LEARN Journal: Language Education and Acquisition Research Network

ISSN: 2630-0672 (Print) | ISSN: 2672-9431 (Online)

Volume: 17, No: 1, January – June 2024
Language Institute, Thammasat University
https://so04.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/LEARN/index

Current ‘Shifts’ in English Language Teaching

Roby Marlina

Roby.Marlina@relc.org.sg, SEAMEO-RELC, Singapore

APA Citation:
Marlina, R. (2024). Current ‘shifts’ in English language teaching. LEARN
Journal: Language Education and Acquisition Research Network, 17 (1), 1-7.

Received ABSTRACT
12/11/2023

Received in revised In this article, I offer my observations of the epistemological

form shifts that have taken place in the TESOL discipline as a result
04/01/2024 of the inexorable forces of globalisation. Specifically, the article
highlights how the multicultural, multilingual, and multimodal
Accepted
10/01/2024 nature of communication in the 21st century has disrupted
various assumptions on how English is conceptualised, learned,
and taught, prompting a shift in disciplinary discourses from a
modernist to postmodernist orientation. Readers will gain
insights into how the TESOL discipline is increasingly aligning
itself with discourses that endorse inclusive plurality,
emphasize processes and practices, recognize the role of
everyday contexts, promote situated pedagogy, and advocate
agency-giving.
 Marlina (2024), pp. 1-7

I must confess that it is insurmountably challenging to offer a

comprehensive discussion on what constitutes current trends in the field of
English Language Teaching (ELT) due to space constraints and varying
perspectives. A google scholar search in December 2023 yielded almost eighty
thousand publications; each offering their views on what the trends were.
Additionally, TESOL is a messy and dynamic discipline as scholars are
constantly engaged in modifying, revising, and appropriating scholarly
discourses in light of the changing social and intellectual contexts. As
observed by Canagarajah (2015), “this plurality of discourses and practices in
TESOL may not cohere neatly any time in the present or in the future” (pp.
33). Therefore, instead of offering what I see as the ‘trends’, this short article
will offer observations of epistemological shifts that have taken place in the
TESOL discipline as a result of the inexorable forces of globalisation.
The increase in human mobility across the globe and the technological
advancement have largely changed the nature of today’s communicative
exchanges. The time-space compression facilitated by technology, migration,
and travel has not only heightened exposure and awareness of diverse
communities, cultures, traditions, and languages, but also changed the nature
of communication in the 21st century to be largely multicultural, multilingual,
multidialectal, and multimodal. These changes have disrupted various
assumptions on how English is conceptualised, learned, and taught,
prompting a shift in disciplinary discourses from a modernist to
postmodernist orientation. In other words, the field of ELT has increasingly
geared towards promoting discourses that advocate inclusive plurality,
processes and practices, role of everyday contexts, situated pedagogy, and
agency-giving (see details in Canagarajah, 2015).

Reconceptualising English

One prominent shift in the field of ELT, primarily propelled by the

various outcomes of the global expansion of English, is a recognition of
English as a global lingua franca characterised by its heterogeneity. This
recognition is evident in a plethora of research grounded in one or more of
research paradigms such as English as an International Language (EIL),
World Englishes (WE), English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), and Global
Englishes (GE). Hence, ELT scholars, (practitioner-) researchers, and
practitioners have increasingly become more attuned to the following key
insights generated by empirical enquiries from the aforementioned
paradigmatic orientations:
1. The view of English as a homogeneous, static, and monolithic
entity spoken exclusively by the so-called ‘native’ English speakers (NES
LEARN Journal: Vol. 17, No. 1 (2024) Page 2
 Marlina (2024), pp. 1-7
henceforth) has been rendered anachronistic by the empirical findings from
the scholarship of WE on the kaleidoscopic plurality of the use, users, and
forms of English.
2. Evident in the ELF research, communication in English
predominantly involves multilingual users of English who creatively and
strategically draw upon a wide range of communicative strategies from their
rich multilingual repertoire to negotiate meanings and ensure mutual
understanding.
3.English, as an international lingua franca, is not confined exclusively
to any particular group; the linguistic ownership extends to all users of
English.
The above insights have spurred numerous sociolinguistics and
applied linguistics research inquiring into diverse linguistic processes through
which multilingual users of English adeptly employ linguistic practices and
communicative strategies distinct from those employed by NES, yet achieve
effective communication. They also hold profound impact on the learning
and teaching of English, necessitating a shift away from the modernist
orientation of ELT. This shift entails transcending teaching a set of discrete
linguistic items and/or NES’ lingua-cultural practices (Marlina, 2022).

