Reimagining Language Competence: On professionalism

Ahmar Mahboob, University of Sydney

In its journey to become a global lingua franca, the English language has evolved and
adapted to the needs and purposes of its users around the world. This has led to numerous
variations in the language. While people are generally aware of these variations, it has not
necessarily impacted definitions of language competence as used in ELT (and other
educational contexts). It is therefore important for us to consider language variation as we
reimagine language competence. Such a reimagining will have numerous professional
implications in our work, e.g. in the context of teachers’ professional development, testing
and assessment, and curriculum and material development. We will explore some of these
implications in this paper. However, before doing so, let us look at some ways in which we
can reimagine language competence.

Reimagining Language Competence

With the use of English as a global language, the old models of language that drew only on
‘native speakers’ have become anachronistic. The English language is now spoken by more
people as part of their multilingual linguistic repertoire than as their only language (or as
their mother tongue). This implies that an understanding of English language competence
has to be grounded in an understanding of how the language varies across contexts as
opposed to staying restricted to native speaker models.

Three-Dimensional (3D) Framework of Language Variation

Drawing on work by Michael Halliday and colleagues, we can identify three broad
dimensions that need to be considered in how the English language varies around the
world: users, uses, mode. The ‘user’ dimension helps us explore how people vary their
language based on whether they are interacting with people who are relatively close to
them in terms of social distance (e.g. family members, old classmates, etc.) or are relatively
distant (e.g. strangers, co-professional, etc.)(see Wolfram, 2015, for some examples of how
to draw on these user/dialectal variations in TESOL). The ‘use’ dimension helps us
differentiate between the language used for everyday purposes and that used for
specialised and technicalised purposes (see Lin 2016 for a discussion of Cummin’s 1991
distinction between BICS/CALP in relation to the 3D framework). And, the ‘mode’ dimension
helps us understand differences in oral-like, written-like, and multimodal discourses (see
Derewianka, 2015, for the importance of this dimension for TESOL). Each of these three
variables provides us with useful ways of explaining language variation; however, language

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doesn’t simply vary based on any single dimension, but rather varies along all three
dimensions simultaneously. Figure 1 below provides a visual representation of this three-
dimensional framework of language variation (Mahboob, 2017):

Figure 1: 3D framework of language variation (Source: Mahboob, 2017)

This framework helps us identify eight broad domains of language variation. These, along
with some examples of types of language we would find in each domain, are provided in
Table 1 below. It needs to be noted that there may be significant linguistic variations within
each domain based on the specifics of who is using it, where, with whom, in which mode,
and for what purpose.

Domains Examples
1 Local, oral, Family members sharing stories about their day (note that
everyday English does not need to be a mother tongue of the
interlocutors and that people may translanguage in these
contexts)
2 Local, written, Old school friends exchanging social messages on an instant
everyday messenger; some locally produced textbooks
3 Local, oral, Members of an Indigenous community talking about the local
specialized weather system; some conference presentations at a local
conference
4 Local, written, Newsletter produced by and for a rural community of
specialized farmers in a rural setting; some journals published by and for
a local (academic/specialist) community
5 Global, oral, Casual conversations amongst people from different parts of
everyday the world

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 6 Global, written, International news agencies reporting on events; most
everyday English language textbooks produced for a global readership
7 Global, oral, Most international conference presentations
specialized
8 Global, written, Most academic papers published in international
specialized (disciplinary) journals
Table 1: Eight domains of language variation based on the 3D Framework

There are a few key observations to be made about how this framework relates to ELT and
educational issues:
- The language that students bring to school from their home is that of domains 1
(and, perhaps, 2) and does not necessarily share ways of meaning with that of the
language of school (which is typically domains 5 and 6).
- If teachers are aware of and attuned to the differences between the language of
domains 1 & 2 and 5 & 6 (see, for example, Martin & Mathhiesen, 2015; Derewianka,
2015), they can teach these to their students.
- If teachers (or the curriculum) do not consider these differences in their teaching,
then only some students are be able to understand and learn appropriate ways of
using the language of domains 5 & 6 (and even fewer the language of domains 7 &
8).
- No one is a ‘native’ or ‘mother-tongue’ speaker of domains 7 & 8. The language of
domains 7 & 8 evolves as people come together to focus on a particular
specialised/technicalised issues; the backgrounds of the people who come together
is not important here, but rather the focus is on what needs to be done through
language.

