Introduction

ELT practice in the periphery: Nativeness syndrome

English has unquestionably, perhaps unpredictably, spread out worldwide. English is one of the most desirable languages to acquire as it is also often associated with the idea that this language can bring socio-economic benefits (Pennycook, 2009) resulting in the massive rise of the ELT industry in non-English speaking countries. The number of English as a Second and/or Foreign Languages speakers who use English as a global lingua franca (Canagarajah, 2009a; Jenkins, 2006) has surpassed that of its native English speakers. This number is significantly increasing, making the nativelikeness norms in English language teaching (should) no longer be idealized. Expanding circles of English speakers have nativized the variety of English and have grown more in the recent decades (Canagarajah, 2009b; Graddol, 2003).

The conceptualization of native vs. nonnative speakerism has received enormous critiques from some scholars (see Canagarajah, 2002; Higgins, 2003; Holliday, 2006; Pennycook, 2000, 2009). The clear-cut division does not seem to be relevant because the number of multilingual English speakers has exceeded that of native English speakers (Galloway, 2014; Jenkins, 2006). Such a dichotomy also perpetuates unequal Englishes and entrenches the English-only approach in English language teaching (ELT) that threatens multilingual English learners (Kirkpatrick, 2011, 2015; Phan, 2015; Tupas, 2015). Multilingual English learners, like Indonesians, should be oriented neither to reach nativelikeness nor to impersonate native-standard norms but rather to become ‘proficient’ learners. Implementing nativelikeness norms to assess their proficiency, such as oral proficiency in speaking and linear organization in writing, is regarded as a not-fairly-wise-accomplishment (Fromkin et al., 2011). The very existence of World Englishes needs openness and acceptance of the varieties of English, particularly in countries where English is learned as a global communication tool. The teaching of English should not necessarily be built on the UK, US, or Australia where nativelikeness norms are based (Higgins, 2003; Jenkins, 2006).

The dependence ‘syndrome’ of nativelikeness norms primarily attacks speakers of English as a lingua franca in the expanding circle (Kachru, 1992). They are still haunted by the “superiority” of native speakers. In the context of speaking skill assessment, for example, the use of nonnative English accent use is seen as incorrect and substandard (Phan, 2009; Kubota, 2015). They regard their ‘local’ accent as negative, inadequate or deficient compared to the native one (Matsuda, 2003; Tokumoto & Shibata, 2011). The dominant hegemony of ‘native speakers as gatekeepers’ is obvious in oral and written proficiency assessments. The standardization of correct academic writing as to be “linear, relevant and logical” (Phan, 2009, p. 136) has entrenched the presumed authoritative act of native English speakers’ norms. This standardization of writing is even massively promoted, consciously or unconsciously, by non-native English teachers themselves.

Under such a belief, Phan (2009) argued that other types of writing such as writing in other languages, for example in Asian languages, is often considered “illogical, circular, irrelevant, and lacking argumentative and analytical ability" (p. 136). Even worse, nonnative English learners often receive the so-called ‘linguistic racism’ due to their race, name, colour or country of origin (Dovchin, 2020; Irham, 2022). Several scoring rubrics used to assess students’ speaking skills, such as those proposed by Harris (1969), Ur (1991), and Brown (2000) imply the idea that mother tongue accents are interfering factors hampering accuracy, and even consider the English academic writing assessments that regard native norms as the only reference of the truth. Only if students, especially in a test, can perform English in a nativelike way, be it in speaking or writing, would they be considered linguistically competent (Phan, 2009).  

In this paper, we agree with scholars who have loudly challenged native speakerism ideology–among others, Canagarajah (2009b) and Holliday (2006) – and attempt to take more “friendly” assessment on students’ speaking and writing styles. This effort is in line with Kirkpatrick’s (2011, 2015) and Zein’s (2018) call for a shift from teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) to teaching English(es) as a lingua franca (ELF), given the super-diverse linguistic context of Indonesia and the multilingual Indonesian English learners. We also argue to revisit prevalent ‘nativelikeness’ (sometimes used interchangeably with ‘native speakerism’) norms that ignore multilingualism of English learners, which bring their repertoires, voices, and creativities.

Problematizing the assessment of speaking skill

The prevalent measurement of speaking proficiency is based on the criteria developed by Brown (2000) and Ur (1991). Although there are also other rubrics, including the CEFR framework that seems to be adopted uncritically in most of ELT in Indonesian education levels, they share almost similar features to credit nativelikeness higher and discredit local accent or a local variety of English as deficient (Phan, 2009, 2015). The following table is Brown’s (2000) rubric that provides oral proficiency scoring criteria. Phrases that support native speakerism norms are italicized:

Table 1: Oral assessment rubric [Brown (2000)]

Ur (1991) also proposes an oral assessment rubric that reinforces the importance of acquiring a nativelike accent.

