An effective GE teacher is someone who is trained at teaching languages, aspires toward multilingualism and multiculturalism, can relate to or is open to learners’ cultures, is sensitive to learners’ needs and struggles, and serves as a role model of an effective GE user. It does not matter whether the teacher is a native speaker or non-native speaker of English; what matters is their ability to support students' learning and development as GE users.
As mentioned on our GE as a Paradigm Shift page, Global Englishes for Language Teaching (GELT) is not a method for teaching Englishes. Rather, it is a perspective that seeks to raise students’ awareness about the reality of English use in the world today and support their development as successful communicators. GELT fits well with postmethod pedagogy* in that curriculum and instruction is “sensitive to a particular group of teachers teaching a particular group of learners pursuing a particular set of goals within a particular institutional context embedded in a particular social milieu” (Kumaravadivelu 2006, p. 538).
In an ideal situation, a school or program will adopt a GE curriculum, and teachers would be able to incorporate everything below into their teaching. However, it does not have to be “all or nothing”; GE can be something that a teacher infuses, here and there, into any English class.
Teaching with a GE focus can involve:
Covering GE-focused course content (introducing students to GE aims and concepts, exposing learners to a variety of speakers of Englishes, introducing and practicing interactional strategies, and exploring cultures).
Teaching with a GE frame of mind.
Helping learners’ develop as effective GE users.
Maintaining a focus on an asset-based approach to learners’ Englishes, rather than a deficit-focused approach. This includes encouraging learners to acknowledge the tools in their repertoire on a given day (linguistic knowledge, interactional skills and strategies, translingual and multimodal knowledge and skills, and attitude toward communication and cooperation) and utilize those tools to accomplish their communication goals in a particular encounter.
Promoting inclusivity. We are all users of Englishes, and we all have equal ownership of English for global uses.
Providing assessment and feedback focusing on learners’ successes as GE users and what they did to succeed in communicating and developing relationships, rather than focusing on “accuracy” according to an idealized native-speaker standard. In cases where learners’ were not able to succeed, teachers can focus on a “not yet” approach, encouraging reflection on what learners could have done to succeed combined with encouraging learners to continue to study useful English vocabulary and grammatical structures (via the instructional variety) so that they can expand their range of participation as a GE user.
Designing and implementing tasks and activities with a focus on developing different aspects of effective GE use.
Including task purposes that promote cooperation, adaptation to different people, and enhancing personal and professional relationships.
Embedding reminders about the legitimacy of other ways of saying things, especially when you introduce vocabulary, phrases, and grammatical structures from the instructional variety of English you use.
Incorporating discussions that raise students’s awareness about GE, allowing for critical comparisons between a GE paradigm and the native-speakerism paradigm so that each student can make their own informed choices. Examples include discussions about how to develop the ability to flexibly adapt to each interlocutor and situation; ownership of their English (the degree of comfortableness using it, confidence that they can use their English to accomplish things); use of interactional strategies; what is an effective GE user; and views about promoting cooperative use of Englishes while recognizing that some users’ intentions are not at all cooperative.
Including reflection questions that heighten students’ awareness of GE aims (again, providing opportunities for students to compare GE and native-speakerism) and allow students to share insights about learning and using GE.
Modeling effective GE use when communicating with students, such as using various interactional strategies, ignoring whether a student’s use of English is “accurate” and paying attention instead to their message, and using translanguaging or other tools to communicate. (Note that here we are separating times when a teacher is communicating with their students from times they are providing language instruction to their students.)
Assessing and grading students based on effective GE use.
Stating goals or SLOs (student learning outcomes) in ways that reflect GE aims.
Actually assessing students’ performance based on those SLOs (as opposed to assessing their accuracy).
Providing feedback based on those SLOs
* See Kumaravadivelu (1994, 2006) for an in-depth discussion of postmethod instruction. For a quick overview, see this summary video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy2P4zUdzXo.
The ideas presented in this section came from and were influenced by the following sources: Cogo et al (2021), Dweck (2014), Harding (2019), Harding & McNamara (2018), Kumaravadivelu (1994, 2006), Matsuda (2012), Matsuda & Friedrich (2012), McKay & Brown (2016), Rose & Galloway (2019), Rose et al (2020), Selvi, Galloway, & Rose (2023), Selvi & Yazan, (2021), Sifakis, (2019), Sifakis & Kordia (2023), as well as many of the articles in the special GE-focused issue of TESOL Quarterly (2024) edited by Rose & McKinley. If you are interested in reading more, you can find them on our References & Links page.