Competence. circumscribes learner and teacher autonomy: The idea that the language

circumscribes learner and teacher autonomy: The idea that the language

presented in the classroom should be as authentic as possible, so as to

represent the reality of native speaker language use, has been one of

the tenets of the communicative approach. Real communicative

behaviour in this context is defined strictly in terms of the parochial

milieu and the fuzzy notion of the native speaker. As such, the

multiplicity of uses of English around the world involving encounters

between not only native speakers and nonnative speakers, but also

nonnative speakers and nonnative speakers, is not even recognized.

In the same vein, corpus descriptions of English contain databases

of native speaker usage, influencing model situations in

ELT coursebooks which involve interactions of native speakers with

native speakers.

Clearly, with authenticity being dependent on the authority of the native

speaker, the notion of learner autonomy suffers dramatically, as it

focuses on the activation of learners’ own experience in the use of

language as part of their learning. As Widdowson (1998) observes, the

language which is real for native speakers is not likely to be real for

nonnative speakers. For language to be authentic in its routine pragmatic

functioning, it needs to be localized within a particular discourse

community. It follows that the more the language is localized for the

learners, the more they can engage with it as discourse.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that real communicative behaviour

ought to be redefined in relation to the reality of English as an

International Language, entailing not only the uses of English that are real

for its native speakers in English-speaking countries, but also the uses of

English that are real for its nonnative speakers in communities served by

languages other than English. Only then can we speak of autonomous

Towards intercultural communicative competence 61

language learning, taking into account the meaningful background

provided by the indigenous language and culture of the learner.

Native speaker-based authenticity further restricts the nonnative speaker

teachers’ autonomy on two accounts. First, with English embedded in

the native speaker culture, its teaching remains inseparable from

teaching native speaker culture. As such, learners’ own culture is

peripheralized, if not completely ignored. Yet this is the area where

nonnative speaker teachers are at their best, due to the linguistic

background and life experience they share with their students. Instead of

developing new systemic data in relation to the learners’ already

established familiar schematic knowledge, as is the case with native

language learning processes, they feel intimidated by native speaker

norms of use and usage, and also find themselves in the potentially

awkward position of equipping their students with aspects of the native

speaker’s sociolinguistic and strategic competencies.

Secondly, as multicompetent language users, in whom the co-existence

and interaction of two languages is a fact of life, nonnative speaker teachers

are hindered from raising multicompetent minds due to the educational

system’s obsession with the often monolingual native speaker. Rarely are

goals set, or situations and roles devised that are appropriate for foreign

language learners; seldom are language corpora used that entail

interactions between nonnative speakers; virtually no teaching method is

utilized taking into consideration the learner’s native language.

As a reaction to restrictions on learner and teacher autonomy based on

the adherence to the notion of native speaker-based authenticity, several

attempts have been made to deculturize or nativize English in various

degrees. One common approach has been to design instructional

materials where cultural content chiefly comes from the familiar and

indigenous features of the local setting so as to motivate the students and

enhance their language learning experience. This has been done, albeit

on a small scale, in a number of countries. In addition to educators’

efforts to incorporate the local cultural background into the language

learning process, language learners themselves have developed varieties

of English, such as Dutch English or German English, bearing a measure

of each country’s particular cultural and linguistic background and

unique experience with English as well as manifesting certain distinctive

features in the areas of pronunciation, lexis, syntax, and pragmatics

(Berns 1988).

Although attempts to deculturize or nativize English have a number of

educational merits, they are not too different from communicative

orientations to teaching English through the generally unrealistic, often

idealized, and at times monolithic norms of the native speakers and their

culture(s). As such, they fall short of recognizing the international status

of English, and fail to provide an alternative to the conventional view that

a language cannot be taught separately from its culture. This view is

certainly sensible in the case of foreign language instruction, yet it fails

miserably when it comes to teaching an international language, whose

culture becomes the world itself.

Cem Alptekin

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