Diversifying proficiency models in EFL programs

Abstract

In this study I analyze insights provided by students from the English Department in a Costa Rican University, as to why the over-reliance on videos/audios featuring only native speakers of mainstream US English can be counterproductive, as it constructs an unspoken expectation for native-like proficiency. Subsequently, I use their ideas to list a series of pedagogical practices that, instead of making EFL students feel de cient speakers of English and apologetic about their accent (May, 2014), provide them with the validation they deserve for their expanding linguistic repertoire as emergent bilinguals (García, 2009). All in all, herein I continue to advocate for the abandonment of the native speakerism trend (Ho- lliday, 2006) that still prevails in EFL programs and call for the diversication of the English speaker/users models students are exposed to, in order to rid these programs of potential practices of discrimination and marginalization against speakers/users’ of diverse varieties of English (including international English/World Englishes).