IT'S THE BIG ONE!!! Four Methods for Adults to Learn Language

Graham Herrli

Lera Boroditsky

Language and Society

9 December 2007

Four Methods for Adults to Learn Language

What is the most effective method for adults to acquire language? Adults can learn language using many different methods, including traditional classes, Automatic Language Growth (ALG), learning by watching films, and complete immersion. Each of these methods has its own strengths and weaknesses in facilitating learning of the four different aspects of language: reading, writing, oral comprehension, and speech. Naturally the gamut of methods available raises the questions: what is the most effective method for adults to learn each of the four aspects of language? and what makes this method better than others?

The first possible method for an adult to acquire language is to take a traditional class—one with teachers, workbooks, vocabulary lists, homework, and tests. In traditional classes, factors such as peer pressure and competition play a significant role, especially in classes with grade curves, where students compete to learn a language faster and better than their peers. The desire to succeed engendered by these factors provides a motive for learning and tests have shown that people learn more effectively when they are motivated to do so. ¹

Numerous psychological tests have shown that contextual association aids in memory. For example, one study demonstrated that if divers were taught some words underwater and some words on land, they would be more likely to remember each set of words when situated in the same setting in which they had learned those words.² Similarly, regular repetition of language learning at the same time and same place each day leads students to better remember things within that setting. However, outside of that classroom setting, the students no longer have access to that mnemonic, and will thus be less likely to remember their classroom learnings. In other words, traditional methods teach students to remember the new language within the classroom, but to forget much of it once they step outside. Also, the natural mnemonic tendency to remember less outside of the original context of learning is reinforced by lack of a need to speak the new language outside of the classroom.

Despite the accessibility, regularity, and motivation associated with conventional classroom language learning, the method remains unnatural. Rather than recalling words instinctually and naturally, conventional students must engage higher brain functions in actively thinking about grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and other, similar concepts which no native speaker would need to think about.

In considering the four elements of language, conventional learners would probably perform better than other learners in the categories of reading and writing because outside of a classroom setting, people usually focus solely on oral conversational skills and do not bother to learn to read and write until they are nearly fluent. In both the ALG and the immersion methods outlined below, people learn to understand and to speak long before they learn how to write.

The second method of language learning is Automatic Language Growth (ALG). ALG is a method developed and primarily used in Bangkok, Thailand, where the students study Thai, but are forbidden to speak any Thai until they have heard hundreds of hours of native speech. Such students attend classes where the teachers tell stories and create interactive activities, learning to understand the language before they speak it, in much the same, natural manner infants learn language.

In addition to emphasizing this naturalness, proponents of ALG point out that students learn far better pronunciation by listening to native speakers, that the method is centered on the students rather than the teacher. They outline six basic principles of ALG learning:

1. Our point of reference or comparison is the native speaker, not other students.
2. Children are the best examples of how to learn another language
3.The adult ability to translate, memorize, and practice can NEVER produce as good of results as naturally learning a language can.
4. Practice cannot help and in fact it hinders the ability to learn naturally
5. Good speaking ability grows out of a good foundation of understanding. Therefore, understanding is what must be gained, not practice speaking.
6. Exposure to understandable, interesting experiences is the key to learning another language.” (emphasis theirs)³

These principles are conceptually sound, but few scientific experiments have been performed to support them. Instead, one must consider the success of the ALG program, and take this as evidence that good reasons must underlie the success. Indeed, after only 700 to 800 hours of class time, students begin to speak Thai relatively fluently of their own accord. One can also consider the reasons why the principles underlying the program would lead to its success:

The method focuses on promoting understanding before practice. Thus when people finally do practice, they practice the proper method of speaking. Studies have shown that it is more difficult to relearn something which has been learned in error that to simply learn something in the first place.⁴ By avoiding erroneous practice, the ALG method avoids ingraining erroneous methods into the brain and facilitates a comparably easy learning of the language. Also, when people feel that they understand a subject they are more likely to enjoy that subject and thus more likely to memorize it. ALG teachers tell entertaining stories to teach the language to their students. Because of this, the students enjoy the learning process, and the happier and more entertained students are, the faster they learn.

