Teaching Global English- a shift of focus on language skills

The importance of English as a global language is unquestionable and to become a competent user of this language is demand of the time. English language learning in the simplest way can be defined as the development of the four language skills which enables the learners to integrate and use them through suitable strategies as the situation demands. This study investigates the tertiary level teachers’ perceptions about the importance and use of English language skills for academic and career needs of the learners in the teaching of English as a global language. This study was conducted as a pilot study of a major study on ‘Teachers’ perceptions about the teaching of English as a global language at the tertiary level education in Ethiopia’. The participants of the study were twenty three (23) tertiary level teachers of English from five universities in Ethiopia. They were served with fourteen (14) Likert scale items as a questionnaire to investigate their perceptions about the importance of different English language skills and the frequency of the use of these language skills for different purposes in academic and career contexts by the learners. The result shows that the teaching of English as a global language is a mere shift of focus on the language skills-listening and reading since global English itself is a pragmatic (media dominated) pedagogy in the use of English globally.