More than thirty years have passed since Larry Smith proposed his ‘ETL’ (English as an International Language) paradigm, and during those years newer paradigms from various view points have been presented with regard to English as a global phenomenon. This paper examines some of those literature published after the assertion of EIL by Smith, including partially Smith’s, and consider the implication for English language education in Japan. First, we survey Kachru’s ‘Three Concentric Circles’ and his paradigm of ‘WE’ (World Englishes) in relation to Smith’s EIL. Second, we outline the paradigm of ‘ELF’ (English as a Lingua Franca) proposed by Jenkins and Seidlhofer comparing with EIL. Third, we give an overview of Birch’s paradigm of ‘AE’ (Academic English), especially paying attention to her taking notice of the variation of the registers from formal to informal on the World Englishes spectrum. Lastly, taking into account of all the things stated so far, we propose that Academic English as a lingua franca might be an acceptable candidate for the model of English classroom in the Japanese context, meaning that it would be more practical and efficient in the achievement of goal in terms of methodology and time to put more emphasis on reading and writing formal English than listening to and speaking informal colloquial English.
Ihara Takumi (Tue,) studied this question.