The method is designed to be as natural as possible, simulating the way in which infants first learn language. However, the adults have an advantage over infants in that they have already learned to perceive the world and understand the concepts underlying nearly all words which they could learn in a new language. Because adults already understand the world to a certain degree, they can never learn a new language in quite the same way as infants who are simultaneously learning about the world as they learn a new language. While the infants develop language to help structure their thoughts, the adults already have fully structured ideas and build the new language around these. Thus although the ALG ideal of trying to impersonate the way in which infants learn is advantageous in some respects, adults can never learn in quite the same way as babies.

Most importantly, ALG is based on context. Contextual association has been shown to play a significant role in the understanding of language. In the early 1970s Albert Merabian demonstrated that as little as seven percent of communication is in the actual words of the language—the rest of the meaning is conveyed through body language. By coupling their spoken words with body language, ALG instructors clarify their meaning and thus make new vocabulary easier to remember.

In considering the four elements of language learning, ALG supports oral comprehension first of all and the ability to speak soon after. It does not teach reading or writing abilities.

A third method is learning by watching films in the new language. Using this method, the learner is able to pause the film and go back to hear a phrase again as many times as needed. Repetition is an effective method of learning.⁶ Naturally, the more times a person is presented with the same material, the more likely he or she will be to remember it later.

Also, like with ALG, words in films are found in context and are thus easier to remember both because the context makes them easier to understand initially and because it provides a mnemonic association to recall them later.

If the film is a musical, the student has the additional benefits of tonality and rhythm, both of which have been shown to be powerful mnemonic aids.⁷ Also, in musicals, song lyrics are often enunciated very clearly, thus making them an ideal model for learning the pronunciation of a new language.

Films can also help to teach reading to a greater degree than purely spoken methods. If a film watcher sets the film to have subtitles in the new language, he or she can read those words while listening to them. “Visual learners [compose] up to forty percent of adults.”⁸ Being able to read the words in subtitles rather than simply hearing them is particularly beneficial to this large section of the population.

Although people watching films with subtitles are not directly learning to write, by learning to read the language, they begin to memorize spellings which they will need to know when they begin to write.

Also, with subtitles in the same language as the spoken words, the learner can read unknown words to know their spellings and can look them up in a dictionary. This can be an advantage over the spoken methods of learning because a student cannot necessarily spell a word correctly after having heard it spoken and thus cannot necessarily look it up in a dictionary to learn its meaning. Subtitles ensure that the word can be spelled and can thus be found in a dictionary and translated back into a language known by the learner. Tying the new information back to the learner’s native language in such a manner has both positive and negative aspects. Positively, it improves understanding and thus improves the learner’s overall attitude about the subject, causing him or her to learn more quickly.⁹ Negatively, it forces the learner to reference his or her native language and thus slows the learner, preventing him or her from thinking solely in the new language.

If subtitles in the same language as that being spoken in the film are not available, then subtitles in a language already known by the learner can still be advantageous because they provide greater context. Such a greater context facilitates understanding and thus improves learning, although it again slows the learner by tying information back into his or her native language.

The fourth learning method is immersion—learning by being completely surrounded by the language, generally for an extended period of time and in a foreign country. One obvious disadvantage of immersion is the amount of time it consumes, but it is superior to other methods in most ways. Through immersion, like through ALG, new information is always reinforced by a context and students can thus learn a great deal of information in a short time. Unlike ALG, however, students do not have a positive classroom environment to reinforce their studies, but instead have real world experiences, coupled with frequent embarrassment and fear of failure. Studies have shown that students feel greater motivation to assimilate information if they feel fearful or insecure rather than apathetic.¹⁰

Because they begin speaking from the start, immersion speakers attain a great deal of fluency because they learn to think in the new language rather than translating everything back to their native language. Yet, because they begin speaking so early, immersion learners—becoming accustomed to the sound of their own voice—are more likely to develop an accent than ALG speakers are.

