The technologization of discourse and authenticity in English language teaching

Enterprise culture puts pressure on individuals to demonstrate their entrepreneurial selves by drawing connections between their identities both inside and outside the workplace to consistently display a high degree of agency, initiative and purpose. This means that school‐based ELT can and should play a greater role in preparing students for the workplace by sensitizing them to the properties of discourse in enterprise culture. To do this, ELT needs to appreciate that such discourse is both increasingly technologized and reliant on the notion of self‐based authenticity. This paper explains how self‐based authenticity is related to, yet distinct from, the text‐based and task‐based authenticities that usually concern ELT, and suggests that a performance‐oriented perspective can help learners come to terms with the demands of technologized discourse.