Table 2: Oral assessment rubric [Ur (1991)]

Both rubrics emphasize two significant aspects: accuracy (in terms of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation) and fluency. In particular, accuracy covers aspects of vocabulary, grammar, and accent. It is worth highlighting that the accent desired in that assessment rubric is native to nearly native, the very notion that we problematize. Strong to slight foreign accents were valued 2 to 4 score from a 1-5 scale. It thus implies that multilingual speakers are unlikely to achieve such a 5 score, as to produce a nativelike accent or they may achieve this level but with a very strong effort. This condition is of course contradictory to English native speakers who can effortlessly produce the so-called native accent

As both rubrics demonstrate, foreign accents are highly undesired, which leads to unfriendly assessment of multilingual speakers or learners who study English as a foreign, a lingua franca, an international, or an additional language (Canagarajah, 2009a; Phan, 2009; Shohamy, 2001). For example, in Brown's (2000) rubric, nearly-nativelikeness is credited with the highest score while foreign accent in learners' speaking is devalued to not meet the educated native speaker standard.

This evaluation echoes the paradox embedded in such nativelikeness assessment criteria which Phan (2009) and Kubota (2015) have firmly challenged. Besides, allowing native norms to be incorporated in ELT for non-English speaking countries may cause greater knowledge-dependence. Under such criteria, multilingual speakers are placed unequally from the beginning, and those who might have better access to sufficient English language resources and exposure might, of course, be valued higher in the test. Moreover, it does not open spaces for multilingual students to renegotiate meaning (Canagarajah, 2002), and such measurement is unlikely friendly (Shohamy, 2001).

We believe that the aspect of ‘understandability’ is far more critical than that of nativelike accuracy, which disadvantages nonnative English speakers when they cannot follow native speakerism norms. Selvi (2018) considered nativelike accuracy as a part of myths of native speakerism prevalently distributed in English language teaching contexts. Mutual intelligibility is also in line with the spirit promoted by ELF and World Englishes scholars as it could give spaces for meaning-making negotiation and potential friendlier assessment (see Jenkins, 2006; Kirkpatrick, 2010). To perform inaccurate pronunciation is, somehow, still acceptable in some cases, yet the absence of communicativeness in speaking will ruin the communication. Therefore, there should be a moderate way (Canagarajah, 2009b) to assess students’ oral proficiency by proportionally taking the accuracy and fluency into account and poses multilingual students as nonnatives.

Understandability is a much more important key for successful communication than nativelikeness since it embraces the communicative competence of ELF learners. For multilingual English learners, communicative competence should be considered the general ability to use the English language meaningfully in any communicative context (Archard & Niemeier, 2008). This view implies that neither grammatical correctness nor pronunciation accuracy determines the understanding of participating speakers in a particular interaction setting. Should those different speakers understand, meaning that the message could be transferred, their communication is considered successful regardless of grammatical inaccuracy (Jenkins, 2006; Kirkpatrick, 2015; Mauranen, 2018). Such mutual intelligibility is the crucial notion within English as a lingua franca and world Englishes perspectives (Jenkins, 2006; Kachru, 1992). Moreover, multilingual speakers are unlikely to perform in maximum capacity whenever their linguistic repertoire is limited by the idealized norms of nativeness. Kubota (2003) challenged the extensive use of native speakerism norms for multilingual speakers, especially in the emerging growth of English speakers in the periphery who use English as a global communication tool, especially when interacting with people from different mother tongues.

A more flexible or friendly assessment is highly needed since affective factors, such as negative feelings or experiences while being assessed using an “unfriendly” rubric, may lead to stress, discomfort, self-consciousness, or discouragement, and trigger students’ reluctance to learn anything, including English as a lingua franca (Berns, 2008; Canagarajah, 2002). To reduce the students’ reluctance to learn as caused by the use of an “unfriendly” assessment rubric, we support Krashen's (1982) proposal to offer language assessment that does not expect students from outer or expanding circles to produce English language competence with the same criteria as used in the inner circle.

