Teaching English or Englishes? Scandinavian Upper Secondary School Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Including World Englishes in the EFL Classroom

Abstract

The development of new linguistic varieties of English known as World Englishes has resulted in English teachers around the world disagreeing on whether English should be taught with a pluricentric approach or if focus should purely be on standard varieties (Jenkins, 2006, pp. 171-172). The present study aims to uncover what attitudes Scandinavian upper secondary school teachers express toward including World Englishes in the EFL classroom as well as to gain an insight into what experiences they have of practically integrating it in their own teaching. This was done by distributing a self-reporting online questionnaire through various closed Facebook groups aimed at Swedish, Norwegian and Danish upper secondary school teachers in English. Ultimately, the data consisted of responses from 84 Swedish teachers, 47 Norwegian teachers and 39 Danish teachers. In the questionnaire, participants were asked to indicate their opinion on a Likert scale in order to express agreement or disagreement with various statements concerning potential positive and negative effects of using World Englishes in the classroom. Thereafter, the respondents were asked to answer an open-ended question about their experiences of using World Englishes in their own teaching. It was then revealed that a majority of teachers from all three countries expressed predominantly positive attitudes toward including World Englishes and perceived it as a legitimate part of English teaching. Moreover, in contrast to previous studies conducted on English teachers in other countries, which have shown a disconnection between teachers’ theoretical knowledge of World Englishes and their practical integration of it, an overwhelming majority of the respondents in the present study reported that they have experiences in continuously including World Englishes in their teaching.