INTEGRATING EIL PEDAGOGY IN A PRE-SERVICE TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM

Among the existing pedagogies to teach English, many scholars have claimed that English as International Language (EIL) pedagogy is the most suitable pedagogy to the changing sociolinguistic landscape of English and English users. Despite such strong claims, little is actually known on how EIL pedagogy is experienced by teachers. The present article documented the experience of ten bilingual English student-teachers (BESTs) on practicing EIL pedagogy in a Microteaching course and during the teaching practice. Data were collected primarily from a focus group discussion and three individual interviews. The findings of the study indicated the complexity of practicing EIL pedagogy in the classroom. BESTs were enthusiastic about EIL pedagogy that they voluntarily decided to continue practicing the pedagogy during the teaching practice. Despite the enthusiasm in practicing EIL, the study points to the limited understanding BESTs have of EIL pedagogy when it relates to setting pedagogic models. Although some BESTs did attempt to bring local Englishes into the classroom, it seems they continue to perceive Native English Speakers (NES)/standard English as the desirable pedagogical models. The paper ends with specific suggestions for preservice teacher education program to better prepare BESTs to teach English in the era of World English particularly in Expanding circle countries.

Due to the global role of English nowadays, EIL (English-as-an-internationallanguage) pedagogy appears to be the most widely suggested approach to teach English (see, among others, Cook, 1999;Matsuda, 2012;and McKay 2003).
EIL pedagogy is a response to the realization that native English speakers (NES) model is no longer appropriate across multiple contexts of English use and users.Whereas the focus of traditional English Language Teaching (ELT) approaches were approximation to the NES model, EIL pedagogy focuses on three appropriations: appropriation to bilingual English speakers (BES), context of use, and purpose.In the paragraphs that follow, I will explain briefly each of the appropriation in EIL pedagogy.Inspired by McKay (2003), I will use the term 'bilingual English speakers' to refer to English users who use English as an additional language alongside one or more other languages they speak.In using the term, I, however, recognize its limitations because there is "a tremendous cline in language ability among bilingual English speakers" (McKay, 2003, p. 4), with some speaking English like a NES and others having limited proficiency that meet their specific communicative needs.
In the traditional ELT, English is learned as a foreign language (Jenkins, 2009, Zacharias, 2013) whose purpose of learning is to approximate the English of NESs.According to Stern (1983), "native speaker's 'competence', 'proficiency' or 'knowledge of the language' is a necessary point of reference for the second language proficiency concept used in English teaching theory" (p.341).Within this approach, NES is very often the only model for English use in the classroom and the role of English learners were to reproduce the English of the NESs.This traditional approach assumes that the only purpose of learning English is to join the NES communities.
If EFL approach centers on NES, EIL pedagogy focuses on BES (Burns, 2005;Jenkins, 2009;McKay, 2003).It acknowledges that BESs learn English for various purposes, not necessarily for joining the NES community (Sung, 2013).Therefore, an effective EIL pedagogy "must consider the specific goals that lead learners to study English and not assume that these goals necessarily involve attaining full proficiency in the language" (McKay, 2003, p. 5).
In addition to the diverse purposes of English language learning, EIL pedagogy takes into account the context where English is utilized.Norton (2010) argues that learning English is not only for acquiring the linguistic system of English but more importantly, through English learning, learners organize their experiences and negotiate their identities.In Indonesia, and perhaps other expanding circle countries, the use of English in public spaces can indicate two opposing views.On the negative side, English is viewed as the 'other' language, which potentially poses detrimental effect to students' nationalism.Supporting this view, Pramono (2009) claims that speaking Indonesian with Eng-lish accent or code-mixing between English and Indonesian might indicate the deterioration of nationalism.While people in big cities recently favor teaching their children English rather than Indonesian, as observed by Onishi (2010), the 2013 national curriculum does not support this development.The new curriculum, instead, downgrades English from its previous status as a local content subject (mata pelajaran muatan lokal) to an extracurricular activity in elementary schools.There is an implicit fear in this controversial decision: the government's fear of the negative impact English may bring to young learners' character development (Daud, 2013).
On the positive side, English is seen as the gate-keeping language, that "permits one to open … the linguistic gates to international business, technology, science and travel" (Kachru, 1986, p. 1).This, perhaps, is the reason why many Indonesians opposed to the scrapping of English as a local content subject for elementary schools.Putri (2012) shares her concerns in The Jakarta Post that the scrapping of English in the curriculum might threaten Indonesians' global competitiveness that at present continues to be lagging behind other neighboring countries.Indeed, a recent research conducted by Euromonitor International in eight countries in the United Arab Emirates illustrates that English fluency can have a significant impact on income (Sambidge, 2012).The difference in earnings between individuals who are fluent in English and those who are not "ranges from five percent in Tunisia to 75 percent in Egypt and even 200 percent for some workers in the Iraqi capital Baghdad" (Sambidge, 2012).Unfortunately, to my knowledge, no similar studies are conducted in Indonesia.
