Varieties of English and Thai secondary school students’ standpoints

Abstract

The role of English in the inter-connected world nowadays is increase significantly as the international lingua franca. Consequently, varieties of accents, lexical choices, and grammar patterns become challenging. Thailand prepares for the 2015 ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) with many education programs to advance English skill development. A traditional belief of English teaching and learning in Thailand focuses on the notion of the native-like English which runs contrary to the reality where the non-native-like English varieties exist. This presentation discusses the Thai secondary school students’ attitudes toward varieties of English. Three characteristic themes were emerged from interviewing 12 students namely the Nativeness Believers, the Flexible Englishers, and the Varieties Supporters. The Nativeness Believers were characterized as students who supported the sole use of native English accent and grammar. The Flexible Englishers illustrated the students who normally supported the native English accent or grammar, but allowed the use of other varieties as far as the intelligibility remained. The Varieties Supporters were characterized as students who accepted the differences or the varieties of ELF without the condition of intelligibility or understandability. The findings revealed that most of the students were the Flexible Englishers and could somewhat accept varieties of English. The majority of the interviewees were the Flexible Englishers. However, there attitudes toward the varieties of English were interchangeable depends on the usage of the language in a particular situation. The results of the study indicate that the students in the current era where English become a lingua franca of ASEAN are more opened to the non-native varieties of English. Thus, the English language teaching and learning, and language beliefs should be adapted to best advantage the learners of English in the Thai context.