Abstract:

The TEFL profession affects over a billion people worldwide with Asia being the focus. Unlike other professional areas of study, TEFL does not have a controlling body. L2 teaching and learning is based on the premise that anyone can teach and publish anything and carry neither responsibility nor legal liability. The author argues that given the EFL profession's responsibility, legal and moral, it must introduce regulation, rules, and laws.

Key words
Culture in L2, Non regulated TEFL profession, Changing EFL theories, TEFL court

The Court.
Law has many divisions. From Corporate to Civil, from Family to Environment to name a few.. There is not an area of society that Law has not invented an area of study for. Undoubtedly, as Davidson (2001) says, EFL must at some stage become an area of Legal Theory and Legal training. Lawyers 'moving in' on the sacred field of education - the specialized area of education that caries various names - EFL - TEFL - TESOL etc.,

But really the Social Science of EFL is also a field of 'law' - and it has zigzagged unregulated and uncontrollably for decades. The industry consists of the professional academic, the trained teacher, the untrained novice and the countless publishers. (Arguably there are the trained yet grossly negligent educators who should not be teaching - however - unlike other professions that set high standards to eliminate these persons, the TEFL profession allows the negligent to multiply and sadly teach students who suffer through the teachers incompetence. No doubt he law will catch up to this category, as argued by Davidson, (2001), but that is many decades away.)

There are millions of students learning English as an L2 - with conflicting guidelines - and no arbiter to set direction. The bilingual L.A. cop strongly tells his Korean American ESL accused, "You have the right to remain silent - anything you say may be used against in a court of law. You are entitled to an attorney. Do you understand?"

The rules are crystal clear - the recipient understands. But in the EFL industry, this is not the case. No laws appear. And thus the following applies to teachers; "You have the right to speak and teach, but anything you say may be at odds to other theories, tested and untested, tried and untried; you also have the right to write and publish with the intention of disseminating information to those learning a second language, and those words can, where necessary, be vague, misleading and where necessary, wrong. Do you understand these rights?

And so the EFL/TEFL profession proceeds down the wrong path. Davidson (2001) was the first to realize the dilemma the EFL profession was facing, "Both the teaching of English and the practice of law have one thing in common. They both concentrate on 'words.'" Clearly he was referring to a situation where a major industry acted outside the law, yet involved principles that the Law had set rules, precedents and guidelines for.

Respected jurist Lord Denning (UK High Court) indirectly touched upon the dilemma within the TEFL profession by highlighting the legal situation with the English language, "When I say a word it means exactly what I want it to mean." But this quote he borrowed from Dodgson's children "Alice in Wonderland." "Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end! `I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?' she said aloud. `I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think--' (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) `--yes, that's about the right distance--but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?' (Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say)" Carrol L 1865.

But unlike Alice who ventured down the rabbit hole not knowing how far it went, the TEFL profession needs to be shown how far it goes. As Morpheus says to Neo, "After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends and you wake up in bed and believe what you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I'll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." (The Matrix)

The Red Pill.
But whilst the Law has a judge and juries to consider the arguments of opposing counsel, the TEFL profession only has advocates. At the end of a court case, a decision, a definitive decision is pronounced. Yet the TEFL profession, responsible for the L2 of more than a billion people, has only tangential theories, many conflicting. It is time to change this unsatisfactory position. The future is impacting on the masses now.

TEFL theories have been interpreted and reinterpreted and critiqued and revamped by the many. Methods, approaches, and applications - invented, reinvented, revised, renewed, abandoned, and resurrected for another try. The debates are intense - in the second millennium we argue about Culture - is it an intrinsic part of L2 learning (Robertson et al 2003) or is this a side show to be given due weight (Dash, 2003.) Is L2 age old history and tradition relevant and does it impact on the second millennium learning's (Robertson, 2003), or are these philosophical niceties to complex for serious consideration? Theories that were once were in vogue have fallen from favor, only to be resurrected in similar form. Chew notes the pendulum swing in Singapore (2004).

