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Thursday 29 October 2009

Encore of the LF Core - or Cor Blimey?!

Jenkins' 'ELF Core' has become very well known in the field of study, so it was important that we spent time looking in detail at her ideas. Mostly, I think there was agreement that although Jenkins does make some valid points about being aware of the negative impacts and effects of native speaker linguistic/pragmatic superiority, we also seemed to agree that perhaps Jenkins was taking matters too far the other way, and almost calling for closure on NS English(es).

Note especially how the ELF Core notion has attracted heavy criticism in the literature - not least in Rubdy and Saraceni's introduction to their book 'English in the World'. See also Luke Prodroumu's chapter in the same book, where he really takes Jenkins to task.

Only Kirkpatrick (same book) and Seidlhofer appear to be in support of Jenkins.

Seidlhofer is interesting too in that she is concerned with extending Jenkins' ideas to syntax and lexis.

These are absolutely prime topics for an assignment.

Yours comments are welcome!

1 comment:

  1. I do think that Jenkins raises some interesting issues. There is something to the whole Core idea.

    I can see real value to focusing on the LF Core in certain contexts such as adult education for travellers or a corporate class that needs to help its students gain conversational competency quickly.

    In both of these contexts it could be argued that the students needs would best be met by focusing on the issues that most impede communication, rather than spending time drilling pronunciation and grammar points that aren't crucial for them.

    It's like the weakest link theory... focus on what the students need to learn most. Expand upon that as time and motivation allow.

    As we saw in the readings, and in our class discussion, there is no black or white answer. I suggest that rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater, we should see where the LF Core may be an advantage to our students. Likewise, most of our students would not currently be well served by adopting the LF Core without reservation.

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