MA TESOL

The scope of this article is Prescriptive Grammar.
Any English user may need a quick reference concerning conditionals in general. However, many users have an incorrect idea that, when we use past perfect in the if clause, it is ALWAYS incorrect to use “would or would not + base form of verb” in the main clause.
Therefore, the objective of this article is:
1. to define CONDITIONAL (IF) sentences in general and their BASICs; and
2. to correct the incorrect idea that, when we use past perfect in the if clause, it is ALWAYS incorrect to use “would or would not + base form of verb” in the main clause. We use this pattern in MIXED CONDITIONAL.
Whether we use “would/wouldn’t + have + past participle” or “would/wouldn’t + base form of verb” depends on whether the event is a Third Conditional or Mixed Conditional event.

This research report drafts two mid-course lessons and lays out factors that will inform integrated listening, speaking and pronunciation instruction of an English for specific purposes (ESP)/English for the workplace cooking course at a polytech high school or an English language class in a culinary arts college program in Indonesia.

It is a heavily debated issue: To define language, which one is the controlling authority between the Descriptive Grammar (DG) and Prescriptive Grammar (PG)?

Observing those debates, it seems like the debaters make it unnecessarily complex. I think the logic in favor of the DG is pretty straightforward. And the objective of this paper is to explain in simple manner the reason that the DG is the dominating authority.

The PG is just a guideline that is unrelated to or merely coincides with the time of use. And it is the DG that defines exactly what the language is. In other words, simple is that, to evaluate a linguistic item for its current validity, we must inquire how the native speakers naturally (meaning popularly and consistently) use it at the time of the inquiry.

Historically language and culture have been seen as separable.  Three political ideologies, critical theory/political correctness, pragmatism, and most importantly, traditionalist modes of education play roles in ELT in Indonesia.  Marxist inspired critical theory views ELT as potentially oppressive and desires to change the World.  Pennycook is a TESOL theorist representative of this perspective.  Pragmatists desire to prepare their learners to succeed in the World as it really is.  Traditionalism in Indonesian education derives from ancient Western, Hindu and Islamic forms of learning.  English teaching in Indonesia is typically seen as originating in the late Dutch colonial era; it was outlawed during the period of Japanese occupation, and reemerged at Independence as the first foreign language, taught in grammar-translation method.  The arrival of the Ford Foundation brought audio-lingualism and laid down the infrastructure for the first generation of TESOL educators and scholars.  The communicative approach followed, then a period of situationalism and eclecticism.  As the dictatorship period gave way, political decentralization led to greater autonomy at the school levels.  Around 2000 the rise of nationalism meant English curriculum from Jakarta emphasized religion and the nation.  An uneasy relationship has existed between the Bahasa Indonesia language policy and English and its associated Western liberal values which are seen as a threat to the national language and culture.  A social divide between the English learning affluent and the rural and poor Muslim majority increasingly gapes.  Politicians, such as Anies, as he is locally known, with Islamist backing, exploit this divide to advance their agenda in education.  Indonesian Islam had been regarded as syncretic and more moderate.  That is, as compared to the Arabization the religion has more and more undergone due to hajj and Indonesian migrant workers working in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region.  Indonesians disidentify with the West and its values.  The 2013 curriculum that comes out of this process maximizes religion and nationalism.  This is to be achieved through a character-based ELT curriculum.  Materials produced to the K-2013 have been weak on presenting the culture and values that have been associated with English language.  Materials I analyze produced to this curriculum, particularly Bahasa Inggris (2014) have been recultured with Indonesian culture, and concerningly, Islamist values.  Local teachers are considered to have low levels of competence and  have a mixed view of locally and internationally produced materials.  Due to the low level of proficiency and the valuing of authoritative teachers and obedient learners in Indonesian culture, communicative language teaching, while promoted from Jakarta, rarely manifests in classrooms.  School culture, nested in the larger Indonesian culture, is highly resistant to change.  Since 2014, hybrid national-plus schools have been barred with the result of segregating international and local students.  The vast majority of native speaker EFL teachers, many teaching in the non-formal sector have been evicted from the country.  Half of Indonesians live in rural areas and the quality of ELT is particularly low there.  Many students also attend religious schools and madrasas where the quality of English instruction is also poor while the quantity of religious education is great.  The Middle East based Al Azhar, with more than 1000 schools in Indonesia is a significant source of Islamization.  Islamic English is defined by its contextualization to Muslim discourse.  Indonesian English has been stripped of the Western culture that has been associated with English and recultured in Indonesian ELT.

One has the right to say, "Well, this version is my personal preference" but no one has any authority to define any certain version as more or less acceptable in terms of general or universal acceptability.

Because English is the global koiné language or the lingua franca of the world, there exists no such thing that one version is more acceptable than other.

The issue of personal preference is quite different from the issue of universal acceptability.

ALL versions including the versions used by both all native and non-native speakers are equally acceptable and fine as long as they are grammatically correct and understandable.