I love the new year and Globish, the new world language.

I love the new year.

New is the operative word here: new year! new beginning! new ideas!

This week new students will register for new classes. Then new students with new notebooks, new plans and new expectations will eagerly start working to better speak, read, write, understand a new language. English.

All right, English isn’t new.

But as the most desirable language in the world it’s constantly taking on new forms. And as a lifelong (non-new) English teacher I have to read and listen daily to keep up with its newness.

What about all you English teachers out there???

Not so sure, eh?

All right….English teachers of the world…

If you want a new perspective and new reasons for teaching English as a second language or even a first language:

Read Globish: How the English Language became the World’s Language by Robert McCrum

Globish author McCrum explains the new global phenomenon that we native English speakers take for granted…

“the English speaking world has now become a universal expression of global consciousness, an extraordinary weave of law, literature, advertising, film, gossip,sport, politics and tourism. “

Want to use this new perspective in the classroom?

1. Write the above explanation on the board and discuss each aspect listed.
2. Ask students to provide specific proof from daily experience that this explanation is valid.
   a. Bring in non-English articles that use English.
   b. Look at non-English speaking t.v. commercials.
3. Compare the Globish idea to students own ideas about why they want to learn better English.
   a. Ask students on the first day of class this new year to tell you and then write about: Why I want to learn better English? I guarantee their answers will reflect the book’s explanation of this 21st century world phenomenon: Globish (Globe+English) will enfranchise millions who lack the benefits of a formal education into a global economy (Student answer: English will allow me to make more money, get a better job) and provide a means of communication that will… leave local languages unscathed (Student answer: English will allow me to understand and be understood better by native English speakers while keeping my native language)
   b. After discussing why students want to learn English, ask students to discuss and write about: How learning better English can help me in the future. Give specific examples.Globish is less a language, according to McCrum, and more a means to an end. What ends can it be a means to?
4. Here’s what Walt Whitman said about our dynamic native language 100+ years ago”It is the powerful language of resistance; it is the dialect of common sense.It is the speech of the proud and melancholy races and of all who aspire;it has its basis broad and low, close to the ground.”

Globish for the new year!