Global Englishes pragmatics in focus: Unpacking Taiwan's ELT curriculum and textbooks

Abstract

As Taiwan advances its agenda under the Bilingual 2030 policy, English is increasingly framed as a medium for intercultural engagement rather than merely an academic subject. With the expansion of English-medium instruction and English use in a variety of domains, Taiwanese learners are more likely to use English with other non-native speakers in global contexts. In this setting, pragmatic competence and Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT), a framework with pragmatics at its core, are essential for enabling learners to negotiate meaning, manage interaction and adapt to diverse cultural norms in an increasingly multilingual and globalized world. Despite this policy shift, English Language Teaching (ELT) curriculum reform has not kept pace. This study examines the extent to which GELT dimensions are incorporated into Taiwan's national ELT curriculum guidelines and four widely used elementary English textbook series. Using deductive thematic analysis and qualitative content analysis across eight dimensions of an adapted GELT framework, the findings reveal a significant divergence between policy-level intentions and their realization in instructional materials. The curriculum guidelines align closely with GELT principles, emphasizing communicative effectiveness, intercultural awareness and the de-centring of native-speaker norms. However, GELT-related pragmatic elements remain largely conceptual, with limited explicit guidance on context-sensitive language use and interactional strategies at the elementary level. In contrast, textbook representations of GELT are partial and uneven. Although some cultural diversity and strategic use of learners’ first language are evident, key dimensions, such as target interlocutors, role models and language norms, continue to privilege Inner-Circle orientations and accuracy-focused conventions. Overall, the study characterizes Taiwan's ELT landscape as a hybrid and transitional model in which globally oriented communicative aims coexist with persistent native-normative practices, highlighting the need for stronger alignment among curriculum design, materials development, assessment practices and teacher education to support sustainable GELT-informed ELT reform.