Languages Without Borders: TESOL in a Transient World

Authors

  • Shondel Nero

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v29i2.1106

Abstract

In today’s transient world, where a continual multidirectional flow of people, goods, and services has deterritorialized languages and their users, languages, especially English, are now without borders. In this context, English language teaching (ELT) as a profession is called to a new task. In this article, I examine this task by asking the fundamental question: What does/should English-language teaching and learning look like in a world of languages without borders? I discuss the changing faces of English within and beyond the field of TESOL. I argue that the spread and natural evolution of English itself, combined with the transience in the population of English-language users, have forced a reexamination of the goals of English-language learning and teaching as well as a reconceptualization of the English language itself along with sacredly held paradigms in ELT.

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Published

2012-08-23

How to Cite

Nero, S. (2012). Languages Without Borders: TESOL in a Transient World. TESL Canada Journal, 29(2), 143. https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v29i2.1106

Issue

Section

Perspectives