Regarding the abilities to read, write, speak, and understand; immersion is similar to ALG in that it greatly facilitates the latter two but does not generally support even mild literacy in the former. People do not learn how to read and write simply by speaking a language, and in many indigenous places, languages are never written save by outside scholars; literacy is not a natural byproduct of language learning, but rather an extended branch of language, developed to facilitate communication.

To test one method against the others, one could create an experiment where a large number of prospective students are divided into twelve groups of relatively equal demographics—balancing, in particular, people of different learning types—and are each told to learn one of three new languages using one of the four methods. Using three different languages from three vastly different parts of the world in the study would help to ensure that one method does not appear better than the others simply because certain aspects of the language being learned. For example, if one of the three languages considered has a pictographic writing system, this could affect the way in which people learn it, especially when using the conventional classroom and film watching methods, which rely on reading to aid their learning.

In considering multiple languages, one would need to analyze the results from each language separately to see if any major differences exist between the rates at which each aspect of them is learned. One could not, for example, reasonably compare the rate at which English speakers learn Chinese using one method versus the rate at which they learn French using another method. Instead, one would have to compare the rates at which they learned each element of each language, considering each method separately.

Temporally, it would be difficult to simulate actual learning methods. The immersion method is frequently used to learn a great deal of language in a short time and people using such a method are fully immersed in the language all day, every day, for an extended period of time. The other methods are generally only used for an hour or two per day and are used to learn language more slowly. For the purposes of the study, immersion could be considered using the time frame of the others, as though someone were to immerse himself or herself for only an hour or so per day. Such methods of immersive learning do exist, although they are rarer than longer term, continuous immersion. Obviously, long term, continuous immersion learners would attain fluency in the language far faster than other learners simply because they would be spending a greater time learning, but for the purposes of the study, only immersion learners who immerse themselves for only an hour or so a day need be considered.

The subjects of the study, after being divided into their twelve groups, would each begin studying using their assigned method for one hour each day. The groups simulating the traditional classroom experience would meet at the same and the same place each day. The ALG and film-watching groups would meet at the same time, but different places each day. The immersion learners would meet at different times and different places. This control over the time and location of the meeting is aimed to simulate contextual factors associated with each group because such factors could have an effect on the amount of information remembered by the members of each group.

The learners would be evaluated once every month for three years—by which time the ALG learners would finally have been permitted to begin speaking. Because the movie-watching and traditional classroom methods tie back to the native language, the learners using these methods might score better when the tests were administered partially in their native language. To take this into consideration, all of the learners’ reading, writing, speech, and oral comprehension skills would be tested both entirely in the new language and partially in their native language.

The outcome of such a test would help to determine which methods of learning are most useful for learning each of the four elements of language. Presumably, learners using oral methods would score lower on the reading and writing elements, but various factors—including associations, learning types, contexts, and motivations—could affect which groups learn fastest and score best, particularly on the oral elements.

Endnotes

1. S. R. Millis, “Assessment of Motivation and Memory with the Recognition Memory Test after Financially Compensable Mild Head Injury,” Journal of Clinical Psychology 50, no.4 (1994): 601-605.

2. A.D. Baddeley and D. R. Godden, “Context-Dependent Memory in two Natural Environments: On Land and Underwater,” British Journal of Psychology 66 pt3 (Aug 1975, 325-31.

3. Autogrowth International, Ltd., 2001, “Automatic Language Growth,” On-line. Available from Internet, http://www.algworld.com; accessed 23 October 2007.

4. Christopher D, Green, “Classics in the History of Psychology: Cognitive Maps in Rats and Men,” York University, Toronto, Ontatatio, First published in The Psychological Review 55 no. 4, 189-208, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002, accessed online 9 December 2007.

