EIL, ESL, EFL: Global Issues and Local Interests

This paper by Henry G. Widdowson was originally presented at a conference in Senegal in December 1995. The author submitted it to WE for consideration for publication with a note saying that ‘I wanted to raise a number of questions for discussion, so the paper is provocative. ... You might indeed want to consider it as a possible contribution to World Englishes , where it might provoke some of the reaction it was originally designed to do’ (January 29, 1996). We believe that this would be an appropriate paper for initiating this new section in WE entitled the Forum. We hope that the readers of WE will find this contribution as provocative as does the author, and that some will share their reactions with us for publication in future issues of WE . The perspective presented in the paper is important since Widdowson is one of the most articulate and knowledgeable members of the profession. The points he makes in this paper have earlier been articulated within various theoretical conceptualizations, with persuasive empirical data from West Africa, Southern Africa, and from South and Southeast Asia. Almost five decades ago, India’s Raja Rao (1938) provides a credo for his creativity which has become almost classic and has extensively been quoted by Asian, African, and Western scholars interested in creativity in English. And now in the 1990s, the voice from a guru of the ELT profession is particularly significant. This voice is indeed a mild indicator of a slow but sure increase in the degree of awareness of the paradigm shift among the professional leadership. Professor Widdowson represents the profession as an educator, as a prolific researcher and as an academic administrator. He is active in two professional organizations of the Inner Circle which are extremely influential: The International Association for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) and the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Editors,