Teachers across the globe teach and study TEFL methodology. But there is no accrediting authority to say which Course is acceptable and which is clearly not. Chin (2005) notes the problems of untrained teachers teaching in Korean universities. Li (2005) reports a surprisingly low rate of qualified teaching in China, Yet is this merely a matter of teachers not teaching correctly, or is this a higher problem that embellishes the lack of guidelines from a top down authority?

EFL - The Future: A further quantum leap.
The social science subject of teaching English has made remarkable progress in the last three decades. The lead pioneer of the industry is Stephen Krashen with his principles that emanated from the 1980s. Following suit, Rod Ellis, Paul Nation, Scott Thornbury and David Nunan, inter alia have lead the way with critical theories, insights and principles. Across the globe SLA educators grapple with new and old reemerging theories that suggest new paths that lead to that ultimate goal of SLA ease. TEFL as a profession is supplying thousands of new teachers across the globe monthly as ESL and EFL countries scramble to teach their students to communicate in English.

Business drives economies, but SLA educators drive the places of learning and schools that produce the entities that will in turn drive the economies.
Across the globe we try and test theories, we change direction after 6 or seven years, we simply print new books free from academic rigor as new emerging thoughts interfere with our previous plans - the communicative approach changing direction to allow for the theories of culture as a significant marker in any L2 learning (Robertson 2002, Dash 2003). As we introduce a new concept, the SLA community changes direction to accommodate that theory or rationale. Few theories can be rejected, especially with the power of persuasive advertising, and so the direction and focus of SLA changes. MRI provides a glimpse into the brain and possible rationales for SLA behavior. But from LAD to 2005, where are we? According to Harpaz (2001) 'After several decades of research, it is clear that there isn't a theory that can explain all human languages'. But is this a defeatist attitude?

Psycholinguistics both advances and at times competes with SLA theorists -
While initial forays into Psycholinguistics were largely philosophical ventures, due mainly to an ardent lack of cohesive data on how the human brain functioned, modern biology and neuroscience have spawned a number of disciplines, neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics remaining the two most popular.

It analyses the processes that make it possible to form a correct sentence out of vocabulary and grammatical structures. Psycholinguistics also study the factors that account for de-codification, i.e., the psychological structures that allow us to understand utterances, words, sentences, texts etc.

One field of research (possibly the dominant field) deals with the central question, 'How do people learn a second language?' According to Chomsky's widely debated theory, humans have an innate Universal Grammar (i.e., an abstract concept containing the grammatical rules of all world languages). Other crude theories show that even monkeys and birds can be taught to utter words that resemble languages, which seem, at times, to support the rote learning system so endemic in Korea and China.

The debates and research advance across the globe. Research building upon research, research nullifying research, and research theories still waiting to be tested. (Robertson, 2002)

The Emergent behavior process of SLA & Educators.
Emergent behavior is behavior that occurs in a group but is not programmed into any member of that group. Emergent behavior can occur in any population.

Is this theory applicable to SLA? Some say so - others argue it is distinguishable? It may well be but that spawns a separate debate. Suffice to say that SLA educators and others search for the holy grail that explains second language acquisition, whether it be a fragment of a gene, a series of electronic impulses within the brain, a critical period process or window of opportunity time frame, motivational factors, or a combination of all in some degree of arrangement controlled by external factors loosely defined as Culture. The emergent behavior that drives us to understand SLA is growing in intensity. Industries have grown around this behavior and billions of dollars are invested and spent annually by those teaching, and by those learning.

The Quantum Leap: The Negative Effects
Across the globe SLA educators teach (in differing levels of complexity):-
-English speaking skills
-phonetics
-reading
-writing
-test preparation (TOEIC, TOEFL, Cambridge, Michigan, TEPS, PALSO, etc)
-cultural awareness of the target language
-vocabulary acquisition skills
-English for the multitude of special purposes, (ESP).

