Who Speaks English Today?

This particular article talked a lot about different models that were used to portray the spread of English and how each model worked well or didn't work well in that goal. I'm sure there have been discussions of the spread of English in my TESOL classes before but this article struck me as particularly in depth on the subject, going so far as to point out discrepancies with each model and how those models were subsequently changed to try and better them. I don't believe that there can ever be a perfect model on the spread of English because there are so many components to that kind of history. As the article mentions, the spread of English can be geographical, economical, cultural, international, etc. and each of these components play a key role in how the language spread thus making it difficult to portray it on paper or in a drawing.

This becomes further complicated, as the article states, by the different assumptions made by the models' author and how some of the models placed a higher significance, or power, in the hands of the native speaker. This can be controversial because there are many non native speakers who may be as proficient or at a higher level of proficiency then that of the native speaker. English can no longer be placed in small boxes, neatly organized in it's specific categories. There are too many speakers of English, since it is a lingua franca, for it to be confined to such a small organizational strategy.

I see that as the importance of this article because it has an at length discussion on the fact that English is so wide spread that the models we have previously used to show it's spread are now holding us back from fully understanding just how English has been used and continues to be used nationally and internationally. Thus I think the title of the article itself gives us a lot of insight, 'Who Speaks English Today?' is a valid and important question in how we create and use models to explain that use of the language.

And now I've lost my train of thought but I hope it makes sense from what I've written that I find this article to be very enlightening and, i think, extremely important when considering just how unorganized the use of English is and how all the different factors of the language use change the way we view the spread of English.