Reconceptualising Language Learning

Diversity is the inherent property of ELT as our language learners

come from diverse linguistic, cultural, social, and socio-economic
backgrounds (Liu & Nelson 2018). These learners bring to the classrooms
their linguistic and cultural capital, knowledge traditions, worldviews,
ideologies, preferred learning cultures and strategies, and learning experiences
and histories, illustrating how permeable the ELT classroom walls are. The
forces of globalisation have contributed further to the porosity of these walls
as learners in our classroom may come from diverse sociocultural,
sociolinguistic, and socio-political contexts. Hence, the “linguistic-cognitive
paradigm” (Ortega, 2014, p.33) – which posits grammatical knowledge as the
foundation for language competency, and views language acquisition as a
deterministic process predictable through conditioning learners’ neural
responses within tightly controlled learning environments – has been
challenged. Despite ongoing advocacy by scholars with the aforementioned
paradigmatic commitment, a burgeoning body of research has urged ELT
communities not to overlook:
• language as a complex adaptive system: recognising language as a
system that evolves through interaction, rather than a static set of rules. “It is
not that there are no norms; norms evolve in practice. Meaning and form are
constantly reconstructed in situated interactions from the diverse resources
LEARN Journal: Vol. 17, No. 1 (2024) Page 3
 Marlina (2024), pp. 1-7
people bring to communication” (Canagarajah, 2015, p.14). Hence, the
process of language learning occurs as individuals negotiate meanings and
lingua-cultural norms as they move from one social setting to another. While
learning specific norms may help to establish some kind of foundation, it is
crucial to mindful and receptive to the evolving nature of the norm; and the
paradox of communication as norm-dependent as well as norm-altering.
• the role of technology in language learning: highlighting how
technological advancements has transformed communication and language
learning. Communication is no longer about using words or relying on
utilitarian language. Instead, meaning making requires the accompaniment of
various multimodal elements, including semiotic systems (e.g. sounds,
graphics, images) and other ecological resources (e.g. gestures, body, objects).
In the current era where many learners are deemed ‘digital natives’, language
learning is more than likely to occur autonomously (as in outside the
classroom) and digitally, utilizing a variety of multimodal and ecological
resources for learning assistance.
• the role of identity in language learning: emphasising the socially
situated nature of language learning, which accounts for diverse learning
beliefs, interests, learning styles, and trajectories in language acquisition; and
• learners’ investment in the language; stressing the need to go beyond
the conventional understanding of learning commitment as a mere by-
product of motivation. Language learning outcomes, whether successful or
challenging, cannot be simply explained through the lens of a unitary, fixed
and ahistorical ‘personality’, or the dichotomies associated with traditional
conception of learners such as motivated vs unmotivated, anxious vs
confident, and introvert vs extrovert (Darvin, & Norton, 2023). Learners are
social beings with multiple and complex identities that are continually
changing over time and space. In addition to asking whether or not learners
are motivated, many ELT research works have increasingly addressed the
extent to which learners and teachers are invested in the language practices
of a given community. Are the language practices of the community racist,
sexist, elitist, anti-immigrant, or homophobic, preventing equal learning
opportunities for all learners? To what extent are learners’ identities
positioned desirably within the socio-political contexts of language learning?
These issues have been regarded foundational in the current language
education discourse (Darvin & Norton, 2023).

Reconceptualising Language Teaching

Given the diversity and complexity of the use, users, forms, learners,
and teachers of English today, there have been numerous gentle reminders