Given that our main criticism is on the native speakerism norms, the best thing to do is decreasing or diminishing the old view of nativelikeness aspects, which is still haunting ELF learners in their oral proficiency acquisition. We propose an alternative rubric by synthesizing the criteria in Brown’s (2000) and Ur’s (1991) rubrics. The assessment criteria that we propose are accuracy, fluency, and ‘communicativeness’ (absent in earlier rubrics), and pronunciation. In this rubric, we put the pronunciation aspect as a separate criterion, and give it less relevance than the others and include a space to appreciate local accents. There is no doubt about the accuracy of using the language to make it clear and reflects the grammatical rule. However, given that fluency is strongly associated with the “ability to use language quickly and confidently” (Ho, 2018, p. 1) with which English native speakers have gained it nearly naturally, we consider that communicativeness is an area where multilingual speakers can compete with English native speakers. Thus, we think it is important to view fluency and communicativeness as one package since the latter emphasizes more on (mutual) understandability. Instead of focusing on the ability on producing ideas in English, we stress the ability to exchange ideas within interactional activities schema. We weigh the pronunciation aspect 20% in that we still consider it important to help hearers gain mutual understandability. Again, however, the proposed rubric has tried to remove dependency on native speakerism.

Table 3: The proposed oral assessment rubric

Contesting the standards of English (academic) writing

The strong imposition of native English norms in English (academic) writing is evident given the massive spread of books related to writing good paragraphs, essays, or articles in English, the institutionalization of writing clinics in many of English-speaking west (Phan, 2009), and proofreading services that cater primarily students from non-English speaking countries. Only when learners acquire not only the written code but also the "values embedded in the written code" would they be labeled "literate” (Phan, 2009, p. 135). As Phan (2009) contended, this notion has jeopardized multilingual learners who might have experienced and acquired more than one written code.

According to Farrell (1997), three aspects of English academic essays are imposed on English language learners regardless of their varied lingua-cultural backgrounds. These aspects are developed based on the nativelikeness norms literacy, relevance, and politeness.” By those three characteristics, English speakers identify themselves as “objective, analytical, and sequential," and the writing of English should ideally be organized in a “linear and co-ordinated” way (Phan, 2009, p. 135). As Farrell (1997) argued, the norms were designed to facilitate English teachers and examiners to read students’ essays more easily. It almost seems to be the case that native English norms have been uncritically adopted for multilingual English student writers. Even in more cautious cases, few native English writers are likely to expect others to write English the way they do. The fallacy of these native speakers has been critiqued as they behave as if they were the language police or gatekeepers who uphold absolute authority to regulate others what and how to(Canagarajah, 2009a; Mauranen, 2018). They treat English language learners as static users, not as active agents who could freely bring and develop their own cultural norms through their writing.

English teachers often limit multilingual English students' creativity and voice as they present a stiff concept of paragraphs or essays developed based on native norms. For example, the paragraph that students write must start with a topic sentence, followed by supporting sentences, close with a concluding sentence, and thus be written linearly and straightforwardly. This structure affirms the native English writing norm of "relevance," which requires sentences in the paragraph be straightforwardly connected to the topic. This norm also suggests avoiding the use of interrogative sentences in a concluding paragraph, let alone a poem, although this writing might be expected in other languages (see Phan, 2009; Kubota, 2015; Matsuda, 2003).

In what follows, we provide an example of the course outline of the Paragraph Writing course prepared for undergraduate students in one of the Islamic Universities in Indonesia. The course outline was given to multilingual Indonesian students for them to follow the types of paragraph development model developed using native English speakers’ standards. Students were required to read Boardman's book as the main reference. The book suggests the so-called ‘good paragraph’ to start with a topic sentence –interrogative sentences are not preferred, with assertion instead of an announcement–, followed by supporting ‘relevant’ sentences, and ended with a concluding sentence. Punctuation, capitalization, and transitional use are highly encouraged to be included.

Table 4: Example of paragraph writing course outline
In terms of assessment, we found how students’ writings were assessed and given feedback based on the criteria developed in the book.

Figure 1: Teacher’s feedback on a student’s writing (Focus on the Topic Sentence)

In the example above, the student formulated a topic sentence which can be considered “informative,” and as such, it does not meet the criteria of a good topic sentence as modeled in Boardman’s book. For that reason, the student was required to revise it. The teacher did not provide any feedback to the rest of sentences as shown in Figure 1.

In the other example below, more marks on the student’s writing are found to indicate errors of spelling, punctuation, and lexical choice. The emphasis that the teacher puts seems to be on grammatical accuracy. The idea and meaning negotiation that the student tried to voice out in his/her writing was relatively ignored.

