ABSTRACT
This paper attempts to set out the issues and theoretical complexities that surround the subject of the teaching of English today, with special reference to the debates within Hong Kong. The question of Standard English and the teaching of English both within the so-called native-speaker countries and globally has given rise to massive debate. Integrationists, unusually, seem to fi nd themselves in accord with the critical edge of this literature, which is suspicious of the reifi cation of language within linguistics, and of a pedagogy based on a concept of decontextualized rules. However, integrationism is also a ‘lay-oriented’ inquiry, committed in some sense to the lived reality of language users as ‘language makers’. As I understand this position, it involves a rejection of the tripartite distinction generally made in linguistics between (i) the language system as an abstract set of communicative rules, (ii) the use of the system for communication through voluntary acts of individuals in particular contexts, and (iii) opinions, understandings, conceptualizations of language associated with all kinds of language users, both lay and expert. This opens up a series of methodological and political dilemmas, which are illustrated in this paper from my experiences as a teacher in Hong Kong.