Due to the two opposing views about English in Indonesia, the role of teachers in appropriating English teaching to Indonesian contexts becomes even more crucial.This is particularly because many theories in teacher education are originally based on the teaching and learning of English in the United States with relatively limited inputs from the learning of English in the Expanding Circle countries (Sridhar and Sridhar, 1994).Therefore, local teachers need to be better equipped and encouraged to appropriate the teaching of English to local contexts and needs.One approach that can facilitate such appropriation process is EIL pedagogy.As pointed out by McKay (2003), "as an international language, English belongs to its users, and as such it is the users 1 cul-tural content and their 2 sense of the appropriate use of English that should inform language pedagogy" (p.13).Since EIL pedagogy belongs to its users, then, what is needed is a systematic approach exploring its implementation in teacher education programs conducted by and dedicated to local teachers.Such studies will provide an opportunity to appropriate theories of EIL pedagogy to the local contexts where the teaching of English takes place.
The purpose of the present study is to explore the experiences of ten BESTs' in practicing EIL pedagogy in a Microteaching course where I was the class instructor.The study is conducted in a pre-service teacher education program because, similar to Matsuda (2009), I strongly believe that pedagogical changes cannot be successfully implemented without changing the teachers.Teachers must be informed on the current sociolinguistic changes of English uses and users and how such a change informs English pedagogy.

METHOD
The present study was conducted over the span of a year (September 2011-August 2012), in which I, the class instructor, documented students' experiences in practicing EIL pedagogy in a microteaching class.In the Microteaching course, each BEST conducted three mini lessons.The duration of each mini lesson was approximately 20 minutes.For each of these, they were required to prepare a lesson plan and design materials oriented towards EIL pedagogy.The mini lesson was video-recorded.At the end of each mini lesson, they wrote a teaching diary reflecting on the mini lesson they just conducted.
Considering EIL pedagogy was relatively a new approach in Indonesia as well as the context of the study, I started the course with a lecture and workshop on EIL pedagogy.The lecture was informed by principles of teaching EIL taken from Burns (2005) andMcKay (2003).In the workshop, I provided students with a reading text entitled Engagement taken from Interchange, a Western-published course book used in the department.In groups, students developed a lesson plan and teaching materials portraying EIL pedagogy with the assigned text.The workshop ended with each group presenting their lesson plans and discussing their experience developing lesson plan and teaching with EIL pedagogy.
Ten BESTs participated in the study.My initial intention was to only use data from the microteaching course.Later, informal conversation that I had with some BESTs revealed that all of them intended to implement EIL pedagogy during the teaching practice.Many felt EIL pedagogy were beneficial both for them as bilingual English teachers and the students.Therefore, I decided to extend my study throughout their teaching practice period.
The primary data for the present article was drawn from a focus-group discussion and individual face-to face interviews with the ten BESTs.The focus-group discussion was conducted after the first mini lesson.Each BEST was individually interviewed three times: after the second and third mini lessons and teaching practice.The interview was intended to provide a guidedreflective space where students reflected and shared their experiences of teaching English with EIL pedagogy as well as the difficulties they encountered.Before the interview began, I asked them whether they preferred to speak in English or Indonesian.All agreed to use Indonesian as the main medium, with the option of using English when it was appropriate.Since the beginning of the course, the student-teachers were informed of the study and were ensured that their real names would not be revealed.Instead, pseudonyms are used for the purpose of this article.
The interviews were transcribed and analyzed by repeated reading and coding.The students' responses were first grouped thematically according to the benefits that EIL pedagogy brought, the challenges they felt of teaching using the pedagogy, and how their teaching materials represent EIL pedagogy.It was, then, followed by identifying relevant points, common patterns and points of divergence in the participants' opinions and teaching experiences throughout the microteaching and teaching practice.Finally, the participants were given opportunity to comment and provide suggestions, if any, on the interpretation being made of the interview data.

