In speaking about teacher and learner roles, researchers point out that in most societies, the social roles of teacher and learner are accorded high and low status respectively. In the classroom, the teacher’s status and prestige is particularly high. It is only natural that she should be looked up to by the learners and held up as a role model. The English language teacher’s English is likely to be imitated. It gets imprinted on the learner’s memory: we all remember our teachers’ turns of speech and pet phrases. If the teacher is a native speaker of English, her status is still further enhanced. She is regarded as an absolute arbiter of style and usage. A conscientious teacher is always aware of this burden of responsibility.

However, many native speaker EFL teachers working abroad begin to notice after a while that their own English is deteriorating. This problem, as encountered by native speaker teachers, has recently been discussed by the global ELT community on the TESL-L list as long as I’ve been a member.

One of the teachers wrote that she had observed in herself and others “a certain kind of “fossilization” of our own L1... terms of expression in L1 seem not to have merely rusted, but completely shrivelled and disappeared...” (Susan Torres-Young, 26.05.1997).

Her concern about her mother tongue deterioration appeared to be shared by many other native speaker teachers, who experience a lack of exposure to their native language.

For instance, Jeff Allen  (27.05.1997) wrote in response to this:
“I refer to this as L1 attrition. It occurs most frequently in contexts where a person has been removed from the L1 community and is fully integrated into an L2 community.  I even hesitate to call it an L2 at that point because the second language can partially or even fully replace the «mother-tongue» in some or all daily situations.”

Jeff Allen further divides up one’s lexicon into a number of sociolinguistic domains such as
1)    language used to acquire further education and training,
2)    language at work with boss,
3)    language used at work with colleagues,
4)    language used with students,
5)    language used with one’s friends,
6)    language used with spouse’s friends,
7)    language used with spouse’s colleagues,
8)    language used with childrens’ teachers,
9)    language used with childrens’ friends, etc.

It is significant that language used with students is contrasted to other domains.

The same contributor went on to supply more of his own personal experiences (29.05.1997):
 

One of my first memorable experiences of language attrition occurred during the first year was teaching English in France. The students and I were discussing something about motor vehicles and I drew a car on the board. Then all of the sudden a student asked how to say «pot d’echappement» in English.  I was at a loss of words. I couldn’t think of it. It came back to me within a few minutes (the word «muffler»), but the discussion had already moved on to other subtopics and I felt like a fool.  The occurrences became more frequent as the years passed, especially since I was pursuing graduate studies in linguistics in French, spent all of my time with French people since I had married into a French family that did not speak English, listened constantly to the radio/TV in French, etc.
 

I not only continue to struggle with the attrition of uncommon words in my English lexicon, but I have seen the common words slowly transition to a passive state in English that is my so-called mother tongue. It is amazing how often I can’t even remember the English words «mop» or «towel» because I’ve been hearing them and saying them in French for 8 years on a daily basis. Household vocabulary is moving from English to French […] As for my wife, she is simultaneously losing words in her French lexicon for certain domains that concern her work. She will sometimes forget a word, try to think of it, say the English word or term, and then I will give her the French equivalent so she can continue speaking. Remember that she and I speak in French all of the time, so the syntax and fluency of her French is not affected. The loss occurs at the level of the lexicon.

Another aspect of this problem was touched upon by Una Cunningham-Andersson (13.07.1996), an EFL teacher who has long been a resident of Sweden. She hasn’t lived in an English-speaking country since 1983.
 

Some time ago someone mentioned in passing that those of us native speakers of English who have been living in non-English speaking countries for many years may be preserving out of date language and passing it on to our students. This is something I worry a lot about. I haven’t *lived* in an English-speaking country since 1983! Also, I feel that after many years of speaking English with non-native speakers and at the same time living my daily life through another language (Swedish in my case) my native-speaker intuitions regarding English may have been damaged by interference both directly from Swedish and from Swedish-speakers’ English. This means that I may not only accept but also produce English which is not quite native. While I don’t think I actually teach these forms, I hate to see what is happening to my language.

Still another aspect is the degree of EL modification that the teacher should afford in class. Says Suzanne Lee of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock: “I find myself modifying my English in order to accommodate the English that they [i.e. the students] know. In a classroom setting, how much should an instructor modify their language in order for the class to understand them?  Does modifying the language enhance their learning in the end or does it hinder it by not allowing them to hear English as it would be spoken «on the street»? [Suzanne Lee, 02.12.1996]

At a later point, Una posted a summary of the replies [02.08.1997]. Her query received 25 helpful replies from native English teachers all over the world. All of those who replied recognised the problem. Several people recommended listening to radio broadcasts in English and reading books and magazines; one had relatives send clippings from newspapers and magazines with examples of current slang and idiom.

