Yusop Boonsuk
This study investigates how school administrators in Thailand's Deep South (TDS) understand and position Global Englishes (GE), examining how their beliefs mediate English language policy implementation. Nine administrators from Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat provinces participated in semi-structured interviews exploring their stances on linguistic diversity, native-speakerism, and GE Language Teaching principles. Inductive qualitative content analysis revealed three key findings. First, administrators recognized linguistic pluralism but faced institutional constraints, particularly assessment regimes privileging standardized varieties, limiting their capacity to enact pluralistic approaches. Second, some administrators actively resisted linguistic imperialism by repositioning local English varieties as legitimate identity markers and directing teachers toward regionally relevant practices. Third, administrators demonstrated openness to Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT) principles including intelligibility-focused assessment, translanguaging, and cultural integration, but identified systemic barriers including native-speaker preference, teacher preparation needs, and accountability pressures. The findings reveal that administrators function as ideological gatekeepers whose beliefs fundamentally shape whether alternative frameworks can move from theory to practice. Sustainable language policy reform requires engaging administrators as stakeholders, addressing structural barriers, and coordinating transformation of beliefs, policies, assessments, and societal ideologies. For culturally marginalized communities, such transformation represents an essential step toward epistemic justice and linguistic self-determination. © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Faculty of Education, Prince of Songkla University, Pattani, Thailand; College of Education, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea; Department of Nonformal Education, Faculty of Education, Universitas Negeri Malang, Malang, Indonesia
