It’ll come as no surprise to many practising teachers, but insisting on “standard” English is probably doing learners more harm than good. While traditional ELT has often upheld native-speaker norms as the benchmark of success, emerging perspectives argue that this orientation can undermine learners’ psychological well-being & communicative confidence.
Budiman & Liu’s (2025) recent article in Frontiers in Psychology doesn’t present a new experiment, but it does something equally valuable: it builds a conceptual framework showing how Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT) impacts learner psychology.
How they approached it
Instead of running surveys or experiments, the authors synthesised existing research in SLA, sociolinguistics & educational psychology, making this something akin to a meta-analysis. They mapped GELT principles (valuing diversity, intelligibility over correctness, validating learner identities) onto three central psychological variables in language learning:
- Creativity
- Language anxiety
- Willingness to communicate (WTC)
What they found
- Creativity as central, not optional: Traditional ELT often sidelines creativity, pushing learners toward rule-following & error-avoidance. GELT flips this, treating English as flexible & adaptive. Research shows learners are more willing to play with language—mixing idioms, drawing on L1 resources, or creating novel expressions—when correctness isn’t policed. Creativity here isn’t an “extra” but a catalyst for confidence & motivation.
- Language anxiety reframed: Anxiety has long been seen as a blocker in SLA (why not take Horwitz’s FLCAS test to assess your own L2 anxiety levels?). However, the authors argue anxiety isn’t just personal—it’s socially constructed. Classrooms that elevate “native-like” norms trigger it; classrooms that normalise variation reduce it. Learners exposed to diverse Englishes report less fear of judgement & more emotional resilience. GELT doesn’t just lower anxiety, it redefines it as part of a growth process.
- Willingness to communicate as teachable: WTC has been treated as an individual trait, but GELT reframes it as environmentally shaped. Learners are more willing to speak when they feel legitimate as English users. Studies show Japanese learners, for instance, speak more freely with other L2 speakers than with native anglophones—because the interaction feels equal (a result I’m sure will be of interest to many NNESTs). GELT classrooms replicate this equality, making WTC something teachers can actively foster.
The bigger context
This framework connects to shifts in applied linguistics:
- Rose & Galloway (2019) on dismantling native-speakerism
- Dewaele & MacIntyre (2016) on the role of enjoyment vs anxiety
- ELF & translanguaging research showing learners thrive when allowed to draw on multilingual repertoires
Together, these strands point to the same conclusion: psychological safety & ownership matter as much as accuracy.
Teacher Takeaways?
- Use recordings from different Englishes (Nigerian, Singaporean, Spanish-English) to show variation is normal, not deficient.
- Give learners “creative licence” in tasks: invent new words, remix idioms, borrow from L1.
- Treat errors as communicative strategies—focus on clarity of meaning first, polish later.
This isn’t to say grammar & form don’t matter—they do, especially for academic or professional settings. But Budiman & Liu’s framework reminds us: without creativity, low anxiety & a willingness to speak, accuracy won’t get far.
So here’s the challenge: Are we preparing learners to reproduce a polished version of English, or to thrive as confident, creative English users in a multilingual world?
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