Blog 5 - McKay

Chapter one of McKay was very interesting. The author talks about the basics of English as an International Language and some of the difficulties it presents. She starts off by describing the three "circles" of English users: the Inner Circle, where English is the primary language; the Outer Circle, where English is a secondary language in a mulitlingual country; and the Expanding Circle, where English is studied as a foreign language. McKay also includes a handy little chart showing the countries where the study of English is prevalent. I, for one, was very surprised at what countries show English as its primary, or secondary, language! Some of these places I had never even heard of, let alone known that English was spoken there.

McKay goes on to write about some of the feature of English, such as communication functions and spreading of cultures. I especially was interested in this idea of spreading culture through a language. It reminds me of when I learned about the Greeks and Romans in my European history class. My professor told us that when Alexander the Great conquered most of Europe, the Greek way of life began penetrating into other countries and influenced music, art, language, and just the everyday way of life. In the same way, English has greatly influenced other cultures through music, business, and even just the way people look at others.

I remember when I traveled to Germany a few years ago, I went to a club where most of the music was in English. All of the people in the club were singing and knew all the words to the songs, yet when I tried to talk to them, they said they did not know any English. It was just very interesting how these German kids knew the English words to the songs, yet did not know how to transfer those words to speaking English.

I thought the factors that may impede the spread of English were really interesting. The fact that it may lose its preferred status is something that I don't believe will ever happen. English has been a major component within the world for such a long time, that I don't think it will ever lose its status. I thought the technology aspect was especially interesting. Technology has helped and improved so much over the past few years. So many people have the world at their fingertips. Yet, I believe that because English has had such an impact on the world even without technology, that technology will only encourage the spread of English.

All in all, I thought McKay's chapter on EIL was very interesting. It really broke down all the aspects of EIL and her easy writing stlye makes the reader think about these important issues of Teaching English as an International Language.