Who is Jennifer Jenkins?

M: I’ve come to Kings College, London, to talk to Dr. Jennifer Jenkins, who’s a Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics. Now Jennifer, you’re quite interested in the teaching and learning of International English. Can you explain in general terms what this is?
W: It’s based on the fact that nowadays the majority of people who speak English around the world are nonnative speakers of English—they’ve learnt it as a second or subsequent language. They use it to speak with each other and therefore, they’re not really learning what’s always been called English as a foreign language—English to speak to native speakers of English. They’re learning it for more international communication, and that has all sorts of implications for the sorts of things that they need to be able to do.
M: So, what would be the main differences between the kind of English that’s widely taught around the world today, and perhaps what you describe as a more international form?
W: Well, there’d be various differences. There’d be differences in what they need to be able to do when they’re pronouncing English.
M: Is there anything that’s widely taught when teaching English that would be missed out in International English?
W: Yes, I think, for example, that... there doesn’t seem to be much point in teaching learners to say the T-H, the[θ]and[*]sounds, erm, because most of the world’s learners of English, speakers of English who are non-native speakers don’t pronounce the[θ].
M: And, what is the thinking behind the idea of International English?
W: Well, the more different groups of people round the world speak English, the more important it becomes to make sure that they have enough in common so that they can understand each other, that they’re intelligible to each other and here, pronunciation is very important because their pronunciation is the thing that will vary most, among different speakers of English.
M: So, what would you say are the advantages for students and teachers of this form of English?
W: Well, one advantage would be that they actually have rather less to do, rather less to learn because instead of trying to learn the entire way of speaking of a native speaker, which is incredibly complicated and most learners never do achieve this in any case, so they’ve got less to do, but they’re also allowed to keep something of themselves in their English.
M: Well, Dr. Jenkins, thank you for talking to me about that.