5. Maria Luisa Salvadori, “Apologizing to the Ancient Fable: Gianni Rodari and His Influence on Italian Children’s Literature,” The Lion and the Unicorn 26 no. 2 (2002) 169-202.

6. Roxane J. Itier, “Effects of Repetition Learning on Upright, Inverted and Contrast Reversed Face Processing Using ERPs,” The Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, Toronto, Canada M6A 2E1, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France 2004.

7. David W. Rainey and Janet D. Larsen, ” The Effect of Familiar Melodies on Initial Learning and Long-Term Memory for Unconnected Text,” Music Perception 20 no. 2 (Winter 2002) 173-186, On-line, Available from Internet http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/mp.2002.20.2.173, Accessed 4 December 2003.

8. Shirley A. Griggs, Multiculturalism and Learning Style: Teaching and Counseling Adolescents (Greenwood: Praeger, 1995) 7.

9. Salvadori, “Apologizing to the Ancient Fable.”

10. Edward Liss, M.D., “The Psychoanalytical Study of the Child,” Motivations in Learning, 10:100-116., 1955.

Bibliography

Autogrowth International, Ltd., 2001. “Automatic Language Growth.” On-line. Available

from Internet, http://www.algworld.com; accessed 23 October 2007.

Baddeley, A.D. and D. R. Godden. “Context-Dependent Memory in two Natural

Environments: On Land and Underwater.” British Journal of Psychology 66 pt3 (Aug 1975) 325-31.

Green, Christopher D. “Classics in the History of Psychology: Cognitive Maps in Rats

and Men.” York University, Toronto, Ontatatio, First published in The Psychological Review 55 no. 4, 189-208, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002, accessed online 9 December 2007.

Griggs, Shirley A. Multiculturalism and Learning Style: Teaching and Counseling Adolescents Greenwood: Praeger, 1995.

Kersten, Gregory E., et al. “E-Negotiation Systems: Interaction of People and

Technologies to Resolve Conflicts.” UNESCAP Third Annual Forum Online Dispute Resolution http://64.233.179.104/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:XM_BDfdp36UJ:interneg.concordia.ca/interneg/research/papers/2004/08.pdf+Mehrabian+%22percent+of+communication%22.

Liss, Edward. “The Psychoanalytical Study of the Child.” Motivations in Learning,

10:100-116., 1955.

Itier, Roxane J. “Effects of Repetition Learning on Upright, Inverted and Contrast

Reversed Face Processing Using ERPs.” The Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, Toronto, Canada M6A 2E1, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France 2004.

Janata, Petr, Jeffrey L. Birk, John D Van Horn, Marc Leman, Barbara Tilmann, and

Jamshed J. Bharucha. “The Corical Topography of Tonal Structures Underlying Western Music.” Science 298 no. 5601 (13 December 2002) 2167-2170.

Millis, S. R. “Assessment of Motivation and Memory with the Recognition Memory Test

after Financially Compensable Mild Head Injury.” Journal of Clinical Psychology 50, no.4 (1994): 601-605 .

Rainey, David W. , and Janet D. Larsen.” The Effect of Familiar Melodies on Initial

Learning and Long-Term Memory for Unconnected Text.” Music Perception 20 no. 2 (Winter 2002) 173-186, On-line, Available from Internet. http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/ mp.2002.20.2.173, Accessed 4 December 2003

Salvadori, Maria Luisa. “Apologizing to the Ancient Fable: Gianni Rodari and His

Influence on Italian Children’s Literature.” The Lion and the Unicorn 26 no. 2 (2002) 169-202.

Artistic Sign Language Translation

A recent article in The Star Online deals with the difficulties of translating artistic speech, such as that in plays, into sign language. "A play is an artistic expression and thus requires the interpreter to express the target language in a similar way, artistically." Also, to translate a play, the interpreter must take on the roles of various characters. Most importantly perhaps, the interpreter must try to exist solely as a bridge of the language barrier and not as the centerpiece or the performance. He or she must facilitate the understanding of the play, without becoming the the focus of the audience.

