Teaching “the Standard”: Reevaluating the Teaching of English From ELF and Columbia School Theory

Due to globalization and mass media, English has become the official language for communication across the world. Given this phenomenon, English as a second language (ESL), teachers and researchers are wondering about the best approach to teach English. Regarding this, linguistics has partnered with ESL pedagogy to provide the knowledge that helps instructors design better lessons. Traditional linguistics based on Structuralism and Generative Grammar provided the basis of teaching English practices by looking at the language systematically organized into levels (phonological, morphological, lexical, and syntactic). Coupled with views on the prevalence of received pronunciation (RP) and American English as the ideal pronunciation models, second language (L2) learners should attain, most teachers have relied on material that fosters this perception. However, in the 1980s, sociolinguistics and other theories that look at how languages used and how can be best described in their contexts appeared. Among these, and within the latter, the concept of English as a lingua franca (ELF) has called teachers and researchers’ attention. In this paper, we will look at the concept of ELF, in opposition to that of English as a foreign language (EFL), supported by traditional perspectives on language; and the theory of the Columbia School of Linguistics as theoretical sources that can support a more inclusive and multicultural conception of teaching English to speakers of other languages.