Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 1,0, RWTH Aachen University (Institut für Anglistik, Amerikanistik und Romanistik), course: Hauptseminar Sociolinguistics, language: English, abstract: The history and wide distribution of the English language – originally an Anglo-Frisiandialect first taken to Southern Britain by Germanic settlers in the 5th century and spoken byonly a few – has been a most remarkable and unparalleled one. Nowadays, English is theworld language, influencing each and every single aspect of the daily and professionallives of millions of people on an international scale.The metaphor of the Global Village often represents the ubiquitous process ofglobalisation – a phenomenon that has shaped the existence of mankind in the last coupleof decades. Communication in all areas is ensured mostlythrough the use of the English language. It is remarkable, though, that English is only inthe fourth place in terms of native speaker ranking and that its proportion is decreasingsteadily.Yet what makes English so important is its use as a lingua franca – an internationallanguage that is used for communication by speakers of different languages. Estimatesclaim that about 1 billion people – that is about one sixth of the world population – have atleast some knowledge of English and in most countries it has become one of the basicnecessities in professional life.Does this development have any influence on the way we as future professionals explore,describe and – above all – teach the English language? Do native speakers still ‘own’English or is it rather ‘Globish’, ‘Franglais’ or ‘Denglisch’ that should be taught? In thisterm paper I aim to offer some answers to these questions and examine different theories ofteaching English as a global language.I will begin with a short chapter about the global spread of English and continue bydiscussing the difference and competition between traditional language standards and thenew role of English as an international language. I will then briefly describe some featuresof “Global English” before I will deal with my main point – the future of Englishteaching. Here, I will at first describe the characteristics of the traditional methods –English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as a second language (ESL) – and thenhave a closer look at two newer models – Basic Global English (BGE) and Content andLanguage Integrated Learning (CLIL). I will conclude this paper by trying to postulate arealistic future of English language teaching – in schools as well as universities – byconsidering a variety of different scientific proposals.
