ABSTRACT
Enlightened policy on the teaching of English outside the traditional ‘native speaker’ communities has been considerably influenced by Braj Kachru’s (1986) notion of World Englishes. Kachru should be credited for pluralizing the English language by showing the rule-governed nature of the new varieties that have emerged in postcolonial communities. His well-known three circles model charts the historical spread and functional differences of the language by developing a sensitivity to the expanding circle (where English was beginning to be used as a foreign language – EFL), the outer circle (with its own well-established varieties since colonial times, where English was a second language – ESL) and the inner circle (where ownership of English was claimed and norms originated). Kachru called these communities norm-dependent, norm-developing and normproviding, respectively, to indicate their relative status. Based on this model, teachers have assumed that the language norms and pedagogical models for EFL in the expanding circle come from US or British speech communities, while they have been more tolerant of local norms and practices in ESL teaching in the outer circle.