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 Marlina (2024), pp. 1-7
for practitioners and practitioner-researchers to consider the following
discourses on language teaching:
• Postmethodology (Kumaravadivelu, 2012): while this concept is not
new, they have been consistently underscored in the current disciplinary
discourses. Rather than subscribing oneself to pre-packaged one-size-fits-all
methodologies, ELT practitioners have been encouraged to exercise their
agency to adapt their approaches through ongoing negotiation with their local
institutional (e.g. the institution’s vision, mission) and sociolinguistic (e.g. the
role and function of English, the varieties of English, lingua-cultural attitudes)
contexts (Selvi & Yazan, 2021). Additionally, consideration of the subject
positions of teachers and students, encompassing aspects like race, age, class,
gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, is crucial in this adaptive process.
• Translanguaging spaces: considering the adaptive nature of language
and the prevalence of bilingual learners, language instruction needs to go
beyond teaching a set of discrete linguistic items or fostering internal
reproduction of the external target system as declarative knowledge. While
having such knowledge may be valuable, there is an increasing emphasis on
providing opportunities for learners to use what they really know and can do
with language. These translanguaging spaces – where students are empowered
to leverage their entire rich linguistic and semiotic repertoire to learn language
and engage in meaning making – should play a central role in ELT
classrooms. Allowing such spaces can also help to challenge raciolinguistic
ideologies that promote the supremacy of monolingual-culturalism (Li &
Garcia, 2022).
• Task-based language teaching or TBLT: an approach to teaching in
which learners acquire communicative abilities and participate in social
activities relevant to their present or future goals. Instead of assigning learners
to do decontextualized language exercises, TBLT teachers engage learners in
using language(s) to get things done. TBLT is growing in popularity due to its
clear design tailored to learners’ needs, evidence-supported benefits from
comparison studies, preference over other methods by students and teachers,
compatibility with other pedagogical approaches such as bilingual education
and CLIL (Content Language Integrated Learning), and alignment with SLA
research on linguistic development and learner factors (Ahmadian & Long,
2022).
• Technology-enabled language teaching: the multimodal nature of
communication, the digital nativeness of our language learners, and more
recently the evolving mode of delivery as a result of the outbreak of the
COVID-19 have led to a growing emphasis on utilising digital technologies
and generative AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools in language learning
classrooms (Moorhouse, Wong & Li, 2023). With technology becoming a
norm in language teaching in many contexts, there is a growing body of
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 Marlina (2024), pp. 1-7
research addressing the efficacy of digital technologies in facilitating language
learning and teaching; the essential competencies required from ELT
practitioners in today’s post-pandemic digital age; and the professional
development strategies to enhance teacher’s competence in using digital
technologies for teaching.
In closing, the current shifts in disciplinary discourses in the field of
ELT have prompted a critical reassessment on what constitutes evidence of
‘good’ language learning and teaching. It may be true that the inexorable
forces of globalisation have transformed the field of ELT to the extent that
language educators may find themselves unsure about the content they should
teach and the real-world scenarios their students need preparation for.
Despite these, one should consider adopting a more optimistic perspective to
view these diverse and competing disciplinary discourses as opportunities for
the profession to develop more robust discussions and practices for continual
improvement. Therefore, one should look forward to reading, listening, and
disseminating more renewed disciplinary discourses in the years ahead.

About the Author

Roby Marlina: A Senior Language Specialist (Teacher-Educator) with the

Training, Research, Assessment and Consultancy Department at SEAMEO-
RELC, Singapore. He is also one of the chief editors of the SSCI-indexed
RELC journal. He has published widely in the areas of World Englishes
curriculum and pedagogy, and intercultural education. His scholarly works
have appeared in international peer-reviewed journals; and various edited
books, handbooks, and the encyclopaedias on language teaching and teacher-
education.

References

Ahmadian, M. J., & Long, M. H. (2022). The Cambridge handbook of task-based

language teaching. Cambridge University Press.
Canagarajah, S. (2015). TESOL as a professional community: A half-century
of pedagogy, research, and theory. TESOL Quarterly, 50 (1), 7-41.
Darvin, R., & Norton, B. (2023). Investment and motivation in language
learning: What’s the difference? Language Teaching, 56 (1), 29-40.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2012). Language teacher education for a global society: A
modular model for knowing, analysing, recognising, doing, and seeing.
Routledge.

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 Marlina (2024), pp. 1-7
Li, W., & Garcia, O. (2022). Not a first language but one repertoire:
Translanguaging as a decolonizing project. RELC Journal, 53 (2),
313-324.
Liu, D., & Nelson, R. (2018). Diversity in the classroom. In J. Liontas (Ed.),
TESOL encyclopaedia of English language teaching (pp.585-590). Wiley-
Blackwell.
Marlina, R. (2022). Changing Principles and Practices in Teaching Language
Skills. In J. Liontas (Ed.), TESOL encyclopaedia of English language
teaching (pp.1-15). Wiley-Blackwell.
Moorhouse, B., Wong, K.M., & Li, L. (2023). Teaching with technology in
the post-pandemic digital age: Technological normalisation and AI-
induced disruptions. RELC Journal, 54 (2), 311-320.
Ortega, L. (2014). Ways forward for a bi/multilingual turn in SLA. In S.May
(Ed.), The multilingual turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL, and bilingual
education (pp. 32-52). Routledge.
Selvi, A.F., & Yazan, B. (2021). Language teacher education for global Englishes: A
practical resource book. Routledge.

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