But what if the technology in teaching enabled the first two (arguably the dominant two) to happen without learning? The results would revolutionize the TEFL industry. Tens of thousands of native speakers (skilled or unskilled) would not be needed. Publishers would struggle to sell books as spoken English would be automatic. Language schools would lose their dominant rationale for existing. English as a Global Language would strengthen its control. ESL would replace EFL. Business would change overnight. Economies would be revolutionized. Bilingualism would become a part of every human's daily life. Ultimately the destruction of native languages would occur. A global English speaking L1 lingua franca would exist. Cultures would change.

The demise of a Social Science that employs millions? The political scientist would posit a world devoid of war? A criminologist would posit a world of complex crime? A global CEO would posit world domination of business using English only? The Vatican may see an attack on religious fundamentals? But clearly this is science fiction and a thing of the unknown future. The results of an English global lingua franca are too unimaginable to envisage. But the future is here - now. And even now a new direction is emerging - one that replaces native speakers with non native speakers - the proponents are gathering in numbers, (Phan Le Ha, 2005) - conversely the native speakers argue forcibly (Lee, J. 2005), that the native speaker has a fixed and vital place teaching English in a foreign land. But this debate will become ugly!

The Court of TEFL.
It is time to introduce a World TEFL Court. It is time that theories are put to task. Theories that lead to changes in the TEFL profession that impact across the globe need to be argued before the World TEFL court. An open court where the jury is a global profession. Proponents for and against - the plaintiff and the defendant - the judges - 9 Learned TEFL Practitioners appointed to hear over the arguments. It is time that a changing world order had laws. Such as 'AI' (artificial intelligence) and Cloning are revolutionizing the world, yet under the eye of the jurists and politicians, we, the Linguists, the TEFL teaching profession, are susceptibly changing world orders.

A TEFL court to lay down the law -and lay down the guidelines is needed.

Index.
Chew, Phyllis. (2005). Change and Continuity: English Language Teaching in Singapore. Volume 7, Issue 1, Article 1, The Asian EFL Journal, Retrieved May 2005 from http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/march_05_pc.php

Chin, Cheongsook. (2005). Beliefs by Native English Speaking Teachers about Korean EFL Learners. Unpublished work.

Dash, P. (2003) Culture rejected as an Individual difference in the SLA process, The Asian EFL Journal, Volume 5, Issue 2. Retrieved April 2005, from
http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/june2003subpd.php

Davidson, T. (2001). The Business of Words; Whose domain? The Asian EFL Journal, Volume 4, Issue 3, Retrieved April 2nd, 2005, from
http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/september_02_td.php

Li, Minsheng (2005). Communicating Effectively with Chinese students in ESL/EFL Classrooms. Paper presented at the Asian EFL Journal conference, May 14th, 2005, Pusan Korea,

Nation, P. (2003). The role of first language in foreign language learning. Volume 5, Issue 2. The Asian EFL Journal, Retrieved February 2005 from
http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/june_2003_PN.php

Oka, Hideo. (2004). A Non native Approach to ELT: Universal or Asian. The Asian EFL Journal, Volume 6, Issue 1, Article 1, Retrieved February 2005, from
http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/04_ho_ind.php

Phan, Le Ha. (2005). Toward a Critical Notion of Appropriation of English as an International Language, 244-254. In , Robertson, P,. Dash, P., & Jung,.J., (Eds.), English Learning in the Asian Context. The Asian EFL Journal Press.

Robertson, P. (2002). The Pervading Influence of Neo-Confucianism on the Korean Education System, The Asian EFL Journal, Volume 4, Issue 2, Article 1, Retrieved January 3, 2005, from
http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/june2002.conf.php

Robertson, P. (2002). Asian EFL Research Protocols, The Asian EFL Journal, Volume 4, Issue 4, Article 1, Retrieved April 2005 from
http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/december_02_pr.php

The Matrix. 1997. Warner Movies.