On account of the incessant development of the world today, it is undeniable that English has played a significant role as well as dominantly powerful status in science, technology, business, journalism, entertainment, education, and other countless fields. This has enabled English to be the most widely learned language for international communication around the world (Phillipson, 1992:6-7). People from different nationalities and cultural backgrounds have tostudy English in order to communicate with one another. However, ironically, even though the majority of English speakers are those who use English as asecond or foreign language the norms for teaching English are still extensively dominated by the so-called native speakers, especially the norms of teaching pronunciation (Crystal, 2003; Jenkins, 2000). That isto say, the mutual intelligibility, the first and utmost important function ofthe language, is neglected by the misconception that having a native-like pronunciation will lead to successful communication. The main argument of thisessay is to point out that the dominant native speakers’ norms of English pronunciation are outdated as well as unrealistic to the use of English as aLingua Franca in the real communicative situations which the major spoken exchanges are amongst non-native speakers of English rather than between native speakers and non-native speakers. Therefore, the orientation of English language teaching pedagogy needs to be re-examined and revised in order toraise learners’ awareness of the importance of international intelligibility rather than prestige. In addition, the issues of identity and language change are discussed.

Create Date : 21 มีนาคม 2557
Last Update : 21 มีนาคม 2557 13:02:22 น.		0 comments
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