Native Speaker Myth: My Journey Into English as a Lingua Franca

When I was learning English as a kid and a teenager, I had an idea implanted in my head that I would use it to talk to native English speakers one day. The notion of going to the USA or UK and communicating with locals seemed like the final goal of my language learning journey. Of course, this was not my own idea; it was cultivated by my English teachers and society, and it likely stemmed from Braj Kachru's (1992) model of World Englishes, where I, as a native Russian speaker, found myself in the Expanding Circle. At that time, methodologies based on Behaviourist theory were thriving, so our learning involved a lot of drilling, memorization, and a focus on grammar. My classmates and I were all trained to speak and, hopefully, sound like native English speakers (British, to be specific). This approach was probably backed by Larry Selinker's (1972) Interlanguage theory, where the ultimate goal of learning was native-like proficiency.

Long story short, after 15 years of learning English, I had no clue how to communicate. I had grammar and vocabulary, but no oral practice. Worse than that, by enforcing the idea that mistakes were bad, my English teachers instilled in me a strong fear of speaking English.

It was only after coming to China and meeting people from all over the world that I started to understand a different reality. The idea of learning English to talk to its native speakers was an illusion; real-world communication is quite different from the models presented in the classroom. As Graddol (1999) predicted, "in future [English] will be a language used mainly in multilingual contexts as a second language and for communication between non-native speakers" (p. 57), and that prediction has already become a fact.

So there I was a few years ago, surrounded by non-native English speakers, and we all used English to communicate with each other. I noticed that the main focus was on communication and the ability to express thoughts and ideas in a way that was understandable to everyone in that specific situation. People made mistakes, sometimes did not follow standard sentence structures, and omitted some "unnecessary" words, but it was not a problem. According to Jenkins (2000), we were all capable users of English as a lingua franca – we were accommodating our English to each specific situation and group involved in the conversation.

Interestingly enough, after years of speaking English and achieving a high level of fluency, I still feel uncomfortable talking to native English speakers. In my opinion, the main reason is a mental block, triggered by the fear of being inaccurate in conversation with a native speaker – the ultimate goal of my learning path, the benchmark against which I should compare myself. It is the fear that I will inevitably make a mistake and be judged and deemed a failure.

Another reason is that it seems harder to talk to native speakers, as they often do not know how to accommodate their language when talking to non-natives. As House (2003) noted, the only cases of miscommunication or misunderstanding she observed in her research were those involving monolingual English speakers. As Canagarajah (2007) summarized, "this miscommunication in native-nonnative talk is easy to explain, as NSs would fail to negotiate, treating their norms as universally applicable" (p. 929).

And I do not blame them. As a native Russian speaker, I do not have a good understanding of how to accommodate the Russian language – I did not learn it the way I learned English, so I cannot easily grade Russian words by difficulty or determine which grammar structure is easier for a learner to understand. To put it simply, I do not know the vocabulary that another person possesses. I have a friend from Sweden who is a polyglot. When I first met him, he told me he could speak Russian. My reaction was, "Russian is too complicated, so let's just speak English". I did not want to go through the mental exercise of grading my mother tongue to his level. When he insisted on speaking Russian, what did I do? I started talking to him as if he were a disabled person – slowly, enunciating every single word. Luckily for me, his mother's first language is Russian, so it turned out he could speak fluently. But that brief moment made me realize what native English speakers (primarily monolingual ones) go through and the challenges they face when talking to others.

As we see English as a lingua franca grow in popularity and observe the communication strategies people use, we can ask ourselves an important question: should it be a teaching model in the language classroom? The answer probably depends on whether ELF is considered a variety of English that can be taught in the same way as American or British English.

As Sandra Mollin (2006) concludes in her paper, "ELF is no structurally coherent variety as Old and New Englishes are" (p. 52). Simply put, it is not a variety but a register – a style of language suited to a specific situation. There is no set vocabulary or grammar to be taught for ELF. This begs the question: what implications does this have for language acquisition in the modern landscape?

We still live in a world with standardized English tests where the "native speaker" is a benchmark against which learners are measured; native-speaker standards will likely remain a reference point for formal education and assessment. However, we must consider that the goal of learning English is shifting towards communicative competence. A learner who can communicate effectively is now seen as more successful than one who knows all the grammar rules but cannot form a sentence. This means, according to Canagarajah (2007), that we should be teaching communication strategies – how to paraphrase, ask for clarification, use gestures, and build intercultural awareness. I believe our focus as educators should be on creating a safe environment where students can practice English without fear of making a mistake.

 

References:

Canagarajah, S. (2007). Lingua Franca English, multilingual communities, and language acquisition. The Modern Language Journal, 91(s1), 921-937.

Graddol, D. (1999). The decline of the native speaker. AILA Review, 13, 57–68.

House, J. (2003). English as a lingua franca: A threat to multilingualism? Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7(4), 556–578.

Jenkins, J. (2000). The phonology of English as an international language. Oxford University Press.

Kachru, B. B. (1992). Models for non-native Englishes. In B. B. Kachru (Ed.), The other tongue: English across cultures (2nd ed., pp. 48-74). University of Illinois Press.

Mollin, S. (2006). English as a Lingua Franca: A New Variety in the New Expanding Circle? Nordic Journal of English Studies, 5(2), 41-57.

Selinker, L. (1972). Interlanguage. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 10(1-4), 209–232.

AI tools (DeepSeek) were used for checking grammar, punctuation and the APA layout; all content was researched and composed by the author