5 Who are the best teachers and what is the best teaching material.
Consequences for ELT in the expanding circle.11.
5. Conclusion.12.
1. Introduction.
The following term paper will deal with one of the most important debates in applied linguistics: the controversy between Randolph Quirk and Braj B. Kachru. Due to the rapid global spread of English, it is one of the liveliest debates and also of particular relevance for language education. Therefore, I will not only give an insight to the controversy but also try to investigate its relevance for English language teaching (ELT) not only in, to use Kachru's model, the outer circle but also in the expanding circle. .
2. About the Two Scholars.
In order to provide a better understanding of the debate, I would like to provide a brief overview of the two biographies as well as Kachru's famous model of the three concentric circles of the English language. Quirk has developed a taxonomy of varieties of the English language which will be explained in more detail in a later section.
2.1 Randolph Quirk.
Randolph Quirk was born in 1920 and is a well-known British linguist. His scholarly activities cover a wide range of studies, like the teaching of the English language, English as an international language as well as research and publications on modern English syntax. He founded the Survey of English Usage in 1959, a project which samples written and spoken British English produced between 1955 and 1985. The project is the foundation of A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, a widely used reference grammar using a descriptive approach, (CV Quirk, online).
2.2 Braj B. Kachru.
Braj Kachru, born in 1932 in Kashmir, is an Indian Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Illinois, who initiated, shaped and defined the field of World English's which describes the spread of English all across the globe. He also developed the idea of the three circles of the English language.