full vowel in these words is probably more intelligible. Furthermore, I do not differentiate 'tour' from 'tore'; if you distinguish these words, then you should continue to do so. And I pronounce 'hours' as [ɑəz], using what is called smoothing; if you pronounce it as [awəz], then keep it.
But what about writing? Should I accept local patterns of writing? Or should I insist on Standard English?
Recently, I have been grading assignments written by my students, and I often encounter patterns such as these:
- 'One of my sister is a nurse.' (using a singular noun after 'one of')
- 'At home I speak Malay language.' (omitting 'the')
- 'Majority of people speak Brunei.' (omitting 'the' before 'majority')
- 'I am doing researches on language usage.' (plural use of 'researches')
- 'As for my sister, she goes to secondary school.' (explicit fronting of the topic)
Should I correct these patterns? Or should I accept them as examples of Brunei English that are perfectly valid in the local context?
One analogy may be helpful: if my own children wrote 'Me and my friend went to the shops', I would point out that, in writing, it is usual to say 'my friend and I'. Now, this is unnatural for most people, but we still insist on it. So, maybe written English is an unnatural language for everyone. And if I failed to point out some of its features to my children, I would be failing in my duty to enable them to progress in the world.
So should I correct my students' writing the patterns I have outlined above? When I talk so much about ELF-based teaching, is this being hypocritical?
I don't know the answer to this. My feeling is that I should point out these patterns, but if students want to maintain their own usage, maybe even take pride in it, then so be it. That way, I am raising awareness about local usage and not insisting on native-speaker usage. But I accept that there is a thin line between pointing out local patterns of usage and identifying errors.
