For decades, Global Englishes (GE) have sat in an awkward corner of ELT: widely acknowledged, quietly tolerated, yet often treated as second-class compared with “proper” British or American norms. Despite millions of competent users shaping English daily, classroom models have tended to privilege a narrow slice of the language. In fact, estimates suggest that roughly 80% of English interactions worldwide happen between non-native speakers -a reminder that the so-called “standard” models represent only a small slice of how English is actually used.
A new open-access study by Yusop Boonsuk & Fan Fang, published in Humanities & Social Sciences Communications (Nature), asks what happens when we stop treating these diverse Englishes as deviations & start treating them as the norm.
The study
The researchers worked with 14 university students (seven in China, seven in Thailand) enrolled in GE-informed elective courses. Over a semester, students took part in two rounds of semi-structured interviews, kept reflective journals, & joined a cross-national focus group. Classroom tasks included multilingual debates, video analysis of diverse Englishes, tourist interviews, & seminar-style discussions. Data [1]were analysed through hybrid deductive–inductive coding, with intercoder reliability at 86%.
The findings
Students’ perceptions shifted in three notable ways:
- From “correct English” to plural Englishes. Learners moved from viewing English as a fixed, native-speaker-owned system to seeing it as pluricentric & user-driven.
- Greater ownership & confidence. Experiential tasks helped students question native-speakerism, recognise the legitimacy of local varieties, & feel more comfortable using their own accents.
- A stubborn tension with assessment. Despite ideological shifts, students still faced exam systems privileging British & American norms, creating a mismatch between classroom practice & institutional expectations.
This brings to mind an image of a Thai engineer presenting in English using local pronunciation, a Chinese colleague contributing with China English phrasing, & a Spanish project manager translanguaging strategically when needed. No one adjusts toward British or American norms, yet communication is effective & everyone’s English is treated as legitimate.
Teacher takeaways?
- Expose learners to diverse Englishes. Short clips of international speakers, multilingual interviews, or accent comparison tasks can help normalise variation.
- Shift the goalposts. Frame success around clarity, adaptability & intercultural awareness rather than “sounding native”.
- Make space for local identities. Invite learners to bring their linguistic & cultural resources into English tasks; translanguaging is a communicative strategy, not a deficiency.
Why this matters
The study reinforces a growing body of work arguing that ELT must reflect the sociolinguistic reality of English today: fluid, diverse & shaped by its users. It also highlights a structural challenge -aligning assessment with pedagogy so learners aren’t asked to believe one thing in class & perform another in exams.
How do you approach English diversity & ownership in your classroom?
[1] Talking of singular vs plural- I still shudder when I treat ‘data’ as singular, but usage is shifting & I feel I ought to move with the times.
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