A non‐educational view of ESL in Britain

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Abstract
In Britain, there have been no in‐depth ethnographic studies of the status and use of English as a second language amongst young people outside classrooms. Partially to correct this omission, this paper first describes perceptions and rhetorical exploitations of ESL within a multilingual peer group consisting of adolescent boys who are proficient in English but who have close ties with people inexpert in that language: firstly, bilinguals of Indian and Pakistani parentage vary their attitudes towards non‐proficiency in English broadly according to domain, in a way that can be related to the different status which Indian and Pakistani English have in the Indian subcondnent as opposed to Britain. Secondly, young people often code‐switch into accented English in a way that places in the foreground and interrupts the otherwise hidden but continuing influence of the imperial stereotype of babu. In comparison, educational debate about ESL has remained parochial, failing to come to grips with the international and historical perspectives embraced within this peer group's sociolinguistic reckonings. As a result, educationalists run into difficulties: linguistic insecurity in English is over‐hastily attributed to ethnic minority children; debate is constricted within liberal pluralism; in arguing for the continuing need for ESL for bilingual pupils due to ‘deceptive fluency’, educationalists unwittingly subscribe to racist imagery of babu in one of its contemporary forms. ESL teaching is at a crossroads, worried about obsolescence, and despite itself, potentially in step with authoritarian political developments and incipiently at odds with education in Community Languages. The paper ends by suggesting four ways in which ESL education can clarify its position.