Standard English with Local Flavor
One of the characteristics of EIL pedagogy is to portray the changing and diverse English use in the world (Burns, 2005;Matsuda, 2012;and McKay, 2003).Widdowson (1994) states that if English now is no longer the property of NESs, then, the notion of NES as the only norm must be increasingly called into questions.Some argue that exposing learners to the English variety of Inner Circle countries (ICC) fosters the power and status of some on others (Holliday, 1994, p. 24), hinders learners from adopting culturally preferred ways of interacting (Kramsch and Sullivan, 1996, p. 201), perpetuates global inequalities (Pennycook, 1995, p. 36 ), and provides unnecessary and irrelevant learning model (Burns, 2005, p. 7;Cook, 1999, p. 188;and McKay 2003, p. 7).Burns (2005) warns teachers that setting a particular variety as the only and universal pedagogical models "deny the realities of the repertoires of […] Englishes learners encounter when they go out into the real world" (pp.6).
Despite EIL scholars' arguments against the exclusive teaching of standard English, in the present study many BESTs continue to believe that standard English or the English of NES countries was the primary pedagogical model.During the focus-group discussion, Rum and Lida stated that since NESs' grammars were the norm, it would be considered "an error" to teach other Englishes.Lida added that NES English was more desirable in the job market.BESTs' strong opinion to teach standard English underlines the pervasive social acceptability and economic value of standard English.
It is interesting to note that although the interview data indicated that BESTs saw NES English as the pedagogical model, they stressed the need to 'localize' it in the classroom.For example, when teaching the generic structure of a spoof text, Nisa, changed the character names in the text 'Airplane,' from US Presidents to Indonesian Presidents such as Megawati, Habibie and SBY.Nisa claimed that by using Indonesian Presidents, students became more involved in the lesson as they had the necessary background knowledge.Thus, the course would flow more smoothly and efficiently because she did not need to "waste the precious class time" providing schematic knowledge of the characters.
Prior to teaching a persuasive text, Beni taught the different models of persuasive structures, for example, ' I believe that …,' 'It would be better if …,' 'You should …,' 'You have to …,' and 'If you … you will …'.Interestingly, when giving examples of using these templates, he provided localized contexts (underlined) for the structure such as 'I believe that Mr. SBY can lead us to the brighter future' and 'You should try Mie Sedap because it is very delicious.''Mr.SBY' is at present the president of Indonesia and 'Mie Sedap' is one of well-known brands of instant noodles in Indonesia.
From this section, it can be learned that for the majority of BESTs, English continues to be largely seen as a foreign language.Jenkins (2009) explains that in the traditional EFL approach, native English or Standard British/American English are considered as "the only acceptable norms to serve as targets for Expanding Circle learners" (p.42).Although many BESTs did provide local content, the structural model remains NES English.Thus, during the focus group interview Rum and Lida were of the opinion that structural model other than the standard English was considered an error although this might not be the case in EIL pedagogy.Jenkins (2009) argues that in EIL pedagogy, deviations from standard English can be seen as "evidence of the emergence of new kinds of English norms" (p.42) and might represent legitimate English norms in a particular context.

Tiny Steps to Expose Other Englishes
In Expanding Circle Countries (ECCs), such as Indonesia, English was traditionally learned as a foreign language, learnt primarily for communication and identification with ICCs.Recently, Jenkins (2009) notes that the teaching of English in ECC should not orient to ICCs.Rather, teachers need to provide English learners with a lingua franca through which learners can communicate socially and professionally with speakers of other first languages.This certainly does not diminish the importance of standard English.It highlights, instead, that teachers should move beyond teaching standard English and expose learners to English varieties they are likely to encounter.
BESTs' strong preference of standard English also did not stop a few BESTs from bringing other Englishes in their self-created teaching materials.In the second mini lesson, for example, Nisa, taught her students about 'dropped syllables' by exposing students to a song Price Tag by American and Thai singers.In her lesson plan, she wrote that the reason for exposing students to American and Thai Englishes were to raise students' awareness of the differences between American and Thai Englishes although in the mini lesson, she did not explicitly point out the differences between the two Englishes.
For the first mini lesson, Anthi recorded her own voice for the listening materials.When asked the underlying reason for such a choice, Anthi explained: Excerpt 1 I just want to give a chance for the students to hear a Javanese speaking English.In the listening class, we often heard native speakers' voices because they were considered having good pronunciation and fluent.But that is not true.My experience taught me otherwise.I personally feel listening to a native speaker is like listening to a person chewing hot potato… not clear.So I think using Javanese speakers are clearer although they are slightly colored with Javanese accent (Anthi, 13/11/2011, my translation).
