The increasing number of non-native English speakers in the world has led to the use of varieties of English. Nowadays, the number of speakers of English in the expanding circle has exceeded the number of speakers in the outer and inner circles. This has given rise to the scrutiny of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). With this regard, the research on World Englishes (WEs) has increased over the last few decades. In light of these observations, the purpose of this chapter is to raise awareness of World Englishes (WEs) among preparatory students at private universities in Turkey. Specifically, the study is concerned with mentoring preparatory students through Wes-integrated courses. The participants of this study were 20 preparatory students at A2-level English proficiency. As data collection procedure, the mentor teacher of the existing program adapted EFL materials including videos, dialogues, and integrated four language skills. The data were collected through questionnaires and reflective essays. With regard to the results, the students had an idea about the concept of Wes, and they became aware of the varieties of English to some extent; specifically, they displayed consciousness about the status of English across the world and sympathy toward WEs.
TopBackground
English has become the most extensively taught language in the world over the past century. It also has become the most widely used language of communication in a diversity of contexts such as science, business, politics and education (Celce-Murcia, 2014). With this widespread use of English in mind McKay (2002); thus, calls English as an international language. Crystal (2003) similarly calls it ‘global language’. In addition to this status of English, it also is getting acknowledged as today’s lingua franca, as is observed in communication between non-native users of two different L1 speakers. Therefore, English as a lingua franca (ELF) represents the use of English as a means of communication among the speakers of different first languages.
In ELF context it is accepted that English is not only the language of inner circle countries, namely The UK, The USA, Australia etc. (Kirkpatrick, 2008) but also the language of outer and expanding circle countries. Kachru (1985) explains the spread of English through three concentric circles: Inner Circle includes the countries where English is used as mother tongue; outer circle represents countries that use English as a second language (ESL), namely Singapore, Nigeria, India etc.; and expanding circle embodies the rest of the world where English is spoken as a foreign language (EFL). This has been adopted as a common frame used in World Englishes studies.
World Englishes (WEs) is a term used to represent indigenized varieties of English across the world. The conceptualization of WEs dates back to the discussions which took place in the 1960s by Kachru and 1970s by Smith. The extended discussion of WEs started in 1978 when the foundations of International Association for World Englishes (IAWE) were first laid. The concept of WEs stresses that there is no such dichotomy as the native and non-native speakers, which is found questionable and impertinent with regard to the functions of English in multilingual communities (Kachru, 1985).
Given the exponential growth in the number of attempts to develop consciousness about WEs, mentoring preservice students about the concept of WEs has become inevitable in English language teacher education. Mentoring could be an effective tool to develop awareness since it provides opportunities for both mentors and mentees to engage in a purposeful discourse and reflective thinking (Crowther & Cannon, 1998; Healy, L., Enrich, L. C., Hansford, B. & Stewart, D., 2001). Shaw (1992) defines mentors as experienced teachers who are able to support less experienced inservice or preservice teachers through professional discourse, supervision and guidance. Brooks and Sikes (1997) further discusses that mentors are to be knowledgeable teachers because they are supposed to provide student teachers with the surrounding key terms and concepts of English language teaching.
With regard to the functions of mentoring Malderez (2009) underlines that mentoring bridges theory with practice by orienting teachers to classroom environment. To achieve a functioning mentoring, Schmidt (2008) highlights the significant role pedagogical knowledge about feedback and being a model to mentees. Hudson (2007) in this regard justifies the five related factors for an effective mentoring, which are personal traits, system requisites, pedagogical knowledge, modelling and feedback, which correspond to teacher knowledge, competencies, interpersonal skills and professional development.