Internationally mobile students’ language views in an Inner Circle English writing course

A growing body of research has studied incorporating Global Englishes (GE) into language instruction, finding that GE pedagogical innovations can positively affect students. This research has typically investigated educational settings in which English is not the dominant societal language. In contrast, this study explores the impact of GE content for internationally mobile students at a US university–an important and complex context for English language development. To understand the influence of GE content in this setting, our survey and interview study investigates international student perspectives at a US university before and after a GE unit in a required writing course. Survey responses (N = 74) show that while students tended to have more positive self-perceptions of their English following GE-informed instruction, they still largely preferred Inner Circle (IC) Englishes. Interviews with a subset of students (N = 8) emphasized the complexities of negotiating GE content within an IC context, with students holding dynamic and sometimes conflicting values. These findings show how GE content may help international students in IC contexts critically interrogate their language experiences, values, and dominant language ideologies. The importance of context and mobility also suggest a need for adopting dynamic and longitudinal perspectives in future GE research.