Anthi's attempt to bring Javanese English, her own English, is significant to the way she understood EIL pedagogy.Burns (2005) notes that "[u]sing L2 speaker models as a basis for classroom activities is still relatively rare in language teaching" (p.4).Therefore, Anthi's decision to utilize her own voice for the listening material might be perceived as an attempt for her own English, Javanese English, to be acknowledged in ELT.
Nisa's and Anthi's attempts to bring other Englishes, although not necessarily using them as pedagogical acquisition models, are significant.If we see EIL pedagogy as an innovation, then, Roger's (1983) variables affecting the rate at which innovation is adopted need to be considered.One of those variables is observability, that is, "how visible an innovation is" (Roger, 1983, p.53).He postulates that an individual is more likely to adapt innovation that they are familiar with.Brown (1993) argues that at present, EIL pedagogy does not possess the observability factor or lack of modeling.Therefore, BESTs' preference of standard English and hesitance of bringing other Englishes in the classroom might be due to the unfamiliarity of teaching these new Englishes vis-à-vis the standard English.
Additionally, BESTs' hesitance of bringing other Englishes in the classroom might illustrate Llurda's (2009) assertion -that the implementation of EIL pedagogy depends largely on first, teachers' exposure to the different Englishes and second, their own support and acceptance of these new Englishes.The interview data indicate that the majority of BESTs were reluctant to show supports towards the use of new Englishes as pedagogical models.This points to the need for the curriculum of pre-service teacher education to not only teach standard English but also continue exposing pre-service students to other Englishes especially those in neighboring countries.

Students' Pride of Teaching with EIL Pedagogy
Despite students' limited freedom in using approaches other than EIL pedagogy in the Microteaching course, it is worth noting that all BESTs are somewhat positive about their teaching experiences in the Microteaching course.In their Microteaching portfolios, they described the experiences of teaching with EIL pedagogy as "challenging," "interesting," and "rewarding."All BESTs agree that EIL pedagogy is particularly beneficial for new teachers.For Beni, EIL pedagogy made teaching English easier for local teachers: Excerpt 2 EIL pedagogy makes teaching easier for a nonnative teacher like me.For example, in the past, when I taught English I needed to explain about Halloween although it was not very common in Indonesia.I often confused how to teach it.I personally did not know what it is, the history behind it but through EIL pedagogy I learn that we don't need to teach about Halloween but we can find learning contexts in immediate surroundings or in Indonesia, not necessarily Western cultures (2 nd interview, 15/01/2012, my translation).
Beni's remark highlights that the inclusion of Western cultural aspects (E.g.Halloween) in English lessons, which is very common in NES pedagogy, brings unwanted impact on his teacher self.Under NES pedagogy, he was put into a condition to teach a cultural aspect that he was not comfortable with and even, had little knowledge about.His preference for EIL pedagogy seems to stem from the liberty it gives local teachers to contextualize the teaching to local contexts and thus, including cultural aspects that are familiar to local teachers.For Beni, EIL pedagogy facilitates pre-service teachers such as himself so that they can exert their agencies when teaching English.
Other BESTs were in favour of EIL pedagogy because it increases the confidence level of beginning teachers as represented in Nisa's comment below:

Excerpt 3
For me the most significant contribution of EIL pedagogy is how it increases my confident as a teacher of English.I used to feel doubtful as a teacher because my English is very much decorated by Javanese accent.But in EIL pedagogy I learned that speaking English with Javanese English is not a problem.So I try to build my confidence to be an English teacher.EIL pedagogy also helps me in selecting teaching materials (Nisa, second individual interview, 17/12/2011, my translation).Rubdy (2009) warns that prolonged exposure to NES pedagogy might instil "a culture of inferiority" (p. 5) leading learners to believe that there is something wrong with their own culture and English.The uncertainty Nisa felt about her English accent might originate from continued exposure to NES pedagogy in Indonesia (Zacharias, 2003(Zacharias, , 2012)).In NES pedagogy, Nisa's Javanese English is considered an error, but in EIL pedagogy, it is "not a problem" as it is part of her identity as a Javanese English speaker.
Perhaps, one participant who shows the most enthusiasm when utilizing EIL pedagogy is Anthi.Among all BESTs, she is the only one who creates an accompanying listening text using her own voice and her Javanese friend.When asked why she chose Javanese English speakers, she explained during the focus group that she would like to give an opportunity for Javanese English.Based on her experience in the listening class, the models were always Westerners because of the stereotypical assumption that NESs are fluent and speak comprehensible English.From her standpoint, Indonesians provided better models because of familiarity factors.In Indonesia, Indonesian English is recognizable and thus, easily to be understood.