It is significant that one of the respondents felt his English might actually have improved while abroad since teaching and translation work focus attention on the language.

An American in Turkey took this still further: felt that lack of contact with native speakers in combination with teaching English had produced a hyper-correct form of English (with, for example, overly clear enunciation).

Several replies pointed out the value of British and American television shows for gleaning current usage.

Others suggested trying to find newcomers to the country one works in, those who are still uninfluenced by njn-native speakers.

A number of respondents stressed the growing importance of international English: neither British nor American, but European. They feel that this will be the English of the future, and that the current advantages attached to being a native speaker of English will disappear. Certainly in the Internet community English is the language of international communication for people from many countries.

One American who has been living in France for the past 25 years reports that he tries to think as if he were at home; for example, when he answers the phone he says what he would have said if he had never left home. He also advises answering anybody who speaks English to you in English, making no allowance for their difficulties.

To sum up, native speaker EFL teachers recommend:
1.   listening to the radio, watching television, and reading newspapers;
2.   keeping a vocabulary book to learn neologisms and forgotten metaphors;
3.   reading English books aloud to your children;
4.   doing crosswords;
5.   reading recent novels.

However, some of the teachers questioned the seriousness of the issue. Doug Jones suggests that the problem should be regarded as environmentally induced behaviour rather than language fossilization or loss [26.05.1997].

It seems that environmentally induced (or, rather, socially induced) behaviour can ultimately result in language attrition, although not necessarily so. Socially induced verbal behaviour can be considered in the framework of accommodation (or assimilation) theory. When we talk to other people, we sometimes discard our own speech habits during conversation so as to assimilate them to the speech habits of the hearer and facilitate the achievement of a communicative goal. Assimilation becomes even more salient when we deal with talking to non-native speakers, particularly foreigners. We begin to speak slower, we articulate more clearly, we frequently prefer relatively simple structures and vocabulary, we tend to repeat words and parts of the sentences. Anyone who has an experience of teaching their L1 to speakers of other languages is probably aware of that. In fact, this is exactly what some of the native speaker teachers were writing about.

Therefore, the classroom English of the EFL teacher may well be regarded as rather a clear-cut variety of socially induced verbal behaviour. Where this verbal behaviour is practiced in L2 environments, it can to a certain extent affect the teacher’s own speech habits and ultimately their general communicative competence.

As far as non-native speaker EFL teachers are concerned, some of the problems they face are similar to those described above while others are clearly different. We often hear our colleagues say, or say so ourselves: “My English used to be quite fluent when I graduated (or: when I returned from a refresher course in the US or in the UK); but now it’s deteriorated.” The ELT teachers I spoke to point out four major factors that account for their English language attrition:
1)    I mostly teach beginners; we start from scratch each year;
2)    I teach in a school where the standards are not very high;
3)    I teach ESP, and the syllabus lacks a communicative focus; all we are supposed to do is translate ESP texts from English into Russian
4)    I suffer from lack of exposure to real English.

Behind these complaints, there is the same kind of communicative accommodation: the teachers use primitive vocabulary and simple grammar, or, what is worse, they often speak Russian in an English class, particularly when the students are reluctant to respond in English.
Besides, our position is aggravated by the fact we, in contrast to native speaker teachers, tend to lose not only vocabulary, but also fluency. It’s only natural that we refuse to put up with it.

 Our colleagues have shared their own experiences of keeping up their standard of language proficiency.

Some people pointed out that a valuable resource is e-mail. They arrange partner classrooms, monitor email dialogue, and launch international projects. Using Internet resources and encouraging the students to find, and make use of, relevant sites is also becoming a general practice. Other resources recommended include:
1.   Email postings (a useful resource for practicing fluent writing);
2.   Regularly going through revised international examination materials;
3.   Overcoming one’s shyness in talking to native speakers and to large audiences;
4.   Doing and, where possible, teaching translation from Russian into English;
5.   Teaching at least one class of the most advanced students when one has the choice;
6.   Keeping records in one’s organizer in English;
7.   Watching British and American videos at home and in class;
8.   Teaching various courses rather than the same course year in, year out, although they might be outside the scope of one’s immediate interests.

On the whole, non-native speaker teachers seem to establish a closer link between their methods of fighting EL attrition and their classroom practices than do native speaker teachers. The latter seem to rely more heavily on personal practices and experiences.

However, as one of the participants of the TESL-L said, being aware of the problem is half the battle.

Home