ESL in the 21st Century

Authors

David Eskey

Publication Date

1989-01-01

Abstract

The author makes two predictions for the teaching of English in the next century which have implications for ESL in Thailand. (1) The spread of English as a world language will continue unabated, and by the year 2000 the number of speakers with some functional command of the language will run into the billions. At the same time, the current belief in teaching a native-speaker variety of English (usually British or American) will gradually be replaced by a belief in teaching the local variety of the language for communicative (not imitative) purposes. (2) The current movement toward more communicative methods of teaching English will continue to develop at the expense of more traditional approaches. Thus ESL professionals in Thailand, as elsewhere, must become increasingly proficient in these methods to insure that their students will be as well prepared to communicate with other speakers of the language as those of the many other countries in which ESL is taught.

DOI

10.58837/CHULA.PASAA.19.2.1

First Page

8

Last Page

12

Recommended Citation

Eskey, David (1989) "ESL in the 21st Century," PASAA: Vol. 19: Iss. 2, Article 2.
DOI: 10.58837/CHULA.PASAA.19.2.1
Available at: https://digital.car.chula.ac.th/pasaa/vol19/iss2/2