One encouraging finding from the present study was the decision that many BESTs made to continue implementing EIL pedagogy throughout their teaching practice even though they had the liberty to use other pedagogies.I believe the personal experience in using EIL pedagogy during the microteaching course may have made these student-teachers more enthusiastic about EIL pedagogy.One such teachers is Anthi: Excerpt 4 I : How do you feel after teaching using EIL approaches?Anthi : I feel proud because I just realize that local culture can be considered in teaching English as an international language … it can be included in the teaching materials.Anthi's pride as EIL pedagogue appears to stem from her recent realization that local culture can serve as legitimate media in the teaching of English.It shows that for student teachers, "the construction of a teacher identity is integral to novice L2 teachers' learning to teach process" (Kanno & Stuart, 2011, p. 236) and teaching English through EIL pedagogy facilitates a positive construction of English teacher identity as exemplified from the narratives of Anthi and Nisa.
My qualitative analysis of BESTs' interview data show a positive correlation between BESTs' identity formation and their changing classroom practice through EIL pedagogy.For Nisa, for example, EIL pedagogy was able to nurture a more confident English teacher self despite her Javanese decorated English.Anthi could project a more confident teacher self because of a pedagogy that allows her to use her own culture as a media in teaching English.All in all, the narratives of BESTs in this section suggests the importance of utilizing a pedagogy in which students' emerging teacher self is facilitated in the classroom practice.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
The purpose of the present paper is to share the experiences of ten BESTs integrating EIL pedagogy in a Microteaching course.Generally, the findings support the call by EIL scholars (Burns, 2005, Matsuda, 2012) to integrate EIL pedagogy into existing pre-service teacher education curriculum.All studentteachers showed enthusiasm in teaching English through EIL pedagogy.One common reason is because the pedagogy increased beginning teachers' confidence level as English teachers because it allows them to bring in what is familiar to them, their cultures, as media for teaching English.To this end, the study points to the need for pre-service teacher education to integrate EIL ped-agogy in the curriculum so that it helps student-teachers to develop their confidence level as beginning teachers of English.McKay (2003) and Matsuda (2012) contend that a central feature of EIL pedagogy is the way it depicts the various ways English is used both intranationally within a nation and internationally in cross-cultural encounters.From BESTs' lesson plans and teaching materials, it is obvious that they continued to see standard English or NES English as the desired pedagogical model, although it is not the only teaching model utilized in the classroom.Attempts made by a few BESTs such as Nisa to introduce other Englishes are presented in a way that highlights how these Englishes deviate from the standard English.The hesitancy BESTs' felt toward bringing other Englishes into the classroom do not seem to reflect the growing recognition of the spread of English in other contexts.This might be because only a very few teachers have "a rich enough knowledge of and personal experience with all of the varieties and functions of Englishes that exists today" (Matsuda, 2012, p. 168).Students' limited representation of Englishes in their EIL materials point to the continued efforts that need to be done to expose students to these new Englishes so that student-teachers can be more informed on how linguistically and culturally diverse English has become today.
Although the present study highlights the importance of exposing studentteachers to other Englishes, BESTs' preference towards standard English may underline the continued importance of teaching standard English and this should not be interpreted as submissive to NES pedagogy.Gupta (2012, p. 248) notes that teachers need to be aware of the non-standard grammar in their own region and need to explain to the students what are the significant differences are between their local Englishes and the standard English.Therefore, I am of the opinion that students need to be encouraged to be skillful in standard English prior to exposing to these new Englishes.After students have developed solid understanding of the standard English, then, teachers can slowly introduce these Englishes starting from the ones in neighboring countries.In the era of World Englishes, Canagarajah (2005, p. xiv) notes that the purpose of learning English is to shuttle between different communities of English users.Therefore, students need to be made aware of when they need to use standard English and when they can use their own local Englishes.Another creative way to introduce different Englishes is perhaps, by encouraging students to use it in creative contexts such as poetry or drama scripts (Gupta, 2012, p. 255).
Finally the findings of the study point to the fact that becoming EIL pedagogue is not an experience that takes place overnight.Rather, it is a prolonged process.The findings underline the importance of not only exposing students to EIL pedagogy but most significantly, provides student-teachers with the opportunity to interact with the pedagogy; in the present study it was teaching through the EIL pedagogy.Such an interactive process will accommodate opportunities where students can gradually develop their understanding of what it means to teach English in the era of World Englishes and experimenting with different ways of teaching English and increasingly accommodate local needs and contexts.Zacharias, N.T. (2012).EFL students' understanding of their multilingual English identities.Electronic Foreign Language Teaching (e-FLT) journal, 9(2), 233-244.