The 3D framework can help us both explain and predict language variation. The framework
does not draw on native or mother-tongue varieties of language as the norm, but rather
acknowledges variations in the use of language, including people’s ability to draw on and
use multiple languages and semiotic systems (cf translanguaging, Garcia & Li Wei, 2013). If
the 3D framework is taken as a way of understanding how language varies across people,
purposes and modalities, then it also suggests that language proficiency/competence is
dynamic and varies for both native and non-native speakers of a language across different
contexts.

Dynamic Approach to Language Proficiency (DALP)

Variations in the English language, as discussed above, pose a challenge to traditional

approaches to measuring language competence/proficiency. Currently, language tests
benchmark performance against a ‘standard’, which is typically based on native speakers.
Given that native or mother-tongue models of language do not represent how people use
the English language around the world today and do not represent a true ‘standard’
language, the use of these models is inappropriate in measuring language proficiency or
competence. One way of addressing this limitation is by drawing on the Dynamic Approach
to Language Proficiency (DALP). DALP posits that being proficient in a language implies that
one has the ability to select, adapt, negotiate and use a range of linguistic resources that are
appropriate in that context and which are not dependent on native speaker norms

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(Mahboob and Dutcher, 2015). DALP encourages us to consider the notion of a ‘resourceful’
learner, i.e., a learner who draws on a range of semiotic resources available in order to
achieve their goals. In doing so, it shows an alignment with our understanding of language
variation and thus may provide a way forward in developing ways to measure (English)
language proficiency.

DALP draws on two core elements: shared linguistic code and shared contextual knowledge
(Figure 2). Shared linguistic code is the user's control of the myriad features of a language.
Shared contextual knowledge is the user’s familiarity with and the ability to successfully
negotiate the setting and purpose(s) of an event. These two elements can be seen as
continua. The two continua intersect to form four ‘Zones of Proficiency’ and an individual’s
Zone of Proficiency can change in a non-linear fashion depending on their knowledge of the
linguistic code and the contextual features of a situation. Furthermore, DALP does not
model an individual’s development of language upon their adherence to an outside (native
speaker) norm, but rather their flexibility in negotiating communication in different
contexts. Placing the basis of proficiency on communicative flexibility rather than solely on
norm-adherence means that multilingualism is valued, as is the ability to negotiate different
contexts within the same linguistic code. This implies that we appreciate the
resourcefulness of a learner in drawing on multiple semiotic tools to achieve their goals.

Figure 2: Dynamic Approach to Language Proficiency

Some Implications of Reimagining Language Competence

Reimagining language competence in a way that moves us away from a static native speaker
or a single standard model of language has implications for a range of professional issues in
ELT and education. Below, we will briefly focus on three of these: teachers’ professional
development, testing and assessment, and curriculum and material development.

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Teachers’ Professional Development

Given the variations found in the English language today, it is essential for teacher
education programs to train teachers to understand the nature of these variations and the
implications of these for their students. Currently, many teacher professional development
programs around the world use traditional (and perhaps generative/transformative)
grammar as the main language/linguistics component in their curriculum. These models do
not explain or predict how language varies in different contexts. As such, drawing on these
models does not sufficiently prepare teachers to help their students in understanding and
using language that is appropriate in different contexts. In many ways, teacher education
programs today are anachronistic: they draw on descriptions of language that are obsolete
and/or inappropriate for ELT. A useful analogy for this would be to imagine training doctors
today based on the scientific beliefs and practices in medicine 200 years ago and/or training
them based on research on reptile biology (instead of human biology). While this may
appear to be an outrageous analogy, it is not an inappropriate one. Traditional grammars
are based (with few changes) on early English grammars written over 200 years ago; and
generative/transformative grammar are/were not designed for ELT purposes. Today, there
are many other grammars of English (e.g. Systemic Functional Grammar, which I draw on in
developing the 3D framework and DALP) that have been developed keeping in mind their
application in educational contexts. These more ‘appliable’ models of language are starting
to gain some influence in research in ELT, but are still largely underutilized in teacher
professional development programs – something that, I argue, needs to change. We need to
integrate grammars of language and models of language variation that are designed for
educational purposes.