Something that struck me as interesting in reading the article was that the interpreter was translating from English directly into Malaysian Sign Language (MSL). I suppose that since MSL is a language all its own, it is natural to translate directly from English into it, but I had nevertheless assumed, prior to reading the article, that to translate to MSL, someone had to be speaking Malaysian. It's interesting that both deaf and hearing Malaysians can understand English after only one translation.

Looking further into sign language interpretation, I found that a machine now exists which can recognize sign language symbols ninety-nine percent of the time. I doubt the machine is able to translate the grammar, but it is nevertheless interesting to know that technology has made it possible for deaf people to communicate words (though still not complex phrases or ideas) to a hearing audience. As far as I can tell, sign language to hearing machine translators are just as reliable as machine translators between two hearing languages--which is to say they are generally unreliable owing to the subtleties and artistic nuances of human expression.

The Origins of Idioms

One of our recent News Alerts, and article from Courant.com considers the ways in which idioms develop. According to the article: "[a]n idiom starts as a phrase, becomes an idiom when it catches on, and then dies as a cliché." and "'[i]diom' is a very loose term that can mean anything from the colloquial to a metaphor."

Idioms often originate within subcultures before spreading to the population at large. For example, the word cool is generally considered to have originated as a part of jazz culture before spreading to the larger world community.

A lot of idioms come from a specific event or a specific detail of history now lost. It seems interesting to me that in such a manner our language itself is a record of our history. Even long after record players have fallen out of use, people will still use the phrase "like a broken record" to refer to someone saying something over and over again.

To look into idioms further, I went to an idiom dictionary (http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/). Here, I noticed that a great many idioms deal with food. A search for egg returns "as sure as eggs," "a bad egg," "can't boil an egg," "a chicken and egg situation," "a curate's egg," "a good egg," "have egg on your face," "kill the goose that lays the golden egg," "lay an egg" "a nest egg," "over-egg the pudding," "put all your eggs in one basket," "teach your grandmother to suck eggs," and "can't make an omelette without breaking eggs." Perhaps this reflects the greater significance eggs held in the past as a large part of many people's diets, perhaps it simply goes to show that idioms often relate to common things such as foods. Whatever, the reason for such an abundance of egg idioms, even in considering this brief selection from the dictionary, is is possible to gain further insight into the origins of idioms. "Kill the goose that lays the golden egg" comes from a fairy tale, "put all your eggs in one basket" comes from one of Aesop's fables, and "a chicken and egg situation" comes from ancient philosophical debate. This goes to show that some idioms are hundreds, if not thousands, of years old, and that they embody a large part of our culture within them.

In class we've discussed the possibility that idioms affect our psychology through metaphorical meanings, causing us to associate otherwise disparate concepts. The full psychological impact of such metaphors remains questionable, but the above examples nevertheless show that idioms are a large part of our cultural consciousness and often preserve within them some long-forgotten aspect of our history.

Culture and Power Relationships

Several articles recently have dealt with associations between language and power, often in association with culture. Philologist Juan Luis "Conde looks into this kind of relationship between employers and employees, doctors and patients, and sellers and buyers in a paper on 'Power and Power Relations.'" He says that in any relationship, language causes one party to dominate over the other, whether the subordinate party is aware of this or not. Also, in some cases, such as those where companies do not bother to translate their slogans into foreign languages, "it is not only the product that is being advertised, but also the very language used to advertise. The English language adds prestige to the product endorsed and its endorsement in English adds to the value of the English language."

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald considers the languages which children make up and speak to each other. This includes widely spoken "languages" such as Pig Latin and Double Dutch, but also includes languages which only a few children together have made up to communicate with each other in secret. The author of the article suggests that children create their own languages to gain some control over the world. "Perhaps when you are 10 or 11 the world of language seems like a meticulously built maze - it's been constructed by adults, well before your arrival on the scene, and your only role is to learn how to navigate your way through." Rather than simply following the rules constructed by adults, some children use language as a way of gaining some power of their own over the world.

