The Spread of English as a World Lingua Franca and Economic Impact
As the second half of the twentieth century unfolded, and as the United States succeeded the United Kingdom as the English-speaking military and economic global power, the teaching and learning of English as a second language developed into a true industry itself. One key reason for this development is that technological and economic success continued to be linked to knowledge of English. Proficiency in English remained the gateway to acquiring expertise in science and technology in higher education and consequently to both personal and national economic advancement.
In the aftermath of World War II, the United States was the leader in science, technology, and industrial capacity. As other countries rebuilt from the devastation of the war, globalization began with the economic dominance of the United States and its leading research universities and industries, in addition to higher education in English-speaking
IEPs and Second Language Teaching Research 3 democracies that include the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Access to education and professional training provides economic benefits to students, but these benefits could only be accessed through English-medium education. Thus, the range and influence of English as a lingua franca has continued to expand (Graddol, 1997; Melitz, 2016). For example, it was estimated in 1997 that over 750 million people world-wide are learning English as a foreign language, which was nearly twice the number of ‘native’ speakers of English (Graddol, 1997, p. 10).2 For this reason, as a gateway to the benefits of higher education, learning English is a core component to the programs of many universities that seek to recruit students.
However, it is not only international students who benefit from university education overseas; the institutions where they study also benefit. For institutions in English-speaking countries, the motivation to recruit international students is both economic and cultural. One primary reason is that universities around the world increasingly need the funds that international students bring in the form of tuition dollars and services paid for; in addition, international students provide cultural diversity on campus that enriches the educational experience of the locally resident students. Because of these long-term benefits, universities provide English language training both before and during degree programs to help students succeed as well as to attract highly qualified students whose English might otherwise not be quite proficient enough for university coursework.
An added benefit is that the economic life of the towns and cities around campus benefit greatly from this educational activity. For example, the money spent on housing, food, and services had a total impact on the US economy estimated to be worth over $42 billion in 2017 (www. iie.org/Research-and-Insights/Open-Doors/Data/Economic-Impact-of-International-Students). After graduation, international students add to the talent pool in the workforce. These factors make local and national governments view international students favorably.
This context, then, is the one in which the research in this book is situated: economic goals of international students lead them to learn English to access higher education; higher education institutions need their dollars to support their academic and cultural diversity goals in an increasingly globalized economy. All of this activity is occurring in a wider context of globalization - a trend that brings both benefits and challenges.
The role of an intensive English program is to provide a bridge for students to cross from their educational system into the world of English-medium education. Acting as a bridge - a means rather than an end goal -can be a challenge for teachers and administrators in IEPs (dePetro Orlando, 2016; Hoekje & Stevens, 2017). For some students, the IEP and standardized tests, such as the Internet-Based Test of English as a Foreign
Language (TOEFL) (iBT) and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), constitute barriers instead of a pathway to success in coursework. The IEP can be perceived as a block to students’ access to their ultimate goals of enrollment in a degree program and successful completion of that program. From the point of view of the university, the IEP can be seen as a unit that is not part of their central mission of delivering degree programs and research output funded by government and industry (Algren, 2016). Often, English language learning and teaching are seen as simply a ‘support’ enterprise, such as a computer support or some other ‘ancillary’ unit. As a result, the domain expertise that applied linguists bring to the IEP can sometimes be ignored or discounted by academic units that are ignorant about the knowledge base ESL professionals have of linguistics, language development patterns, and instructional methodology.
The hope is that this book can serve as a source of reference and documentation of how learners can improve their English in lEPs. Examples of student output are intended to allow administrators and teachers to compare what is happening in their programs with the data in this book and online at https://github.com/ELI-Data-Mining-Group/Pitt-ELI-Corpus. The more data administrators of programs can present to sponsors and learners regarding the effectiveness of their programs, the better equipped they will be to convince students and higher administrators of the importance of the education that lEPs provide and of the scientific basis of our discipline.