Testing and Assessment

Most of the current standardised English language tests use native speaker norms of
language as the benchmark and measure a test-taker’s language proficiency against these.
These tests typically measure the performance of how non-native speakers of English
respond to items based on native speaker norms; and, native speakers are not expected to
or required to take these tests. If, as discussed in the section on DALP earlier, language
proficiency is not dependent on static native speaker models of the language, but on one’s
ability to be resourceful and to select, adapt, negotiate and use a range of linguistic
resources that are appropriate in a particular context, then language tests can and should
give us an indication of how both native and non-native speakers of a language are able to
accommodate for and respond to language variation. Making a similar argument, Johnson
Gerson (2008) argues that we need a new approach for assessing proficiency – one which
accounts for language variation in different contexts. Such an assessment would help
ascertain a test-taker’s ability to adapt their use of language to different situations and their
“responsiveness to assistance or feedback” (ibid) rather than their ability to respond to
items based on static monolingual native speaker models. A reimagined method of
assessment, perhaps based on DALP, would more accurately describe a person’s (both
native and non-native speakers of a language) potential ability to engage in new
communities and situations. Such assessment will provide information on how an individual

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might perform in new contexts and what type of support they may need to help them
overcome any language challenges.

Curriculum and Material Development

In a recently completed project, To and Mahboob (forthcoming) examined linguistic

complexity of four EFL textbooks published by a major international press to explore if and
how science and non-science texts included showed linguistic variation. We expected to find
that science texts were more linguistically complex than non-science texts based on both
the 3D framework and work on genre theory (e.g., Martin & Rose, 2008). The results of this
study, however, did not show any meaningful differences between the two categories of
texts in terms of linguistic complexity. This finding raises concerns that these textbooks do
not sensitise students to how the language of science and non-science texts varies in
authentic texts and thus does not prepare them to draw on these variations in both reading
and writing texts in different specialised/technicalised fields. A failure to do this has a
number of implications. For example, it leads to a common complaint by subject teachers
that English language teachers do not do their jobs properly because students are unable to
read and write texts in subject classes. While one may argue that subject teachers need to
embed disciplinary language teaching within their own classes, subject teachers don’t see
this as their job (Lin, 2016). English language teachers, on the other hand, believe that they
are fulfilling their jobs by teaching the curriculum and the material that they are assigned.
One solution to this problem is to draw on understandings of language variation in designing
curricula and developing ELT material. For example, textbooks can vary the language of
science and non-science texts in ways that represent the field of specialisation and include
activities and resources that help students to develop appropriate understandings of
language as used in different disciplines and genres.

Conclusion and Recommendations

This paper argues that: 1) static, native speaker based models of language competence are
inadequate; and 2) we need to reimagine language competence by drawing on models of
language that can help us explain, predict and teach language variation. It further elaborates
on how such a reimagining of language competence can influence teacher education
programs, testing and assessment, and curriculum and material development. A change in
these areas will impact classroom practices and enable students to become aware of how
language varies in order to achieve different goals in different contexts and how they can
use these understandings in their own lives. It will also allow us to develop approaches to
language testing and assessment that are not based on uninformed native speaker models
of language and that provide us information on the ability of any speaker of English –
whether they are native speakers or non-native speakers of the language – to use their
current linguistic knowledge to be resourceful in selecting, adapting, negotiating and using a
range of linguistic resources to their advantage. To achieve these goals, we need to take a
number of initiatives to introduce the concepts and develop the understanding of language
variation among key stakeholders in the field: such as, administrators, material writers,
policy makers, publishers, teachers, teacher educators and test developers, etc. Some of
these include:

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 - continue research on language and language variation for the purpose of using this
research in educational contexts;
- develop teacher education material that helps teachers understand and use their
understandings of language variation to enable their students;
- develop tests and assessment practices that are not based on static native speaker
norms and that can be used to assess both native and non-native speakers’ ability to
negotiate language variation; and,
- develop curricula and teaching resources that sensitise students to how language
variation works in different contexts.

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