Figure 2: Teacher’s feedback on a student’s writing (Focus on the Grammatical Accuracy)

We argue that English (academic) writing for multilingual speakers should accommodate and provide spaces for re-negotiation, adaption, and appropriation so that learners could voice their self, identity, and agency. Our argument aligns to what Canagarajah (2011) termed as code-meshing, i.e., that all dialects and languages have equally values. English (academic) writing should not be oriented to reach native norms as the target since it would not benefit multilingual speakers. The binary polarization of native vs. nonnative should be diminished to grant justice for multilingual and unequal English practices in both oral proficiency measurement and English (academic) writing must be discontinued. We, thus suggest ELF teachers, as we have also argued elsewhere (see Irham et al., 2022) not adamantly refer to nativelikeness norms of English (academic) writing but rather to negotiate, appropriate, and adjust to the local contexts, giving spaces for multilingual learners’ voice and creativity.   

Table 5: The proposed writing assessment rubric

In the proposed rubric, we agree with existing literature that puts high attention on vocabulary and mechanical aspects of writing, given that these components are evaluated to be rather stable among other rubrics used for writing elsewhere. However, we also argue that, for the sake of a more friendly assessment, content/organization and grammar requirements should be revisited. As we have discussed earlier in this paper, students’ L1 writing style may not be ignored when practicing foreign language writing. We encourage teachers to not be strictly dependent on the presence of the so-called topic sentence as explicitly displayed in the first sentence of the paragraph. Students’ subject matter can be introduced in the middle of a paragraph, for instance, and consistently discussed throughout the paragraph. The same applies to the topic sentence written in the form of a question. In the given teacher’s feedback, it is evident that they associate their interpretation of a topic sentence as a “sentence” instead of any other alternatives, for example, a “question”, as if writing a topic in the form of an interrogative sentence is not and never can be acceptable.

In addition to the above suggestions, we also urge teachers to revisit grammatical aspects proposed in the rubric (see table 5) when grading students’ voices in their writing. For example, the use of frequent passive sentences and less nominalization construction that is often regarded as less academic, should not necessarily be viewed as a deficiency. Many English users from the global South express their voices via such a way of writing (see ElMalik & Nesi, 2008; Mustafa & D’Auria, 2019). Instead, they may put serious attention to the use of morphology and syntax that may cause serious problems to the understanding of sentences. When considered necessary, teachers may also incorporate this proposed evaluation scenario with that of focusing on the process instead of the product

In response to the issue of practicality, reliability, and validity of our proposed rubrics, both for oral assessment and writing assessment rubric, we argue that these matters have been adequately considered. It is practical in a way that it does not require a specific infrastructure to employ the rubrics. The practicality of the proposed rubrics can be justified by their ease of preparation, administration (within financial limitations and time constraints), scoring, and interpretation. Referring to Brown’s (2000) micro and macro skills in speaking and writing, we have been consistent about what we problematize. In both proposed rubrics, we emphasize the macro skills such as “style and fluency” or “content and organization” (Brown, 2000, p. 272-343). It is at the macro skill level that we argue to revisit and offer more friendly assessments for multilingual English language learners. These learners should not be assessed according to “nativeness” that has been used to measure the validity. The proposed rubrics, moreover, include clear instructions with a specific description for each level. For example, by referring to the frequency of students’ morphological and syntactical mistakes leading to potential ambiguities, any ELT teachers can appropriately assess which students acquire “proficient”, “competent”, “modest”, and “limited” writing proficiency, particularly in terms of the ‘grammar’ criterion. The detailed descriptions of the proposed rubrics therefore can increase scorer reliability.

Conclusion

The number of English speakers in the world has been inevitably increasing and overshadowing native speakers. This phenomenon has raised countless debates about whether standard English should give more weight to Englishes from Anglophone countries.

Given the fact that ESL and/or EFL speakers are predominantly bi/multilingual, they certainly have certain features typical to them, be it the accent which some native English might consider inaccurate, or the writing style as they have experienced and possessed multiple written codes. Berns (2008) underscores that mutual intelligibility is the key to successful communication, particularly among those who do not share the same mother tongue (Mauranen, 2018). This idea resonates with the ELF and World Englishes paradigms, which regards locality and difference in English variety as variety instead of deficiency which highlights mutual intelligibility instead of native speakerism norms. Therefore, a more friendly criteria should be introduced when assessing ELF learners’ productive skills. This breakthrough should be inevitable to avoid stressful, uncomfortable, self-conscious, or discouraging learning atmospheres that, to a greater or lesser extent, result from unjust assessment strictly upholding nativelikeness norms.

Acknowledgement

This paper is a part of research funded by the Project Management Unit (PMU) for the development of UIN Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang in cooperation with Saudi Fund for Development (SFD).

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