Yet another article considers the effects of language in interpreting and listening to music sung in a foreign language. The author concludes that "we retreat, without really meaning to, into a type of appreciation that's probably less earthy and more superficially aesthetic than that of the musicians. They sing about their daily hopes and fears, and we listen to their nimble guitar work and exotic tunes." Being unable to understand the lyrics sets the listeners on a power level both above and below the musicians. The listeners are subordinate because they are unable to understand the full significance of the tunes; the musicians subordinate because they are unable to convey their tunes' full meanings.

ASL

A recent article in the Virginia Gazette tells how American Sign Language (ASL) is gradually gaining acceptance as a real language. Although some people toke it in high school as an "easy" alternative to a spoken language, "(1) ASL is an autonomous, natural language, with its own morph­ological structure and syntax, comparable in complexity and expressiveness to other foreign languages; (2) ASL is associated with a distinctive culture of deaf Americans; (3) the study of ASL provides opportunities for exploration and research comparable to those offered by spoken languages and is consistent with the goals of the foreign language requirement at UVA." The University of Virginia, among others, has recently begun to accept ASL to fulfill language requirements.

Looking further into the background of sign language, I found that there are a considerable number of grammar books detailing its phonolgy, morpholgy, syntax, and semantics. Clearly the language is fully evolved. The only question remaining is whether it can be considered a language if it is not spoken.

Students of any standard spoken language learn four aspects of that language: reading, writing, speech, and oral understanding. Perhaps the reason that some people do not consider sign language to be a language is that it uses only two of these aspects: speech and understanding. Yet, despite this, Latin is widely considered a language and is accepted to fulfill college language requirements, even though students of Latin also only learn two aspects: reading and writing. If Latin is accepted as a language, so too should sign language be. Indeed, sign language is, if anything, more of a language than Latin, because is has a modern culture associated with it. While no native speakers of Latin are alive today, a considerable number of people speak sign language as their native language: "According to 2005 Virginia education statistics, 1,538 students aged 2-22 received special education services in Virginia with a primary disabil­ity of hearing impairment/deafness."

Because I posted about body language last week, the article on sign language got me thinking about a combination of the two languages. Is there body language in sign language? How do deaf people express emotion through language? Can a deaf person gesture more forcefully to show anger, or does making certain gestures more forceful (wider or faster) change their meanings?

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Another, wholly unrelated article in the Seattle Times considers the difficulties faced by Spanish-English bilinguals when trying to decide which language to use. "For example, switching to Spanish might seem rude if it suggests the other speaker is inept in English. Yet, among Hispanics proud of their ethnic heritage, avoiding Spanish can come across as standoffish." I thought that this was an interesting observation because I never know which language to use when trying to speak to native Spanish speakers who only know a little English. The interesting thing about such a subject is that it cannot possibly be researched: the associations each person has with any given language vary widely from one individual to the next.

Body Language

A few of the recent News Alerts have dealt with body language. One talked about the body language of prominent public figures, trying to determine how sincere they are, while another talked about dance as a form of expression. The first one mentioned that each person will look in a certain direction when trying to remember something. It is possible to discover what this direction is for any given person through a process called norming--asking that person a few questions that require him or her to remember something and watching which way he or she looks. Beyond this description of eye movement, neither article had much scientific merit, but the articles did get me thinking about body language.

Looking into the subject further, I found that there's quite a lot of information on the web about body language. Any given body part, such as the eyes, has a tremendous amount of body language associated with it. Direct eye contact suggests sincerity in our culture, while in some other cultures it can suggest disrespect. A rapid blinking of the eyes can show confusion or insecurity, can reveal that someone just came out of a dark room or just woke up, or can be used as a flirtatious gesture. Rapid redirecting of the eyes can show that someone is nervous or alert. I once heard that in addition to looking in a certain direction when trying to remember something, as the one News Alert already mentioned, each individual looks in a certain direction when trying to visualize something.

I even found an article at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/155816/body_language_and_eye_contact_what.html claiming that "there is research to show a change occurs in the eyes, in the glow and "light", [sic] when mood changes. In other words, for individuals who are happy and content, there is a certain glow in their eyes that can not be ignored. Conversely, for those who are depressed and saddened, the glow or "light" of the eyes tends to be faded from sight." I'm rather sceptical about the validity of this statement, and I couldn't find any sign of the actual research supporting it. It seems likely to me that people's eyes appear slightly brighter when they are happy because they are more attentive and thus their eyes are slightly wider open and will thus reflect more light. I don't see any scientific reason why eyes would actually glow.

Of course, a great deal of body language deals with parts of the body other than the eyes. Often one emotion will manifest itself in symptoms all over the body. Unfocused eyes, extended and crossed legs, tapping fingers, fidgeting, and yawning are all signs of boredom. I wonder how much of this body language is instinctual and how much of it is learned.

I've heard that the specific words we use only account for about twenty percent of what we communicate. Of course, intonation of words probably accounts for a large portion of the rest, but body language probably also plays a significant role as well. I've also heard that facial expressions express the same emotions across nearly all cultures. A smile is a universal language of welcome.

An article in the Finanical Times considers the spread of English becoming a global language. The total number of English speakers worldwide is greater than one billion and is expected to peak between 1.5 and two billion sometime in the next ten to fifteen years. Mandarin, Spanish, and Hindi-Urdu still have more native speakers than English does, but English has become a prominent second language and the language most commonly used in international schools. Nonnative English speakers outnumber natives three to one.

Such a ratio raises several questions. Is there a proper English? Should nonnative speakers be forced to comply with all English grammar or are they free to develop a dialect of their own with slight differences in rules of grammar and usage? Will English eventually develop into several distinct languages? Is English such a predominant language because of psychological factors (i.e. its simple grammar) or because of socioeconomic factors?

If English is not regulated enough, it could shatter into several dialects, and would thus not remain the lingua franca of international relations; yet, at the same time is must be fluid enough that native speakers are willing to adapt to international means of speaking. Already, native English speakers encounter a linguistic barrier communicating with nonnative speakers in business conferences although no such similar barrier exists between nonnative speakers communicating with each other in English. "Native speakers are often poor at ensuring that they are understood in international discussions. They tend to think they need to avoid longer words, when comprehension problems are more often caused by their use of colloquial and metaphorical English."

In many places, individual people speak different dialects of English depending on whom they are communicating with. A businessman often speaks one, relatively formal, dialect to communicate with other international businessmen, but also uses a colloquial dialect to communicate with friends and family. A book called World Englishes talks about the various branches of Englsih, such as a dialect used by Indian teenagers or Nigerian pidgin English. As long as the speakers of these dialects also learn the internationally accpeted form of English, they ought to have no difficulty communicating in the modern world.

Perhaps the increase in communications provided by technology will prevent excessive subdividing in modern English and ensure that all speakers of English at international conferences speak more or less the same dialog. Because people from all over the world will continue to communicate using a branch of English different from their native dialect, one could claim that a new branch of English, an international English, is evolving, distinct from the dialogs of any other regions.

Looking further into the spread of English as a global language, I found that many academics do not think that English will spread to encompass the entire globe. In an MSNBC repport, language researcher David Graddol points out that the number of native English speakers worldwide is falling and tells how he thinks that English will remain a powerful international language, but will never become the sole world language. Instead, he believes that it will remain a popular secondary language through which people of varying backgrounds can communicate.

Perhaps sometime in the future English will exist solely as an international dialect spoken by nearly everyone in the world, but spoken by no one as his or her primary language.